The sun beats down, stadium jams blare from Skrillex and Imagine Dragons, and hordes of scantily clad people throng around me – stretching instead of dancing. It’s the first day of June, and I’m at Manhattan’s Pier 76 along with 5,300 other competitors for Hyrox, the German fitness-racing phenomenon. I’m working up a sweat just weaving through the masses to reach the warmup corral inside a giant hangar next to the Hudson River before my 11:30 heat time.
What Is Hyrox?
We’ve signed up to tackle a series of eight movement stations connected by one-kilometre runs, a competitive amalgamation of a CrossFit event, a half marathon, and an urban obstacle race. There’s a mixture of cardio work (SkiErgs and rowers), strength challenges (sled pushes and pulls and farmer’s carries), a CrossFit staple (wall balls), and flat-out punishments (walking sandbag lunges and burpee broad jumps). The exercises are meant to be approachable for all gym-goers, but they’re still tough. The average Hyrox finishing time is about an hour and a half. I’m aiming to be faster.
Starting the Race
By 11:20, my heat of more than 20 guys is raring to go. I’m running in the Open individual division, so it’s all men. (You can also take on the course with a partner or four-person relay team and mix women and men together.) There are the lean, muscular guys in the group you’d expect at any masochistic fitness event, but there are other bods, too, guys sporting knee braces and bellies. We mass at the line, the clock hits zero, and I sprint off to the first station, the SkiErg.
Hyrox’s Unique Appeal
Hyrox started as an idealistic concept: an event in which everyday exercisers could share the same space as top athletes and where anyone could conceivably tackle every aspect of the course. This dynamic exists in CrossFit’s annual Open event and in road and trail running races, but Hyrox cofounder and CEO Christian Toetzke, an endurance-racing junkie who organized events for years, believed he could create a fitnessy sport with broader appeal. He set out to engineer a contest that could bring mass participation to the gym and running space and teamed up with Moritz Furste, a former German Olympic field-hockey champion.
The Birth and Growth of Hyrox
The special sauce in Hyrox is its mix of eight movements that requires a blend of strength, power, and endurance. You work through key movement patterns (push, pull, run, throw, and carry). Running was essential since (almost) everyone can do it, but Toetzke and Furste also chose exercises that could be assessed quickly by officials on the course, since the idea was to hold events with large waves of competitors. The moves needed to be (relatively) safe to do under fatigue and couldn’t be more difficult for women than men. (Box jumps were nixed for the former reason, monkey bars for the latter.) Hyrox was born in 2017.
The first event was held in Hamburg in November 2017 with 650 participants. Nearly seven years later, Hyrox is on pace to host 45 events for 425,000 athletes in five continents this year, according to the company’s stats. It also has a healthy spectator culture: along with the over 5,000 competitors, company reps say 7,000 spectators attended the NYC event. A slew of partnerships with brands like Puma (apparel), Chris Hemsworth’s Centr (equipment), and F45 (group training) have bolstered Hyrox’s corporate status. TIME named it one of the world’s most influential companies for 2024.
The Experience of Running Hyrox
The crowd around me shows how much Hyrox has grown. I jog through the inflatable yellow gate from the run course into the “Roxzone,” an area within the barriers where attendants hand out cups of water and sports drinks. The run structure confuses me; I can’t remember if I’m required to run two or three loops around the course each round, and I’m pretty sure I skipped a lap by accident between the first station (Ski-Erg) and second (sled push). There’s a rush of running bodies flowing in and out of the event space and tracking anyone else from my heat is near impossible since everyone runs the race at their own pace. Ultimately, this is a race against myself. I look to the turf for Station 4, burpee broad jumps, and trudge over for one of the toughest challenges of the day.
Hyrox vs. CrossFit
From the wall balls to the Ski-Erg to all those burpee broad jumps, it’s difficult for anyone with knowledge of the last 15 years of fitness to describe Hyrox without comparing it to CrossFit. Look at Hyrox division winners, and you’ll see a lean, shredded body atop the podiums—much as you would at a CrossFit competition. (Elite CrossFit athletes like Chandler Smith and Lauren Fisher also ran the New York Hyrox event, by the way). While Hyrox trumpets itself as a race “for every body,” it’s still a competitive event. It has an Elite 15, a ranking of the top individual men and women competitors who race for the overall crowns at a World Championship event (recently held in Nice, France, where Austria’s Alexander Rončević took the gold in 56:21).
