As 2024 draws to a close, many people will spend some time reflecting about what they’d like to do or achieve in 2025. Horsham-based female personal trainer, Becky, often has clients and others ask her what their fitness goals should be. Recently, the question of whether or not to participate in a Hyrox event has popped up regularly. So: should you do it?
Should you do a Hyrox?
No.
Oops, short and judgmental blog post. And not true. Let’s look at this one properly…
Hyrox: what is it?
With more and more people getting active each year, organisers have spotted gaps in the market that they’re eager to fill. Many had recognised that events such as marathons lack both accessibility and appeal, so there are now tons of shorter distance races available to enter. Functional fitness also became a trend, and so workout styles such as CrossFit were born.
The organisation is a great example of a scaled business – they sell places on international events, train coaches to deliver sessions at membership-based clubs, and also produce their own range of apparel. It’s no wonder that other people saw that and wanted a slice of the pie.
And so, Hyrox was born. It’s marketed as being in some ways “easier” than CrossFit, which is built on higher weight loads, and more complex movement patterns. Hyrox is essentially a combination of running and cardio-focused exercises – you run one kilometre and then complete a station of exercises, ranging from walking lunges and burpee broad jumps to wall balls and ski erg.
Should I sign up for a Hyrox event?
As I mentioned, what Hyrox boils down to is cardio, and lots of it. It’s a total of 8km running, plus eight event stations, many of which are cardio-focused, particularly because it is, after all, a race. Hyrox has announced official adaptive categories for the 2025 season, which shows that they are making an effort to be more inclusive, but this will still stick to their inherent style.
So, with all of this in mind, my short answer to your question is: sign up if you enjoy running and cardio in general.
It’s ok not to enjoy cardio – I don’t. And so you won’t catch me doing this event. Yes, it is that simple.
My opinion is that signing yourself up for something that you know you won’t enjoy is punishment, and exercise shouldn’t be that. I won’t lie and tell you that I adore every session that I do when I train, but I also don’t outright hate every one, and there are plenty of strength training sessions that I do actively enjoy.
There are also far more types of valid exercise than running and lifting weights, so if you don’t enjoy either, you still have a huge range of choice in terms of things to do in order to keep your body and mind healthy.
You want to do a Hyrox? Go ahead and do a Hyrox…
Are you feeling pressured to sign up for an event?
Just as we tend to go through a phase of watching many of our friends and family members get married, buy properties, have children, and climb the career ladder, there also tends to be a phase of knowing lots of people who run marathons or complete other fitness challenges and try different diets.
And what all of these things have in common is that we tend to either feel compelled to join in, or feel bad about being stuck being left out.
Trust me when I say that it’s ok not to follow the crowd. I have no desire to have children. I’m on the fence about marriage. I’d love to own a home. And I’m not interested in training for a marathon (though sometimes I kid myself).
It is absolutely ok to be different to other people. Let them go and run their race. You get to do what you want to do.
What should my fitness goals be?
One of the million dollar questions. My advice is to only trust coaches who say, “it’s up to you”. Those who try to tell you what your goals should be are simply pushing their agenda onto you. If you don’t know what you want, a good coach will help you to figure out what that might be, and assist or signpost you to try those things.
When someone suggests that a specific product or service is the answer to your problems or question, guess what? They exist in order to sell that thing. And if you want to buy it, that’s fine. It’s also fine to go and find something else to purchase.
Should you do a Hyrox? It’s up to you, not me.