Come hell or Hyrox: Inside the ‘addictive’ sport you’ve probably never heard of

Why pay $30 a week to exercise at a gym when, for a few bucks less, you could watch someone else work out instead? For those in the know – and, judging by the increasingly frantic social media posts about ticket availability as events inch closer, plenty are – that question is preposterous.

“It’s like a dance party on steroids,” says Sue Rogers, a 62-year-old Brisbane-based grandmother of five, soon to be six.

What else could we be talking about other than Hyrox, the indoors fitness competition that breaks up eight kilometres of running with eight workout stations? Across three days from Friday, spectators will flock to Sydney Olympic Park to watch athletes push and pull sleds, do burpees, squats, and lunges, throw medicine balls, carry sandbags and more in between spurts of sprints.

The sport has steadily been gaining acolytes around the globe since it was introduced in Germany in 2017, with gyms dedicating whole programs to preparing fitness buffs for race days (a big reason F45 Australia has made a quiet comeback).

It sounds like a particular type of hell for people whose gym membership warrants nary a thought beyond guilty glimpses at direct debits. It’s also highly likely that unless you’re a gym rat, you’ve never heard of it. But among the faithful, the only thing that’s a hotter commodity than a spectator ticket is a ticket to participate; almost 10,000 racers crossed the finish line in the Sunshine State in March. Rumour has it, more than double that figure has registered to race in Sydney this weekend.

Rogers won’t be among competitors this time. After coming second in her age group at the Hyrox World Championships in Chicago weeks ago, she’s taking a break. But a group of members from the gym Rogers trains and coaches at are flying down for it, and they’re not the only ones with a long journey.

“It’s just a sensational feeling,” says John Hesse, 66, who is travelling from Melbourne to compete in three races this weekend after coming second in his age group at the world championships. In June, his two children travelled to Chicago to spectate, their cheers fuelled by pride for Hesse as much as the blaring DJ-crafted beats, food trucks, bars and stalls not unlike what you would see at a music festival.

The roaring crowds are only a symptom of the camaraderie Hesse also feels among athletes at training sessions and competitions alike, helped in part by the fact that participants start their races in staggered waves, with no time limit for completion.

“Obviously, you’re competing against everybody… in the end, it’s competitive, but you really are against yourself,” says Hesse. On Sunday, however, it’ll be Hesse and his Geelong-based son, Jack, 32, racing together against fellow men’s doubles pairs, with the duo training at the same gym when Jack’s in town.

Wednesday morning saw mother-daughter team Janine Garner, 54, and Taya, 19, doing the same, sneaking in one last session at their gym in Sydney’s Northern Beaches before a pre-race taper.

Taya, 19, and Janine, 54, first raced together last year in Sydney. They’ve spent the past 12 months preparing for their rematch on Sunday.Credit: Steven Siewert

“It slammed us, like we were the first in and the last out, I reckon,” says Janine, who, at Taya’s behest, signed up for Sydney’s event last year not entirely knowing what she was in for. “It was so hard, I gave up, Taya had to jump in.”

If you had asked Janine, mid-sled pull (the race’s third station, where women’s doubles teams share four 12.5-metre pulls of a 78-kilogram sled), what she thought of Hyrox, the business coach would have sworn she was never doing it again. Yet, two days later, Taya’s phone lit up with a text message from her mother: “So, what about Perth?”

“It’s quite addictive,” Janine says, and Taya agrees. The exercise and sport science student initially planned to study psychology with criminology when she left school, but picking up Hyrox during her gap year inspired her to switch degrees.

“I didn’t even run as a kid … always called in sick to athletics carnivals, swimming carnivals, never really had a joy for it,” Taya says. “[Exercise was] just something I did because you had to, I guess, so then finding actual passion in it, finding it fun and finding the community that is like me is a pretty cool thing.”

“Hyrox’s slogan is it’s a sport for everybody … and I was like, ‘This can’t be for everyone.’ So I messaged them and said, ‘What’s the go?’ And then they messaged me back.”

Adam Jackson

As with Spartan Race and Tough Mudder, Hyrox is relentless, says Janine. Clem Vertigan, who trains Hesse in Melbourne, says the half-marathon runner had to sit down in the middle of his first session. “It was a bit of a worry … but now he’s head of the pack,” Vertigan says. “It’s just unreal.”

Former commando Jon Wynn, 39, came fifth in the elite men’s class at the world championships. With Hyrox designed to test both strength and endurance, Wynn says he finds the demand on his body – fatigue management during non-stop races, plus anaerobic threshold and heart rate training – on par with what was required during his time with Australia’s special forces.

