Yeah, I’ve thought about it. The “it” being a Hyrox fitness race. I need a new goal anyway. And a Hyrox looks like my weird definition of fun. It seems to be a nice level of intensity mixed with fit, sweaty people. But I am not sure what doing a Hyrox really entails. Sure, the people over at Hyrox claim it’s accessible. But is it really? And what exactly do you need to do to train for a Hyrox? This ain’t your mother’s marathon or your father’s heavy lifting competition. It’s actually the crazy cousin that combines a little bit of both. So this summer I set out to learn what this next level fitness trend is all about, and to see if a Hyrox could actually be on my Bingo card this year (or next year because picking a date that actually works for me and my partner is proving to be a bit of a challenge).

What is Hyrox? Let’s Start Here.

“Hyrox combines both running and functional workout stations where participants run 1km, followed by 1 functional workout station, repeated 8 times.” Ok. That seems simple enough. Hyrox is a global competition started only 8 years ago in Germany but that has gained recent popularity in the US. And the race remains the same across the globe. Eighty three races will have occurred in 11 different countries and 30 different cities in 2025 come December, and I’d expect that number to go up fast. The US has added a few new locations this year, too. No Philly race yet, although we do have a perfectly large and open expo center, Hyrox organizers.

This race prides itself on being an accessible fitness event for “everybody”. And I’m gonna have to raise my eyebrows a bit on that statement given what I’ve seen on Instagram— by “everybody” — don’t they mean every ripped 20 year old body? Well, I am here to set the record straight for the more average, middle aged fitness enthusiasts to see if this race truly is for everybody. The good thing is that there is no finishing time requirement, and there are no qualifications required to enter. And a good to know racing fact is that every Hyrox race has start waves of all ages happening every 10 minutes throughout the day, so there is no fear of “coming in last”. Alright Hyrox, I will give you some points on accessibility there.

Let’s Talk About the Exercises that Make Up Hyrox. Every exercise in the race showcases both strength and endurance. And I love that almost all the exercises incorporate the entire body. For purposes of this post, I’m including the female weight requirements for each station for the entry level race. And I’ve consulted some of the best Hyroxers (new Webster word for 2026?) in our area to compile some “pro tips” that I’ve included with each exercise description. But if you have more to add, please drop them in the comments below. I’ll take all the advice I can get if I am gonna do this thing.

1 km Run. The race starts here and continues here after each station except for the Wall Ball. If you are doing doubles, you must run together. PRO TIP: use this as your recovery time and don’t go all out, especially with the first one.

The SkiErg. Length Requirement: 1000m

The Hyrox race uses the Concept2 SkiErg, which is a piece of fitness equipment designed to mimic the pulling motion of cross country skiing. It engages the upper body, the lower body and the core as you pull the arm handles down in a sweeping motion while hinging at the hips. You want to create a fluid, continuous motion with the pulls. The machine uses a flywheel and has a performance monitor to track your distance, time, pace, output, calories and stroke rate. PRO TIP: Set your flywheel at around a 6, and start with a double pull down to get that flywheel going fast from the jump. Recover on the way up in a straight-line to prevent form mishaps.

The Sled Push. Length Requirement: 50m; My Weight Requirement: 102 kg (about 225 pounds)

The Sled Push is a low impact exercise where a weighted sled is pushed across the turf. While this exercise is considered full body, it really targets the lower body, like the quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves. The pushing motion elevates your heart rate. For doubles, the non working partner has to walk behind the working partner. PRO TIP: Don’t extend your arms out, which brings the exercise up to your arm strength. Instead, put your upper body into the sled to get power from your powerhouse, your lower body.

The Sled Pull. Length Requirement: 50m; My Weight Requirement: 78 kg (about 172 pounds)

The Sled Pull is an exercise where a weighted sled is pulled across the turf using a rope. The muscles of the posterior chain (upper and lower) are targeted with this exercise. And this exercise really focuses on strength. You can use just your arms or really engage your lower body with a squat. Some people even use a step back technique to pull the sled across the turf. Managing the rope is an unexpected part of this station. PRO TIP: Reach as far as possible with your arms and use your body weight to pull back.

