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If you’ve been running for a long time, you might know the feeling of wanting more. So often our athletic careers begin with a 5-kilometer race, then moves to a 10K, then a half marathon, then a full marathon, and perhaps even skyrockets into ultra territory. Runners are not only hungry for carbs, but for new challenges. So it’s no wonder that many endurance athletes are curious about a growing new fitness competition known as Hyrox.
What Is Hyrox?
Hyrox is a fitness competition consisting of eight functional strength training movements with 1K of running between. A Hyrox event requires strength, endurance, explosive power, and speed—an ideal challenge for a gym-trained hybrid athlete. Although it shares similarities with CrossFit competitions, Hyrox involves more fast-paced running intervals—5 miles worth in a typical event—which could make it enticing to a well-trained runner.
The first Hyrox event was held in Germany in 2017, but it has since grown to 60 cities worldwide—including six in the U.S. in 2024—drawing more than 200,000 participants from a wide variety of athletic backgrounds to test their grit and determination in the arena.
Hyrox was the brainchild of Christian Toetzke, a former professional athlete and entrepreneur from Germany with years of experience in planning cycling and triathlons in Europe. Toetzke dreamed of creating a mass-participation event where gym-goers could compete like marathoners, cyclists, and triathletes do. He later brought on Moritz Fürste, an Olympic gold medalist for the German national hockey team, to help turn the idea into a reality.
In 2013, Toetzke approached Mintra Tilly, a fitness coach and former competitive body builder, with the concept, and asked her to create what would come to be the eight stations of Hyrox. Tilly had spent years training U.S. Army soldiers stationed in Granfenwoehr, Germany, to improve their strength and fitness for Special Forces Assessments and also coached a German professional hockey team.
“When I designed the race, I looked at movement patterns that are doable,” says Tilly, the global race director for Hyrox. “It’s based on human movement patterns that we all inherit at birth. A child, for example, can squat in the perfect squat for hours. Things like that. Squatting, lunging, running, pushing, and pulling.”
She says it’s what differentiates Hyrox from CrossFit, because there are no Olympic or technical lifts involved. In the development process, Tilly repeatedly tested all the stations, shifting and replacing exercises with some trial and error.
Finally, she came up with the standard Hyrox competition set, which competitors complete in a timed event from start to finish. Though there is no time limit, it can take anywhere from 60 minutes to an hour and 32 minutes to complete a race.
- 1K of running
- 1,000 meters of SkiErg (an exercise machine that mimics Nordic skiing)
- 1K of running
- 50-meter sled push
- 1K of running
- 50-meter sled pull
- 1K of running
- Burpee broad jumps
- 1K of running
- 1,000 meters of rowing
- 1K of running
- 200-meter farmers carry
- 1K of running
- 100-meter sandbag lunges
- 1K of running
- 100 wall balls
Can Runners Excel in a Hyrox Competition?
While the first few years of races saw a majority of CrossFit athletes, today, Tilly says their data shows Hyrox attracts a large percentage of runners, gym goers, and triathletes.
Jen Barbeito, a Hyrox performance coach based in Houston, Texas, is an assistant race director, North American Ambassador, and head judge (each station has a judge to monitor competitor’s movements and make sure they are in accordance with the form rules). She’s also an F45 trainer—a national gym that promotes cardio workouts with plyometric movements—and trained Tyrone Smith, a three-time Bermudan Olympic long jumper, in 2012 when he needed assistance with mobility due to a knee injury.
Barbeito sees a lot of runners take on Hyrox, and says there’s an innate leg up they have over non-runners, but only partially because each competition includes more than 5 miles of running.
“People who are used to that running modality have an advantage of what I like to call time on feet,” she says. “They’re used to putting impact on their feet. Whereas people who are more into weightlifting, they’re not used to that. A lot of times, where I feel like people get lost in the training, is that they don’t realize they’re on their feet beating it up for an hour to an hour and a half, and that’s a strong advantage that runners have.”
Barbeito adds that another advantage runners have in Hyrox is their relationship with shoes.
“They have a better understanding of shoes and how valuable they are,” she says. “I see a lot of athletes come out of their shoes in the sled push, whereas runners understand the difference between a plantar and dorsiflexion better than someone who doesn’t run, and they already have a feel for how they lay in their feet naturally, so that doesn’t happen.”
Barbeito and Tilly agree the movements runners most commonly struggle with are the sled push and pull exercises.
“It’s definitely a compound movement where everything is coming to work,” Barbeito says. “I think it’s just the weight load of it, and how long you have to endure it. Even people who lift heavy struggle. When it comes to moving that sled for distance, everyone starts praying to their higher deities.”
This doesn’t mean marathoners can’t thrive during Hyrox, however. Tyler Swartz, a running influencer and the founder of Endorphins Running, took on his first Hyrox on June 1 in New York City.
“Marathons are really tough on your body, and you can’t be doing them every week,” he says. “Hyrox is something a little more approachable in terms of effort and distance. It’s also just a different test of different muscles and really great cross training, and a fun exercise modality outside of running.”
While some competitors have incorporated Hyrox-specific training into their routine, Swartz said his daily regime already includes a lot of strength training and cross-training, so he felt prepared. He finished the event in 1 hour, 4 minutes, and 20 seconds.
“The most difficult thing was running after doing strength exercise,” he says. “When you’re doing lunges with weights or sled pushes and then running after, it’s tough on your legs. When I’m training for a marathon, I might do some sprints on the track, but you’d never do sprints then weights then sprints again, so I wasn’t used to that type of fatigue.”
Can Hyrox Benefit Runners?
At the end of the day, unless you’re shifting your fitness goals completely, running is your priority, and how you choose to train should only enhance that. So is Hyrox beneficial for runners?
Studies have shown that strength training can significantly enhance your running efficiency (how much energy a runner uses per step) and prevent injury. If performed correctly, the functional movements involved in Hyrox can enhance aerobic capacity and result in overall improved fitness, which can improve your overall running form.
“What’s beautiful about Hyrox is that it’s functional movements, any of those movements is beneficial for anyone’s overall health,” Barbeito says. “You’re becoming a more versatile athlete with these functional movements.” For those not ready to do a fully Hyrox event can consider a relay and split the stations with teammates.
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Runner beware, though. The high-intensity weighted exercises could increase the risk for injury for those who haven’t trained in those movement patterns. At the very least, if you’re not accustomed to the strength and explosive power movements a Hyrox event demands, your muscles will feel especially fatigued and may require greater recovery time. It’s best to seek out advice from a coach, who can help you slowly build a functional fitness foundation without sacrificing your running efficiency.
Aside from the physical benefits runners may reap from taking part in Hyrox, research suggests that stepping outside your comfort zone can lead to greater self-efficacy—a person’s confidence in achieving a goal—and lower levels of stress in future activities.
“There is something about stepping outside your comfort zone,” Tilly says. “Next to the psychological benefit of doing something you were scared of, it is also good to change up your workouts because humans adapt to training. It doesn’t hurt to have a few more muscles, and if you can keep your running cadence up, that can help your running in the long term.”
Swartz is already planning his second Hyrox, and intends on implementing even more functional training into his routine to improve his previous performance.
“It’s a really fun way to test your fitness in the middle of a training block,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be too intense; your body isn’t going to be dead after doing it. And it’s a great thing you can put in the middle of your marathon training so that way it gives you an extra reason to do strength work.”
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