HYROX is the world series of fitness racing that has taken the world by storm over the last few years.
This meteoric rise has been led by Christian Toetzke, the CEO of HYROX. Recently I had the pleasure of sitting down and chatting with him about the conception, roots, inspiration, momentum and success behind this unique fitness idea.
What is HYROX?
HYROX is a global fitness competition that combines running with functional workout stations, designed to test participants’ strength, endurance, and overall fitness. Each event consists of eight 1-kilometer runs, each followed by a specific functional exercise, repeated in the following sequence:
- 1 km run
- SkiErg: 1,000 meters
- 1 km run
- Sled Push: 50 meters
- 1 km run
- Sled Pull: 50 meters
- 1 km run
- Burpee Broad Jumps: 80 meters
- 1 km run
- Rowing: 1,000 meters
- 1 km run
- Farmers Carry: 200 meters
- 1 km run
- Sandbag Lunges: 100 meters
- 1 km run
- Wall Balls: 75 or 100 repetitions
This standardised format allows participants worldwide to compete under the same conditions, facilitating global rankings and culminating in a World Championship at the end of each season.
Christian, together with 3x Olympic Medallist and World Champion Moritz Furste, launched HYROX in Germany in 2017. It quickly became the fastest growing fitness sport in the world, with races in more than 11 different countries across 30 different cities.
HYROX has experienced remarkable growth in Europe and the USA, with some events seeing over 8,000 participants and 10,000 spectators – making this sport the world’s largest mass participation Fitness Race.
Christian Toetzke: The Story
Christian Toetzke began his sporting background in decathlon, achieving a high level of success before switching into cycling. Professionally he started his first company in 1995, putting on professional cycling (road bike) events whilst training hard on the bike himself.
From there he progressed into the organisation of professional marathons. So as a man of integrity, he also started running marathons. Following this he got into triathlons and continued the same pattern.
By his own admission he is more of a “fast twitch” athlete, with too much muscle for longer distances to be really competitive. Despite that he still competed for fun. This also allowed him to fully understand what all the competitors at his events were experiencing. From this first hand experience he could subsequently make improvements for the participants. In parallel with these longer forms of training he was training in the gym and playing ice hockey.
The Conception of HYROX
Christian’s rich sporting background, coupled with his professional experience, led him to the idea of creating a mass participation event where everyone could be included. HYROX was born.
Accessibility
Right from the beginning Christian knew that he wanted HYROX to be open to everyone, “I’m coming from this mass participation business, something that is very inclusive that appeals to everyone”.
From his time training in the gym, he saw a huge demographic of people that could benefit from functional training that was offered in a standardised way, and was reminiscent of the cycling, triathlon and marathon formats. What event could he create that the 200 million + people worldwide with a gym membership could enjoy? What could he design to take them out of the confines of the gym and put their fitness to a new test?
Having prepared the broad brushstrokes for what HYROX would become, he set about conceptualising all the parts that would be necessary to ensure every event worked successfully. There were many things to consider when bringing these people into functional fitness, “there were all these people in the gym but there is no gamification, no benchmarks, no events.”
So where should he start?
Designing HYROX and the Exercises
The question of designing the HYROX event itself was logistically complex, “the concept must be able to handle 5, 6, 7 thousand people in a single day. All doing the same competition.”
“We put a lot of science, though process and logistical experience into the process.”
One part that emerged clearly from the beginning was that running was going to be the foundation of HYROX.
Running
“We approached the whole thing from the beginning from the running angle for very simple reasons. Running is by far the biggest movement, everyone can run, everyone does it. Everyone somehow runs. So far it is the most popular movement in mass participation sports. Its simple, its easy, you need a pair of shoes and a pair of shorts and you can do it wherever you are.”
“With mass participation events like the New York City Marathon everyone can be on the big stage no matter how good they are. No-one cares where anyone else finishes.”
Having set this foundation, the next step was to determine the distances and structures.