That admission, coupled with a cursory glance at the ripped racers flooding Hyrox’s high-production social media channels, is intimidating. But, like Hesse from Melbourne, when Taya started, she found comfort in how, among the staggered crowd of all ages and abilities, she was camouflaged. So too does Adam Jackson.

Hyrox’s race format*

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

* Rules vary across the four divisions. For example, how much weight required to be carried is different between pro and open races, and adaptive athletes may complete a station with a variant of the exercise. This also doesn’t include “no reps”, which is when a rep doesn’t count due to not complying with movement standards, so the racer has to do it again.

“My running’s not pretty,” says the 44-year-old Australian Defence Force veteran, who has deficits on his right side five years after surviving a stroke that left him partially paralysed. “You sort of blend in … run your own race.”

The Invictus Games dual gold medallist was always active, but exercise took on a new meaning when it became a key part of his rehabilitation program. When his personal trainer suggested he and his wife, Kate, try Hyrox, Jackson’s first port of call was the website.

“I looked it up and Hyrox’s slogan is it’s a sport for everybody, and I was looking on their web page, and there wasn’t any adaptive information,” Jackson says. “And I was like, ‘This can’t be for everyone.’ So I messaged them and said, ‘What’s the go?’ And then they messaged me back.”

At the time, Hyrox had an adaptive rule book in draft. Eighteen months later, Jackson was named World Champion in the adaptive men’s class in Chicago. Because the course is standardised across every venue in the world (except in Auckland, which incorporated an outdoor running experience), it meant Jackson, thanks to his races in Brisbane and Melbourne, knew what to expect in Chicago.

“You can’t really see these people in front of you, and so for me, it’s just about pushing my limits as hard as I can,” says Jackson. “And the atmosphere is astounding.”

So what’s the catch?

Two divisive words no Hyrox racer ever wants to hear

If you ask armchair experts on social media, it’s Hyrox’s “movement standards”, both as they’re laid out in the rule book and then, as some allege, seemingly selectively enforced by referees and judges on competition days in the form of two shattering words: “No rep.”

“This is why Hyrox is a joke. All the way down puts more stress and potential damage on the knee joints. 90 degrees is perfect,” one TikTok user claimed in a comment published under a video of a judge taking issue with the depth, or lack thereof, of a competitor’s squat during the wall balls station.

“Squatting deeper than 90 degrees is not inherently dangerous,” says exercise physiologist Dr Ben Singh, noting deep squats can be beneficial for improving strength, mobility and overall joint health “with proper preparation, progression, and technique”. Risk of lumbar injury or excessive stress on knees does arise, however, mainly “for those who do not have the training or mobility required.”

That’s not applicable to someone like Rogers in Brisbane, whose preparation for the world championships hinged on her more than 25 years as a personal trainer and a 12-week program she bought specifically for the competition.

The dreaded “no rep” is something Janine and Taya found out about the hard way in Sydney last year, with the duo having to do 110 wall balls to hit the 75 needed to finish the race.

Wall balls are particularly gruelling – not only do athletes need to squat below 90 degrees, but they also have to hit the centre of a target, not above or below, with an at least six-kilogram medicine ball. It’s also the final activity before the race’s end, so “your form’s going out the window”, says Taya, making athletes extra vulnerable to no reps.

Taya and Janine, pictured at their gym in Dee Why, have a strategy for this year’s race and have been practising extra wall balls after getting 35 “no reps” last year.Credit: Steven Siewert

Movement standards is a contentious subject online among voyeurs, and in real life among Hyrox athletes themselves.

Australia’s Jess Pettrow, like Wynn, is a professional athlete, competing in Hyrox’s elite class. The 30-year-old came ninth in the world championships, and says elite racers should, unquestionably, be “held to the utmost level of standard when it comes to every single rule or movement”.

“But their goal in the sport is to get everyone through the door to have a crack at it,” Pettrow says. “So when you’ve got someone out there who’s 65 years old and is not necessarily getting into a full squat in their wall ball, it’s like, should we really be criticising them when they’re out there having a go, and they’re not getting in anyone’s way? Something like that really gets me upset.”

This year, Taya and Janine are prepared. They’ve been building up their strength and running on tired legs, strategising when they’ll alternate reps, so the wall balls won’t catch them again. “We know where our limit is,” Taya says. “And we don’t want to hit that limit.”

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