The “marathon of fitness” hosted over 40 global races featuring 90,000 athletes and 50,000 spectators in 2023, and it’s poised to keep growing those numbers

Hyrox, a fitness racing competition that’s been taking root in the United States after explosive growth in Europe, is taking over New York City’s Pier 76, an outdoor racing venue, on Saturday, June 1.

Hyrox events are usually held indoors, but the brand built a custom racing arena for the New York event. 

“Pier 76 is a hugely exciting venue for us – the logistical challenges of running a large-scale mass participation event in Manhattan are huge; it’s why there is only one marathon a year, you have to shut literally everything down,” Christian Toetzke, the founder and CEO of Hyrox, told Athletech News. “We fix that issue by mainly working in stadiums and conference centers but due to the unique nature of NYC there are very few areas of square footage that would let us run our event, so we had to work outside of the box with the Hudson River Park team.”

Competitors will run eight one-kilometer loops and complete different functional workouts in between each loop. For the 2023-2024 season, Hyrox will host 65 races across 20 different countries. In the last five years, Hyrox has seen its race participation rate increase 1,081%. There are also now 1,400 Hyrox-affiliated gyms across 14 countries.  

The competition – called the “marathon of fitness” by Toetzke himself– was designed to create a new style of fitness competition for a largely untapped market. 

“52% of gym members now cite fitness as their sport, but previously the only ‘training’ competitions have been catered to extreme levels of fitness, like CrossFit,” Toetzke says. “Hyrox was designed to cater to the hundreds of millions of people who want to put their fitness to the test.”

Competitors are almost evenly split between male and female and are mostly in the 30-60 age range, which is a demographic that traditionally begins to reduce their exercise levels.

credit: Hyrox

“Hyrox provides a powerful combatant to chronic disease at a key time in people’s lives,” Toetzke says. “Hyrox is connecting a demographic of underserved people with competitive identities and re-establishing their lifelong connection to fitness.”

The brand has invested in a wider ecosystem – Hyrox 365 – that extends beyond just events. Earlier this month, it signed a partnership with F45 Training that will see the Mark Wahlberg-backed boutique fitness franchise offer Hyrox-themed workouts at its studios.

Toetzke is confident Hyrox will continue to disrupt the global fitness space.

“We believe that in three to five years. we will be the world’s largest fitness sport with mainstream adoption and global penetration; between 500,000 and 1 million people racing each season,” he says. “I’ve been saying this for a few years now and I think people probably thought I was just making statements at the start, but now, after 3 years of 100%+ year-over-year growth, it’s starting to sink in.” 

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