The Rise of Hyrox – worth the grind or just the hype?

Hyrox participation has surged by 1000% in four years. But is it a true test of fitness—or just another social media spectacle? Alice Jones investigates.

The air pulses with heat, sweat, and electric anticipation. The live DJ drives the rhythm as waves of competitors surge forward every ten minutes.

Inside the area, some athletes chase a place among the top 15 participants in the world, the Elite 15, while others capture the moment for social media.

In just four years, Hyrox participation in the UK has grown tenfold. Compared to 2021/2022, an nearly 90,000 people have joined the multifunctional fitness event—raising questions about whether its popularity will last.

What is Hyrox?

Founded in 2017, Hyrox—short for “Hybrid Rockstar”—is a global fitness race designed to test endurance, strength, and consistency. The format is simple but brutal: eight workout stations, each followed by a 1km run.

The stations include:

• 1km SkiErg
• 50m sled push
• 50m sled pull
• 80m burpee broad jumps
• 1km rowing
• 200m farmer’s carry
• 100m sandbag lunges
• 100 wall balls

Held in indoor arenas around the world, top performers can qualify for the Hyrox World Championships.

Participants can compete solo or in doubles (male, female, or mixed), making the event accessible to a wide range of fitness levels.

“You become addicted”

Laura Betts is one of the 97,000 Hyrox participants and admits the sport has a powerful pull.

She said: “You do your first Hyrox and then you become addicted, thinking you can beat the time.

“You’re constantly going for a personal best, and you know you can do better.”

In three years, Laura has completed 23 races and earned nine podium finishes. Her competitions have taken her as far as Chicago, and she is set to compete in the Hyrox World Championships for the third time this year.

She described the event’s broad appeal saying: “It’s a really good event, and you’ll get people who come and watch you and think they want to do it.

“You go there, and you see all sorts of people doing it, young, old, fat, thin, and they’ve got an adaptive category that proves anyone can do it.

“My partner raced with his mum, and she’s 60, and they did a double in Stockholm, which was just lovely.”

Despite reaching her personal best, Laura is already planning her next race.

“Because it’s the same race every time, you know where you can improve.

“I think because I’m really competitive and probably quite hard on myself, so there are lots of races where I’ve finished and gone, that was rubbish.”

The psychology behind the drive

Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologist Andy Blyth has explained the deeper motivations behind Hyrox’s appeal.

“There are three basic human needs that we need to feel motivated and well, and the first one is autonomy over things.

“Hyrox’s training regime is under your control and you get to construct your training plan and maybe collaborate with others around how you train.

“The most important need for humans is that you can connect. You need to feel that you’ve got a tribe around you, and if there’s one thing I know about Hyrox is that there is a massive sense of community.

“The higher up you get there is always that possibility that you lose a sense of who you are, it becomes tied with performance and ability to perform.”

Growing pains

As Hyrox has grown, so have concerns about cost and organisation.

Laura pointed to rising ticket prices and overcrowded events.

“You get people that are over the top, but the only downside of it is probably the organisation itself in terms of its expense.

“You’re now paying over £100 for a ticket, and it’s so popular in the UK that they sell out within the day.

“Sometimes, like in Manchester one year, they oversold it, and there were too many people on the track. You’re trying to run, and you physically can’t. That’s why people go abroad.”

Laura has recently returned from her fourth Hyrox trip to Poland with her partner, Hakan.

She reflected:“People ask how much I spend on Hyrox and I think, I’m not spending it on Hyrox, I just had a lovely weekend in Warsaw, and it’s an addition.”

The sport’s expansion goes beyond races themselves. Hyrox-branded fitness cruises, featuring training sessions, workshops, and city runs, are set to launch in Mallorca this October.

Not for everyone

Despite its rise, not all athletes are convinced.

Amy Twambley-Kearney, a two-time World Championship Hyrox competitor, has stepped away from the sport entirely.

She said: “I couldn’t imagine doing it full-time, I would be bored.

“My husband and I did a race in London a couple of years ago, and the track was that busy. We were literally running and having to like jog almost on the spot to get around people.

“And I said, this is ridiculous, and we’ve gone from paying like 60 quid for a ticket to like 130, whatever it is now.”

Following her ACL operation last year, Amy has now shifted her focus to physical recovery and CrossFit.

When talking about her injury she said: “It was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to overcome, like after giving birth. I had two C-sections, Caesarean sections, and the rehab for my knee was so much harder than that.”

Amy also noted the cultural differences between the two sports.

“The Hyrox media are really good at the pictures they take, and they put this tint on it, so it shows your muscles off in the pictures. And I think now everyone who goes wears matching outfits.”

“There’s no ego at CrossFit gyms. And that’s why a lot of them don’t have mirrors.”

Worth the grind?

Hyrox combines competition, community, and commercial fitness. For some, it’s an addictive test of progress and performance. For others, rising costs and crowding are turning it into a victim of its own success.

Whether it’s worth the grind or just hype may ultimately depend on what each athlete is chasing: a personal best, a podium finish, or simply the perfect post-race photo.