Hyrox Revolution: Elevating Fitness to a Global Competitive Spectacle

Christian Toetzke, the cofounder of Hyrox, a fitness competition that originated in Germany in 2017 and has since expanded globally, would never doubt your potential as a competitive athlete.

Toetzke, a veteran sports entrepreneur, realized a few years ago that the biggest sport in the world was working out.

“About 200 million people have gym memberships, but they had no benchmark other than burning calories and nothing to train for other than aesthetics,” Toetzke says. When it came to regular gym-going, “the gamification piece was missing.”

Hyrox collaborates with gyms to enhance the fitness performance of enthusiasts, providing them with the chance to compete with their peers.

The competition format is consistent across all locations: participants engage in waves and complete eight functional exercises such as sled pushing, burpee broad jumps, rowing, and more, interspersed with 1-kilometer runs.

This setup shifts the focus from winning or losing. Unlike other large-scale fitness trends like CrossFit, Hyrox is inclusive to regular gym attendees.

In the past year, Hyrox organized 23 events in over 17 countries, attracting athletes from ages 16 to over 80.


There are now more than 1,700 affiliated gyms (900 of which signed up in the past 12 months), and Toetzke plans to more than quadruple that number in the next three years.

Participation in Hyrox events has increased by more than 100% year-over-year.

In 2023 alone, 125,000 people competed, with 70,000 spectators cheering them on. Hyrox’s partnership with Asian-Pacific fitness chain Body Fit Training (BFT) in April led to a quick and massive expansion beyond Europe into Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. (The Singapore race in October, drew 4,000 participants).

Hyrox will host its first events in Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Taiwan, and Korea in 2024, and is signing on affiliate gyms in China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.