Burpee Broad Jump. Length Requirement: 80m

The Burpee Broad Jump combines a burpee with a broad jump. It involves dropping into a push-up position, jumping the feet up to the hands, standing up, and then explosively jumping forward as far as possible, landing in a squat position. For doubles, the non working partner has to walk behind the working partner. PRO TIP: use the step method when getting up to conserve energy. Slowing down here and establishing a steady rhythm is better than racing through these.

The Rower. Length Requirement 1000m

The Concept2 Rower is a piece of fitness equipment designed to mimic the motion of rowing a boat. It engages the upper body, the lower body and the core as you pull the arm handle into the chest while bending your legs. The machine uses a flywheel and has a performance monitor to track your distance, time, pace, output, calories and row rate. Maintaining a tall and straight posture, a consistent pace and a strong leg drive are key. PRO TIP: unless you are a professional Rower, use the Rower as a mid-race recovery exercise. Adjust the flywheel to about a 7-8 to get power and maintain a good speed for the longer distance.

Farmer’s Carry. Length Requirement: 200m; Weight Requirement: 2x 16 kg (about 2x 35 pounds)

The Farmer’s Carry is a full body exercise where you carry heavy weights, usually kettlebells, along your sides while walking a certain distance. Grip strength really comes into play as the weight increases. Be sure to stabilize the core, lock your arms out and maintain good posture when walking. This is probably the simplest exercise in the race. For doubles, the non working partner has to walk behind the working partner. PRO TIP: Chalk up before you pick up.

Sandbag Lunges. Length Requirement: 100m; Weight Requirement: 10 kg (about 22 pounds)

This exercise isn’t as full body focused as the others— a strong and stable lower body wins the race here. Place the sandbag across your back shoulders. Step forward with one foot and lower into a lunge. Push back up and repeat on the other side as you travel across the floor. You must alternate legs with each repetition. For doubles, the non working partner has to walk behind the working partner. PRO TIP: Work in short breaks during this exercise, which comes near the end of the race before another kilometer of running and the dreaded wall balls.

Wall Balls. Requirement: 100; Weight Requirement: 4 kg ball thrown over a 9 ft target

Which leads me to the final station of Hyrox, the Wall Ball. This exercise combines a squat and an overhead throw of a weighted ball at an overhead target. There are two important requirements with this exercise. During the throw, the center of the ball must hit the target. And during the squat, the hip crease must be below the top of the knee. PRO TIP: Drop your arms while the ball is in the air, instead of holding them up to catch the ball, so your arms don’t fatigue. (I’m not following this tip in the picture below, and my shoulders usually burn out during this exercise).

What is the Best Race Category for Me?

The Open category is the standard Hyrox competition performed alone. The Pro category is for the “more experienced racer” who will use heavier weights. The Doubles category is for a pair of athletes who will split the workload at each station but will run together. And the Relay category consists of a team of 4, where each teammate completes 2x1km of running followed by 1 workout station.

On the Hyrox website, you can actually complete a questionnaire to find out which level is best suited for you. I took the 4 question quiz and a doubles or team relay race was recommended for me. No surprise there.

Where to Go to Train for Hyrox.

There are over 20 Hyrox partner gyms in the greater Philadelphia area (see below for the list). Each gym runs their training programs differently, so I wanted to check out a few of the gyms that I kept hearing about. Because remember, I don’t just tell you about the workout, I actually do it! So be sure to check out my instagram for the full visual of my Hyrox training adventures this summer.

Starting my research at the first place I think of in Philly when it comes to a fitness challenge, Arena Fitness and Performance. Arena was one of the very first Hyrox affiliate gyms in the United States. They are also the only DEKA affiliate in the city and the first Deadly Dozen affiliate in Philly, so clearly this is the place to be when it comes to any fitness race - although for purposes of this post, I’m just sticking with Hyrox. Owner, Chris Beck, has been doing Hyrox since before Hyrox was a big thing that us Americans even knew about. And yeah, a bunch of the Hyrox flags on the gym’s ceiling do have his name on them. But many members of Arena have also earned their own Hyrox flags. So clearly Chris and his team are doing something right when it comes to training their athletes at Arena.

If you are training for Hyrox or another fitness race, Chris recommends Arena’s Hybrid class. This format is offered daily as either an express 60 minute class or a full 90 minute class. Either way, the Hybrid workout will get the Hybrid athlete ready for a fitness challenge that involves both strength and conditioning.

