{"id":600719,"date":"2026-07-23T18:41:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/600719\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T18:41:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T18:41:29","slug":"nyc-is-obsessed-with-the-hyrox-fitness-trend-whats-it-all-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/600719\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC is obsessed with the HYROX fitness trend \u2014\u00a0what’s it all about?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former New Yorker-turned Miami resident Jordyn Taylor was so wiped out after her first HYROX race that her planned celebratory dinner turned into a night on the couch with electrolyte drinks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I puked at some point,\u201d she confessed to The Post.<\/p>\n

Within days, she had signed up for another event.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jordyn Taylor, 34 is an avid HYROX follower \u2014\u00a0the former New Yorker may have had a rough recovery from her first race, she told The Post, but that didn\u2019t stop her wanting to suffer through the experience all over again. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was so electrified by the adrenaline of that first experience,\u201d Taylor, 34, an author and former Men\u2019s Health executive editor, told The Post \u2014\u00a0admitting that after a short recovery period, she was once again raring to go.<\/p>\n

What hooked her in, she said, was the rush of feeling powerful \u2014\u00a0 while submitting to something objectively absurd.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the strange world of HYROX, the grueling global fitness race<\/a> that has become NYC\u2019s loudest, most look-at-me, cult-iest workout obsession \u2014 where fanatics pay hundreds of dollars to run, row, ski, push sleds, pull sleds, carry weights, lunge with sandbags, and throw wall balls \u2014 then, once they\u2019re done, they do it all over again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even if it made them puke.\u00a0<\/p>\n

HYROX has had the strange velocity of a trend that seems to arrive fully formed. <\/p>\n

Taylor, an author and former Men\u2019s Health executive editor, recounted being \u201celectrified\u201d by her first HYROX experience \u2014\u00a0a sentiment echoed by many who\u2019ve jumped on the trendy bandwagon.<\/p>\n

One month, it was the fitness challenge only gymheads were participating in. Then suddenly, it was all over social media and group chats, with weekend training plans squeezed in between bottomless brunches.<\/p>\n

The race has become a kind of social shorthand \u2014 not just for working out, but for working out hard enough that everyone is supposed to know about it.<\/p>\n

Even some regular participants seem startled by the speed of it. <\/p>\n

HYROX has become a social status obsession in New York and around the world \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s the hard workout where you also work really hard to make sure everyone knows you did it.<\/p>\n

On Reddit<\/a>, users described going from being the lone HYROX obsessive at their gym to watching races sell out the day tickets drop, with workout facilities all over carving out dedicated HYROX training areas.<\/p>\n

What was once a niche pursuit has now become an official craze, with 2 million athletes expected to participate across 107 race weekends and six continents in the 2026-2027 season. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the new Barry\u2019s, the new IRONMAN and, depending on your swiping radius, maybe the newest dating app personality trait.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During the race, brave participants must complete a 1-kilometer run immediately followed by a functional workout station \u2014 for eight rounds as fast as they can.<\/p>\n

The whole thing has gotten big enough that even celebrities are signing up to suffer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Conjuring\u201d star Patrick Wilson has become one of HYROX\u2019s most famous competitors, racing in events around the world, his most recent being June\u2019s New York HYROX race at Pier 76.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hot, there\u2019s money in it, and private equity has taken notice \u2014 founded in fitness-mad Germany in 2017, the brand is now majority-owned by Infront Sports & Media \u2014\u00a0and LVMH-backed private equity firm L Catterton was reported<\/a> in mid-June to be in exclusive talks to buy a stake. <\/p>\n

All that visibility has made the backlash easier to find.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As HYROX has spread across social feeds, people have called out the scene for being performative and status-obsessed, with one content creator <\/a>aiming what he described as athletes \u201ccheating\u201d and the \u201cweird ego\u201d around some competitors with a newfound superiority complex over those hitting up regular gyms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The criticism is less about the workout itself than the lifestyle around it \u2014 and that lifestyle comes with a hefty bill.<\/p>\n

The Post\u2019s Tori Schneebaum is just one of many New Yorkers getting into the fierce fitness trend, founded in Germany in 2017 and now bankrolled by serious private equity money. Provided by Tori Schneebaum<\/p>\n

Race registration alone can run into the hundreds, while training at a popular gym like The Training Lab NYC on W. 39th St., an official HYROX partner<\/a>, will run you $50 a session, or $425 a month for a three-month HYROX prep regimen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t forget new shoes, pricey supplements \u2014 and the all-important photo packages.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

For all the muscle and buzz now behind the brand, HYROX was built around a simple idea \u2014\u00a0to create a race for people who were already serious about gym training but wanted a clear, standardized way to test that work. <\/p>\n

Schneebaum celebrates completion of a race in Boston last year. Registration and training at popular NYC gyms can run into the hundreds of dollars a month leading up to the events. Provided by Tori Schneebaum<\/p>\n

And leave it to NYC to become one of the brand\u2019s biggest stages.<\/p>\n

A representative for the company told The Post that the first Big Apple event in 2024 drew 5,000 athletes and major social attention. This season, those numbers more than tripled \u2013 with entries selling out \u201cin mere seconds.\u201d <\/p>\n

