It isn’t every day that an entirely new mass participation racing concept emerges that can take the world by storm. But, that’s exactly what’s happened over the past few years with the rise of HYROX, a new racing format, combining functional fitness and endurance in an indoor mass participation race.
Launched in Germany in 2017 by veteran multisport race organizer Christian Toetzke with the help of co-founder Moritz Fuerste and a select team of colleagues, HYROX has exploded in popularity to become the fastest growing mass participation fitness concept in the world.
So what is HYROX? What makes it so special? How does it relate to other race formats out there like obstacle racing? And, how does the highly lucrative business of HYROX work? Well, we’re going to be going through all that and more today with the help of my guest, HYROX USA & UK Managing Director, Douglas Gremmen.
In this episode:
- Combining fitness and endurance in coming up with the HYROX concept/format
- The history of fitness racing before HYROX
- Bringing mass participation racing to gym goers (and giving gym goers something to train for)
- Rolling out HYROX in Europe, the US and the rest of the world
- Obstacle races vs HYROX: differences and similarities
- HYROX in the Olympics?
- Designing a scalable race format: making workouts accessible, safe, easy to monitor and easy to transport between venues
- Race timing in a HYROX race (it's complicated!)
- Getting thousands of people around an indoor racing course
- How large can a HYROX race get?
- What it costs to enter a HYROX event (and what you get for it)
- Involving spectators in the HYROX race experience
- Growing HYROX internationally through franchisees
- HYROX' gym partnerships driving growth and secondary revenue
- A look at HYROX' growing competition
Thanks to RunSignup for supporting quality content for race directors by sponsoring this episode. More than 26,000 in-person, virtual, and hybrid events use RunSignup's free and integrated solution to save time, grow their events, and raise more. If you'd like to learn more about RunSignup's all-in-one technology solution for endurance and fundraising events visit runsignup.com.
You can find more resources on anything and everything related to race directing on our website RaceDirectorsHQ.com.
You can also share your questions about HYROX, the business of races or anything else in our Facebook group, Race Directors Hub.