What is the new global fitness phenomenon, Hyrox racing?

This has been especially evident in the 2000s with the rise of programs like CrossFit, Bootcamp, Animal Flow, Les Mills Spinning, HIIT workouts, and the rise in popularity of endurance sports like running, cycling, and triathlons.

The growing popularity of fitness has given rise to reality TV shows and ticketed events such as the CrossFit Games, which are live-streamed like mainstream sports played in stadiums and feature live commentary and expert input.

Hirox Race

If you watch fitness videos on Instagram, Meta’s algorithm has already surfaced a lot of Hyrox content in your feed. Hyrox was conceived in Germany in 2017 by three-time Olympic medalist German hockey player Moritz Furste and race organizer Christian Toetzke.

It’s no wonder that Hyrox is a fitness race that combines two of the most successful fitness activities today: running and functional fitness. Hyrox has been so successful, in large part because the concept of Hyrox is so simple: run one kilometer, then do a functional fitness exercise. Repeat eight times and you’re done. Simple.

But if it’s too simple, people will get bored quickly. So we’ve also set a moderate level of difficulty. One of CrossFit’s biggest drawbacks is that it’s too difficult. Most of the standard movements in CrossFit are designed for highly trained athletes to perform. Also, in CrossFit, there’s always an element of surprise when it comes to the exercises required. In Hyrox races, the overall format and all the exercises have been the same since the beginning.

How to do it

The race format, like a marathon, caters to both professional athletes and everyday fitness enthusiasts. Everyone does the same exercises, does the same repetitions, and covers the same distance. You start with a 1km run. Then you run 1000m on an ergonomic ski machine. You run again, followed by 50m of sled pushing. You run again, followed by 50m of sled pulling.

After the four kilometers there’s an 80-meter burpee long jump. The next run ends with a 1,000-meter row. After another kilometer, everyone does 200 meters of farmer carries. Then, after another run, they do 100 meters of sandbag lunges. The final eight kilometers of the race is a wall ball shot (75 or 100 depending on which category you’re in).

As you can see, Hyrox racing practice is very universal in nature and can be easily performed by almost anyone. Besides the Open and Pro categories, you can also participate as a team in the Doubles, Mixed Doubles, Relay and Mixed Relay divisions.

Where to do it

There are now gyms in Europe and the US that create dedicated training programs to prepare for Hyrox races. These programs focus on improving strength and endurance as well as improving running and performance in the eight exercises. This means that a typical Hyrox training program includes strength training with weights, sprints, interval training, HIIT and even long runs.

Simple yet challenging, Hyrox is something of a winning combination, as evidenced by the rapid growth in participation in Hyrox races. As many as 90,000 people are expected to take part in the 2022-23 Hyrox race season, and numbers continue to grow as Hyrox expands to new cities this year. Hyrox has already taken Europe and America by storm, and is on its way to Asia.

It’s only a matter of time before a fitness-minded entrepreneur sees the opportunity and offers new ways to train and new races to Indians.

Shurenik Avrani is a writer and editor. How to do ShivfitFunctional fitness books.