Hyrox is in many ways the new Crossfit. There’s a focus on strength and functional movements, there’s specific gyms and mass competitions where they’re practiced, and ultimtately they’re both a bit cult-like.
However, there’s a few differences. Hyrox is a more endurance focussed, essentially comprising threshold running efforts bookending each functional movement, and the workouts both standardised and a more straightforward to perform, rather than technical lifts. Actually sounds like reasonable cross training for cycling and triathlon, if you can get past the cringe factor of discovering it stands for “hybrid rockstar”.
. I thought of it as a fun off-season test — something to fill the gap between triathlon races, keep the training purposeful, and satisfy that itch for competition. What I didn’t expect was how much it would teach me — not only about my weaknesses as a triathlete, but about physiology, pacing, and the mental architecture of performance.
Hyrox, in case you’ve missed the hype, is essentially “the marathon of functional fitness”: eight one-kilometre runs, each followed by a functional workout station (ski erg, sled push/pull, burpee broad jumps, rowing, farmer’s carry, lunges, wall balls). It’s a full-body grind that lasts 60–90 minutes for most competitors — long enough to punish poor pacing, short enough to require maximal intensity.