Source: SportgraphInitially Christian played with the idea of a longer course, “we did think about doing 10km and 10 exercises” before settling on the current format.
This was also linked with the practical limitations of available event spaces. With the current 8km running distance, split into 8 1km laps “the logistics were much more effective. We had to consider available venues, how much space we needed.”
Exercise Stations
With the foundational base of running established, followed the harder challenge of selecting the exercises.
Christian decided that all the movements had to be based on natural movements, in accordance with definitions from sports science. HYROX covers the 9 foundational movements, which are as follows:
- squat
- hinge
- lunge
- push (upper body)
- pull (upper body)
- twist
- gait (run or walk)
- carry
- jump
This makes the event accessible for everyone. Everyone can do it, and finish it, no matter how long it takes.
One of the huge advantages here is that there is no, or very little possibility of, technical failure. This occurs when the form of a particular exercise breaks down and can no longer be performed correctly because the athlete is too fatigued. It is consistently a cause of injury, and HYROX manages to severely limit the possibility of injury because of its careful selection of natural functional movements. As Christian says, “the moment human beings start doing unnatural movements, more complex movements, then the injury level becomes exponentially higher.”
In short, the threat of risk is extremely low with natural movements.
Through rigorous testing, HYROX evolved into a mix of eight 1km runs alternating with eight different workouts. These individual stations included:
- SkiErg
- Sled Push
- Sled Pull
- Burpee Broad Jumps
- Rowing
- Farmers Carry
- Sandbag Lunges
- Wall Balls
Scoring and Ranking
With the format in place, Christian also had to decide how to score the event. Here the simplest solution provided the most elegant answer. For time.
This directly correlates with running, cycling, triathlons and any other type of race. The question comes down to how fast can you complete it?
This makes it even more accessible and easy to understand. People can compete against themselves and previous times, other athletes, and see how they rank on overall leaderboards.
People can also get a sense of understanding with exactly how hard it is to match a world record time, and really comprehend just how good the elite athletes actually are.
And at the end of the day, having a final time, however fast or slow, provides satisfaction for the participants, “they are very proud that they have finished it.”
Judging
Judging was an incredibly important part of HYROX for Christian.
“We wanted to choose movements and workouts that you can judge easily. We tested many different workouts in the gym, we brought many people together from many different backgrounds and fitness levels to test everything and used their feedback.”
“We wanted to make it a very true, very legit competition for everyone. We needed to work on solutions for the judges.”
This helps to ensure that every HYROX result is fair and accurate.
Competing Indoors
An often-overlooked USP of any HYROX event is that it will take place indoors.
“It was a very early decision to go indoors. This gave us many advantages. This decision came a lot from my experience of putting on outdoor mass participant events. All the weather impacts and other factors make it much harder to do outdoor events.”
“Being indoors is a great USP for HYROX. No one is doing large indoors mass participation events which is interesting. These event halls are hosting trade shows etc but no-one thinks to do sports events here.”
“The indoor events are good because you know what the temperature will be, you know it won’t rain and it’s friendly for the spectators. Everything follows a very clear plan.”
Training for HYROX
Another important aspect for Christian was that both the event and the training itself would be fun to do.
“I wanted to create an event that was the sweet spot between time input, ease of travelling to the event, necessary equipment and the amount of time spent training.”
“I wanted to make an event where the training is also fun and enjoyable. You can train with 20 other people in the gym, together.”
This grew from his own experiences training for endurance events in the past. “When I did the running, cycling and triathlon and I did it by myself, I always hit a point where I found the training so boring. I needed to invest 3 or 4 hours and in a big city like London or Hamburg you always end up doing the same routes because there are not that many options. That gets boring.”
“With HYROX a single 1 hour a session is enough. You will not break the world record but you will be reasonably prepared. You can train different things every day, from strength training to endurance training. We know this a healthy way to train. For me it is the most exciting way to train.”