An 11-day NYC takeover around the event drew more than 50,000 participants. The Empire State Building even glowed in HYROX yellow at one point.<\/p>\n

Constantine Mouzakitis<\/a>, the brand\u2019s former national community events manager, first connected with HYROX as a fan in 2023, when the New York-area event was still being held at the Meadowlands in Secaucus. At the time, he said, the sport was still building recognition in the region, but local gyms quickly became its entry point.<\/p>\n

He began bringing HYROX\u2019s Physical Fitness Test, known as the PFT, to gyms across the Northeast. Soon, he said, gyms started reaching out to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat first year, I recorded over 200 events in 10 months up and down the Northeast,\u201d Mouzakitis said, adding that those events helped fuel HYROX\u2019s first sold-out North American race.<\/p>\n

These days, he said, \u201cfinding out about HYROX isn\u2019t hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time HYROX started to feel unavoidable, there were already people building their weeks \u2014 and their friendships \u2014 around it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s definitely been the case for Taylor, who said she has now completed four races \u2014\u00a0both solos and doubles, or races with a partner. She leans towards the latter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no feeling like giving your partner the world\u2019s sweatiest, most adrenaline-filled hug on the HYROX finisher\u2019s stage at the end of the race,\u201d she explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a full-time author, the 34-year-old said HYROX training also gives her a break from the solitude of writing and HYROX-focused classes have become opportunities for community building.<\/p>\n

Jordyn Taylor has now completed four races \u2014\u00a0both solos and doubles, or races with a partner. She likes the communal aspect of the latter the best.<\/p>\n

The chance to form new bonds in our isolating modern era is part of what makes these types of extreme group fitness formats so alluring, according to Dr. Justin Anderson, founder and CEO of Premier Sport Psychology and Premier Performance Advising.<\/p>\n

Anderson said HYROX taps into several powerful psychological pulls at once \u2014\u00a0measurable progress, public performance, and shared physical strain. A finish time, he said, gives people something concrete to chase.<\/p>\n

And while that can be motivating, it can also start to get complicated real fast, he said.<\/p>\n

The bonds formed in a challenging setting like a HYROX race is part of what makes the trend so appealing, an expert told The Post. HYROX<\/p>\n

Chris Ruhl, 32, an engineering consultant in thermal sciences <\/strong>from Phoenix, AZ, <\/strong>discovered the sport in early 2022 after years of Spartan races, DEKA events, and CrossFit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His first race was at the Meadowlands Exposition Center in the fall of 2022. Upon walking in on race day, he felt like he had entered \u201ca convention for the fittest people on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a race cycle, Ruhl follows a grueling workout schedule, sometimes enduring two-a-day workouts three to five times a week, which he admitted to The Post can sometimes \u201cflirt with obsession.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Ruhl, of Phoenix, Ariz., said that walking into his first HYROX race at the Meadowlands Expo Center in NJ in 2022 was like arriving at a convention of \u201cthe fittest people on earth.\u201d <\/p>\n

Those flirtations, Dr. Anderson said, should give athletes pause.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a finish time directs attention toward controllable improvement \u2014 it is a powerful motivational tool,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it directs attention toward fixed self-evaluation, it activates a more negative phenomenon where achievement never produces lasting satisfaction,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n

Anderson said that level of discipline can start to look compulsive when skipping a workout creates anxiety about identity, not just fitness.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are not training to perform,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cYou are training to quiet a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the darker side of fitness movements built on discipline, community, and visible progress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And HYROX is hardly the first fitness world to navigate that tension. <\/p>\n

It has naturally drawn comparisons to CrossFit, another culture built around difficult workouts and a fierce community \u2014 an overlap that its CEO Bruce Edwards views as a good thing for functional fitness.<\/p>\n

\u201cHYROX gives people another great way to test that fitness, and many of its movements have long been part of our methodology,\u201d Edwards told The Post.<\/p>\n

For Edwards, the difference between healthy intensity and a community that becomes too exclusionary comes down to \u201cinclusion without lowering the bar.\u201d <\/p>\n

For some, like Hamilton Heights-based actor Ben Salus, 32, one HYROX may have been enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New York Ben Salus, 32, went solo at his first HYROX race \u2014\u00a0and for him, once may have been enough. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy first HYROX was a true test of my own physical fitness and ability \u2014\u00a0versus a more socially focused event, or something to do for fun with friends,\u201d Salus, who lost 20 pounds during training, told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt some points I wanted to kill anyone cheering for me, but I\u2019m thankful for a crowd of friends cheering me on \u2014 I guess,\u201d Salus laughed.<\/p>\n

Once it was over, though, the suffering came with souvenirs. He bought the race photos and posted them quickly, even if he was less eager to broadcast his actual time.<\/p>\n

Unlike others, he didn\u2019t walk away desperate to repeat the event \u2013 admitting that the burpee broad jumps nearly did him in.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

What would lure him back, he said, would be the chance to do it with a pal \u2014\u00a0someone to share the pain with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very grateful that I got to do one solo though,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like I impressed myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

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