The particular class I took on a Saturday morning with Coach Sam had more of a DEKA style to it with quick EMOM’s since I’m told we are in “DEKA season”. And I thought we were just starting Hyrox season, but what the heck do I know? What I do know is that this part of class was a very fast paced and high energy workout that involved bursts of work before quickly moving onto the next exercise. I actually had a hard time keeping up. By the time I got to the next station and found the weighted ball I wanted to throw or put the proper weight on the sled, the time was almost up. The athletes in this class were clearly seasoned to this pace. At times, I felt a little lost but I’m going to partially blame that on my fidgeting with the camera to film the class (which you can watch here). See, I told you that I do the work so you don’t have to… unless you are training for Hyrox— then you better do the work!

The second part of the class was definitely more my speed and more of that Hyrox style workout. We had a 1 km run before 4 other endurance based exercises. The goal of this section was to do the exercises “compromised”, which for purposes of this training program, means tired. Tired from the run and then going right into burpee broad jumps, squats and sled pulls. I quickly found out that it’s this kind of endurance training that I really need to work on for the Hyrox race.

Most of the people in my class at Arena were not training for anything in particular at that moment, but almost everyone had done these races in the past. And this workout is just what they call fun. And I get it. It’s high energy. It’s grueling while you are in it, but so rewarding when it’s over.

Arena offers Hybrid classes at various times each day. You can check out their schedule here. They also host all sorts of fitness challenge events. Arena is hosting the Spartan DEKA Trifecta on August 17. And on September 7, Arena will be one of three official stops in the Northeast for the Hyrox x Output Readiness Assessment, where you can test your speed, power, endurance and mobility with real time objective data to see where you rank as compared to other athletes. Registration for this Hyrox training event is open now.

Next I headed to Evolve Fitness Philadelphia, and I grabbed my friend, Kim, for their doubles training class. If I am doing Hyrox I’m definitely going to have a partner for it. One, because I love the social aspect of this fitness event. And two, because there is no way in hell I am doing 100 wall balls on my own. There are mixed gender doubles, women doubles and men doubles categories. The refreshing part about this fitness event is that in the doubles race, you can split up the workload of each exercise with your partner. This allows for some rest and recovery and makes this race even more attainable for the average fit person (me).

Kim and I are starting at the same place so this seems like a good match. She shares in my love of all kinds of fitness and my willingness to step outside my comfort zone to try new and somewhat outrageous things. I mean, a month ago when I asked her about doing a Hyrox with me, she had to google what Hyrox is. Yet, after leaving our first training session at Evolve, she is more ready than me to make it official and sign up for one! It was that easy to convince her. But it also could have been the class at Evolve and the very helpful instructor, Luis, who leads their Hyrox training program.

The hour doubles class is set up like an actual Hyrox race with a partner. This gym has everything you need to “practice” doing a Hyrox. Each of the exercises that make up Hyrox is part of the class, in the order that you’d do them on race day. And for the most part, in class you are doing the amount of each exercise that you would do on race day (with some adjustments on weight etc, and we only ran about 1 mile total during class, not the 5 miles that make up the race). So it’s a great way to get a feel for the race with a partner and see where you both are with your training. There was even a couple in our class that was just doing this kind of partner workout for fun on a Saturday.

Evolve offers Hyrox Training Club Doubles classes every Saturday at 10 am (that’s what I did and you can check it out here). They also offer Hybrid classes that incorporate some of the Hyrox exercises into an express thirty minute class. These classes are offered on Monday thru Friday at 6:30 am, 8 am, 4 pm and 5:30 pm. They are a great place to start if you are toying with the idea of possibly doing a Hyrox race, or you just really like this way to exercise.

Evolve also runs their own Hyrox simulation race four times a year. The simulation event runs all day and pulls in around 60+ athletes to put their training to the test and compete against other athletes. The simulation is a full Hyrox race, and Evolve even offers cash prizes plus other goodies from their race partners to the winners. The next simulation is September 14 and I’ve already signed up… just for fun (wink, wink).