Hyrox’s growth trajectory is also close to CrossFit. David Magida, the 2023 North American Champion and Hyrox 365 Global Programming Director, says the company is currently developing educational materials for coaches and is working with affiliate gyms to provide programming, not unlike CrossFit’s top-down organizational structure. According to the company, 2,000 gyms and trainers globally are already part of its affiliate network. But there’s more in the pipeline that could make Hyrox more standardized than CrossFit, which typically allows gym owners to determine what their spaces look like. Magida says the company plans to open Performance Centres, with floor plans specific to Hyrox training, and will also help gym owners understand how to retrofit their spaces for ideal use to train for the race.
Not that you need a “Hyrox-affiliated” gym to prep for your first Hyrox competition. If you’re working through a basic strength routine that includes cardio, you’ll be able to gut out this competition, especially since the race never changes (notably unlike CrossFit).
The Final Push
As I hit the penultimate event, the sandbag lunge, I can see positives and negatives to Hyrox’s open-for-all mindset. Running with all kinds of competitors is thrilling. But there are bottlenecks at the stations whenever slower competitors catch their breath. I nearly burpee broad-jumped into the back of someone’s legs, and now I’m lunging my way around guys sucking air. I try to keep moving.
Hyrox is actually a good event to test strength and stamina. The race fits directly in the middle of the group-exercise spectrum. On one end, there’s CrossFit and those who train hard and challenge themselves to do ultra-tough workouts. On the other, there are those who love group fitness for its social aspects. But CrossFit can be technically difficult for casual exercisers while group fitness training doesn’t truly let you gauge your progress. Hyrox bridges that gap.
But races are equal parts mental and physical tests. MH Advisory Board member David Otey, C.S.C.S., points to the lunges: All told, it may take you 50 or more lunges per leg to finish the 100-meter course. That’s not building strength; it’s surviving. “This is something where I can see it as a great test of someone’s fortitude,” says Otey. In other words, Hyrox is a good challenge, and training for Hyrox will improve your fitness – but you won’t build strength or muscle like you would with a more traditional lifting regimen.
Crossing the Finish Line
At the final station of the course, Wall Balls, I’m exhausted but exhilarated as I squat down on number 90 of 100 total reps, then explode up to heave the 14-pound medball to the target. There have been some bumps along the way – the missed lap, the backups on the field, and at one point the aid station ran out of water. But I’m finishing my first Hyrox. Even as I slow down, I feel myself getting more excited. The crowd at my back cheers, and I dig to find the strength to knock out the final 10 reps all in one go. I drop the ball and jog the short distance up the ramp to the finish. I’m now a Hyrox finisher, a status that might soon be bandied about the way marathoners or Ironman competitors consider participating in those events integral aspects of their identities. I’m thrilled.
For the moment, though, I need a seat, a cold drink, and maybe an ice plunge. This might be a race for everybody, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.
3 Exercises to Train for Hyrox
Add a dose of Hyrox into your own workouts (and prep for your first race too!) by mixing these three moves from David Magida into your training. Do each twice a week.
1. Substitute for Sled Push — Single Leg Bench Step-Ups
Do 2 to 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps per leg.
Load up two dumbbells or kettlebells and step onto a bench. Squeeze your glutes and drive your back knee up high as you step up to standing on the bench. Lower with control to return to the starting position.
2. Substitute for Burpee Broad Jump — Jump Rope
Do 5 to 10 rounds of 30 to 60 seconds of skipping.
This move will help you build the conditioning and leg power to gut through burpee broad jumps. If you’re just getting started, do less intense bursts of work, then build up to longer times.
3. Substitute for Wall Balls — Goblet Squat
Do 3 sets of 15 to 20 reps.
This squatting movement will help you build up the stamina to gut out a set of 100 wall balls. If you’re struggling with these, use a lighter dumbbell until you’re ready to go heavier.
