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Usually, when your best friend invites you on a trip to Miami, the only exercise that is expected is the short walk from the hotel to the beach. That is, unless your friend is competing in a Hyrox race—which was the case for my recent vacation. Imagine a cross between a standard triathlon and CrossFit, all jammed into a relay race. This is Hyrox, a first-of-its-kind global fitness competition. There are 61 events this season happening across the world in locations like Bangkok, São Paulo, and Miami Beach. The competition has recently skyrocketed in popularity with celebrities—actors Manny Jacinto and Patrick Wilson have recently competed, and K-pop idol Minho of SHINee even recently placed first in his age category. Hyrox has official equipment made by Chris Hemsworth’s fitness brand Centr, and the two work together to develop official training programs for the race.
“Hyrox is often described as the marathon of functional fitness or what I call ‘real-world fitness,’” says Mintra Tilly, Hyrox’s sport concept designer. “It trains for cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, grip strength, mobility, and resilience.”
The race itself is an immersive indoor competition that consists of eight one-kilometer interval runs, equivalent to almost five miles total, each followed by different referee-staffed workout stations: 50-meter sled pushes and pulls, 80-meter burpee broad jumps, sandbag lunges, wall ball reps, and more. For amateur athletes, the race usually takes an hour and a half to two hours to finish. (Jacinto finished in an hour and nine minutes.) Participants can run the race alone, but many people choose to compete in teams of two or four. “It’s very high energy,” says Zoe Frank, a registered nurse based in Denver, Colorado. “There’s a lot of music and even a DJ that plays on the finishers’ stage at the end of the race.” Frank has traveled to Las Vegas and Phoenix to compete in mixed doubles Hyrox races, finishing her most recent race with her husband in an hour and a half.
Participants doing wall ball reps at a Hyrox competition.Courtesy of Hyrox
(Courtesy of Hyrox)
Hyrox is billed as “the fitness competition for everybody,” and that could be true, depending upon how you train. Similar to a marathon, preparing for a Hyrox race can take over your life and require careful planning and blocked-off time. “Training should combine running with strength and endurance,” says Tilly. “You need to be comfortable running repeated kilometers under fatigue and performing functional movements when your heart rate is high.” For beginners, she recommends 10 to 12 weeks of structured preparation that includes cardio and strength training to give the body time to adapt to strenuous movement. “I trained for 12 weeks before both of my races,” says Frank. “We would do some days focused on lifting and others focused on cardio. We didn’t end up training the full Hyrox course until a couple weeks before the race.”
My best friend ran her first doubles Hyrox competition in April, finishing in one hour and 32 minutes. When I asked why she wanted to put herself through the six months of training and the grueling race, she simply answered, “I just wanted to challenge myself.” That same sentiment has apparently echoed across many training gyms. “You get some trained athletes and some people who have no idea what they’re getting into who are just looking for a challenge,” says Alex Gometz, a physical therapist and founder of the Prehab training facility in New York. Racers are not so much competing against other people as they are testing themselves against their own personal limits. Because the Hyrox structure is the same worldwide, athletes are able to track their progress each time they return.
Hyrox athletes doing sled pulls.
But beyond increasing physical and mental fortitude, Hyrox is about building community. “The best teams are not necessarily two equally strong athletes; they’re those who understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” Tilly says. “Choose someone who stays calm when things get hard. Panic spreads quickly. So does confidence.” There is also no shortage of support. “The audience is there watching you and cheering you on and giving you energy,” Gometz adds. It’s just as much an individual sport as it is a team activity; every person plays a role in completing the race. My best friend runs, and I stand at the finish line cheering her on. Everybody wins in Hyrox.
A version of this story appears in the May 2026 issue of ELLE.
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