After a week of recovery, I headed to the next stop on my Philly area Hyrox training tour, Fitness Factory, in West Chester. This garage style gym has quite a Hyrox training program, led by certified L1 Hyrox Coach, Gerry. I came to the Sunday morning Hyrox workout (check it out here) and was a little surprised but very excited to see a room full of only women. Every woman in the class was serious about training and their community at Fitness Factory — most are even traveling together to compete in Boston next month.

This class was set up differently than the workout at Evolve. This was not a partner workout — so did that mean that I would have to do all 1000 meters on the SkiErg and the rower by myself? Well, yes, but with this class we weren’t actually going through each Hyrox exercise (although 1000 meters on both the SkiErg and the rower were part of the workout that morning). In the first part of class, we worked through 4 stations for five minutes each two times through. And while most of the exercises were Hyrox exercises (lunges, SkiErg and rower), there were beneficial strength exercises mixed in. So instead of doing wall balls during class, at the fourth station, we did dumbbell squats and Bulgarian split squats to build the back glute muscles that require strength for the wall balls during the race.

After the first part of class, we then worked on endurance running, which is huge part of Hyrox training. Endurance running for this race requires running while tired, and I mean jello-legs-kind-of-tired. During Hyrox, every exercise is sandwiched between 1km of running, which is a lot of running already and actually feels like a hell of a lot more when your legs are tired. So in class, after pushing the sled, we ran. And if ever I realized how hard running with exhausted legs is, it was on this steamy Sunday morning. This is definitely where I need to devote my training time if I want to do a Hyrox race.

Fitness Factory offers Hyrox training classes every Wednesday from 7:30-8:30 pm and every Sunday from 9-10:30 am. And monthly, they hold their own mini Hyrox race for individuals. The one in August included the following exercises: 600m SkiErg, 80 meter sled pull-push, 20x burpee dumbbell press, 600m row, 120m farmers carry, 40x sandbag lunges, 50x wall balls. The next one is September 7. And you guessed it— it’s on my calendar. You can sign up by downloading their app.

So, after a few Hyrox classes, where do I stand?

While I haven’t officially committed to a specific race yet, Kim and I are actively trying to find the best race to fit our busy kid-life schedules come fall. Of course, I’ll keep you posted when we do pick a race. In the meantime, I plan to return to each of the gyms I wrote about in this article for their training classes and their race simulations. I also love the conditioning classes I take at X Training in Bryn Mawr and will continue with that, while keeping up with my usual strength program.

When I surveyed the audience on Instagram last week, the pro tip that I heard over and over again was to RUN!! So I am dusting off my running shoes and my Garmin and making zone 2 runs part of my weekly exercise routine. During my research for this post, the biggest punch to the gut was learning the actual amount of running required to complete this race. I had no clue that running was such a big part of Hyrox. Having to run (even at a slow pace) in between each exercise really does wear on you. And the run cannot be split between you and your doubles partner. You actually have to run with your partner (you have to be within 3 meters of your partner at all times), really establishing the team aspect during this part of the competition. So after coming off my first few Hyrox training classes, my conclusion is that I need to start running again. And running on tired legs… the agony of running on leg day is going to be my new reality this fall.

Where else to go to train for a Hyrox and a list of Hyrox Partner Gyms in the area:

Big fitness names like Peloton and Lifetime have recently jumped aboard the fitness racing train. This summer, Peloton officially partnered with Hyrox as its “official digital training partner”. Peloton now offers a Hyrox collection in their online library. And this fall, Lifetime is piloting the LT Games as an alternate to Hyrox, with the hopes of rolling out the LT Games to all 179 clubs in 2026.

If you are ready to join a Hyrox training community, check out all of your official Hyrox partner gyms right here:

F45 Center City, Northern Liberties, Bryn Mawr, Mt. Laurel, Brandywine, Royersford

Arena Fitness and Performance in Philadelphia, PA

OpenBox Athletics in Philadelphia, PA

Evolve Fitness PHL in Philadelphia, PA

Requisite Fitness in Philadelphia, PA

Breaking Point Fitness in Philadelphia, PA

True Fitness in Cherry Hill, NJ

LCM Fitness in Philadelphia, PA

ISI Elite Training Blue Bell in Blue Bell, PA

CrossFit Surge in Burlington, NJ

CrossFit Off the Grid in Williamstown, NJ