HYROX is designed to be a perfect combination of endurance, strength and natural movements. It is formed in a way that allows both the training and competition to be fun.
Does an Optimal Way to Train for HYROX Exist?
I dived deeper into the training side with Christian to see what he thinks is the best way to train for a HYROX event.
“The sports science is young when it comes to the optimal way to train. There are big discussions happening in the community when it comes to how much running is required, how much strength training is necessary. What is the right ratio. How much bodyweight. I don’t think this is 100% solved yet. This keeps it exciting”
Christian and his team have hired a large teams of sports scientists in order to keep expanding the depth and breath of the training, data and improvements. They have an excellent program to help gyms incorporate more functional training, “we are trying to help gyms to do programming for HYROX training.”
Source: HYROXHe also states that “once you have done one or two events you can do personal coaching and smaller groups and more specialised programming if you want to take things to the next level.”
HYROX and CrossFit
CrossFit has had an undeniable impact on the conceptualisation and introduction of functional fitness to the world. Next month Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr and James Newbury will even take part in the mixed doubles HYROX competition in Melbourne.
So how did Christian feel about this? How influential has CrossFit been for HYROX?
“When CrossFit came around you realised what potential this sport has. They had this brilliant idea to create this sport out of something that was only training, or burning calories, or aesthetics”.
“CrossFit is a great idea, a great product, a great brand but it is very very niche. It’s very extreme training”
Christian is no newbie to the Box, “I tried CrossFit for 6 months…I started when I was 45 or something”, but with HYROX, he wanted to create something even more accessible. Something that anyone with an interest in any aspect of fitness, from running to lifting, could enter and enjoy.
With 200 million + people around the world owning a gym membership, it was a huge untapped market of people that could potentially participate.
“I thought that this is a massive market and 99% of the people are not doing CrossFit. When you go into any other gym you hardly ever see someone throwing a barbell around. I never see anyone doing snatches in a normal gym.”
Alongside others, there are two main differences between CrossFit and HYROX that stand out. The first is that HYROX is standardised in its structure. The second is that there are no complex movements. Almost everyone can use a ski erg machine, push a sled or perform a burpee broad jump for example.
Scaling HYROX On a Global Scale
So, what challenges has Christian and his team faced so far?
As with any new concept, it can often take a while for people to catch on, for HYROX one challenge has been “marketing. It takes a while in new countries for people to understand what it is.”
They have rapidly expanded across 34 countries and launched this month in China. One of the major hurdles they face is how to market HYROX in China without channels such as Instagram, which does not work in the country. Despite this there is less competition from other fitness events.
On the other side of the world the reverse issue was true. The USA is one of the biggest fitness markets in the world, and its easy to make noise via social media and other marketing challenges, but there is also a huge amount of competition.
Christian found the USA an interesting challenge, but HYROX has already made a significant impact across the Atlantic. Next year HYROX will even expand into India.
A firm foothold has been established in Europe. This time last year they held their first event in Paris for 3,500 people. Now they sell out every event that takes place in France.
Asked about the success behind this impressive growth, Christian replied “like almost every successful product in the world it is standardised. HYROX is a standardised product. The format must remain the same.” This will allow athletes from all around the world to compete against each other.
Why is HYROX Successful?
In his own words, Christian explains what he feels is the driving force behind the success of HYROX.
“There is a massive space which is totally untouched. No-one has come up with a concept that caters for this target group. This is what I did. There are good reasons for why HYROX is what it is and apparently it seems to work.”
Source: HYROXThe phenomenal success of HYROX boils down to a few key factors that have been well thought out and developed intelligently.
These are the USP of being held indoors in a controlled environment, making it a race, and utilising simple natural accessible movements for the exercise stations. Underpinning these factors is the fact that running is used as the foundation for every event. This reiterates the importance of one of the most ancient, fundamental and functional aspects of human movement.
Sign up now for your first HYROX event.
Was this article helpful?
link