Why CrossFit Loves Hyrox (and Why That’s a Good Thing)

Recently, people who know I work for CrossFit have asked me if I think Hyrox is the “next big thing” and if it will replace CrossFit. It reminds me of the old days when people used to ask, “What is CrossFit?” and I’d respond, “How much time do you have? Better yet, meet me at the gym tomorrow, and I’ll show you.” 

There are a lot of angles one can look at in a discussion about CrossFit and Hyrox. This is my take.

My first thought is that comparing CrossFit and Hyrox is comparing apples to oranges. CrossFit is a comprehensive strength and conditioning program with a distinct methodology. We have clearly defined the three key components of that methodology:

What CrossFit is: constantly varied functional movements executed at high intensity. This forms the basis of the methodology, and we define each element precisely and comprehensively.

Why CrossFit? To achieve optimal health, fitness across your lifespan. We define fitness as work capacity across broad time and model domains, meaning CrossFit prepares an individual for the unknown and unknowable demands of life and sport. These definitions of health and fitness — which did not exist before CrossFit — are a crucial part of our methodology because they allow us to objectively measure work capacity and, therefore, fitness and health.

How to CrossFit: Through the activities that occur every day in garages and affiliates worldwide — sound programming, a commitment to technique, then intensity and threshold training, proper nutrition, scaling, and virtuosity in coaching. Rooted in the fundamentals, the implementation of CrossFit has been eloquently summed up in “World-Class Fitness in 100 Words:

“Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc., hard and fast. Five or six days per week, mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.“
—Greg Glassman, CrossFit Founder

Our methodology and definitions describe who we are, what we do, and why we do it. CrossFit is a health and fitness program for life, designed to optimize our quality of life until the end. 

Hyrox is not just a race, it’s a global phenomenon. The event is a spectacle, with an electrifying atmosphere of thumping music and cheering crowds. Unlike CrossFit’s variance, Hyrox races follow a standardized format, allowing participants from any event to be ranked on global leaderboards. 

The race format consists of a 1-km run, followed by a different exercise station for 8 rounds for time:

1-km run
1,000-meter ski erg
1-km run
50-meter sled push
1-km run
50-meter sled pull
1-km run
80-meter burpee broad jump
1-km run
1,000-meter row
1-km run
200-meter farmers carry
1-km run
100-meter sandbag lunges
1-km run
100 wall-ball shots

This is one heck of a chipper! Meaning, we think of Hyrox much like we do Murph, Clovis, Filthy Fifty, or Glen. 

Hyrox offers an Open category (what we call Rx’d in CrossFit), a Pro category (Rx’d+ with heavier weights), or athletes can compete with a teammate or as part of a team of four. With these options and basic movements almost anyone can do, Hyrox offers a suitable race option for everyone. We love this! Participants rave about the experience, and often come back and do it again with friends in tow. For CrossFit athletes, this race feels like home. We are no strangers to the ski erg, rower, sleds, lunges, carries, or burpee broad jumps. And we invented the wall-ball shot. The environment, the trending attire, and the community aspect are also very reminiscent of CrossFit events. This is definitely an intriguing option to add to the bucket list for testing the fitness we develop day in and day out in affiliates and garages all over the world.

CrossFit Athletes Doing Hyrox

Tia Clair Toomey Orr and James Newbury at Hyrox. Photo credit: The Barbell Spin

Not surprisingly, when top CrossFit athletes bring their fitness to Hyrox, they do very well. Their success in Hyrox is not just a testament to their individual abilities but also to the effectiveness of the CrossFit program. Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr — the top female CrossFit athlete of all-time with seven Fittest on Earth titles to her name — finished third in the mixed doubles category in her first Hyrox event in Melbourne with partner James Newberry, also a CrossFit Games athlete. Just three months later, the duo finished second at Hyrox Brisbane. Then, Toomey-Orr partnered with Joanna Wietrzyk (an Australian Hyrox superstar at only 22 years old) for the Elite Pro Women’s Doubles division in Houston, Texas, where they set a new world record. 

Other CrossFit Games athletes, such as current champion James Sprague, two-time Games champ Justin Medeiros, and Chandler Smith, have all produced excellent performances in their first attempts at Hyrox. With the popularity of Hyrox growing, affiliates have been signing athletes up for races as a fun community event, and these athletes also perform very well. 

Does this mean CrossFit and Hyrox are the same? No. It means CrossFit prepares people for Hyrox incredibly well. Hyrox movements are well-known and well-practiced by CrossFit athletes. Mixed modality training — monostructural, gymnastics, and weightlifting movements combined in one workout — is a CrossFit hallmark. CrossFit develops all metabolic pathways, allowing our athletes to show repeated bouts of high-power output (burpee broad jumps, wall-ball shots, and lunges), sustained intensity in high-glycolytic events (ski erg, row, sled push/pull, farmers carry) while having the aerobic capacity to endure through a race that lasts approximately an hour. What we’re seeing from our top CrossFit athletes as they test their fitness in Hyrox events is a confirmation of the elite level of fitness they can bring to this sport.    

Training For Hyrox

The question often asked is, “Is CrossFit all I need to do to train for a Hyrox event?” The short answer is yes. If the goal is to do a Hyrox event for fun or as a test to see what we can do without any specialized training, the best approach is to follow our regular workout regimen and show up on race day to throw down. Just like we don’t do specific training for Murph or Glen, we can show up at a Hyrox event as if it were another WOD. And from what we’ve heard from local affiliates, we’ll do pretty well, finishing anywhere from the top half to the top third of the participants or teams in the Open category.

If, on the other hand, the goal becomes excelling at Hyrox and vying for titles, then the broad, general, and inclusive fitness base we get from CrossFit, along with the familiarity with the movements, is an excellent starting point that will need to be augmented with event-specific preparation — just as we would expect of sport-specific athletes who play basketball, tennis, or soccer or who run, ski, or bike. Such specialized training for a Hyrox event might look like this:

1. Maintain CrossFit Training: Athletes should continue their regular CrossFit workouts three to four times a week to maintain a high level of general physical preparedness (GPP).
2. Identify Weaknesses: Athletes should assess their capacity for the running and movement stations to identify their areas of weakness.
3. Targeted Training: Athletes can incorporate focused skill work before or after their CrossFit workouts to target weaknesses.
4. Increase Specificity Over Time: Twelve weeks from the event, athletes should continue CrossFit while dedicating one longer-duration weekly workout to simulate Hyrox’s movements and format. Six weeks out, they’ll shift toward more event-specific training with increased running volume and longer workouts while reducing pure CrossFit volume. The final two weeks should focus on tapering intensity with one to two CrossFit sessions and three to four Hyrox-style weekly sessions.

In other words, to crush a Hyrox event, apply the principles of mechanics, consistency, and intensity in CrossFit and to that workout, and you’ll do far better than most.

This approach is effective not only for Hyrox but also for any sport where CrossFit serves as the foundation for GPP. 

Ultimately, CrossFit’s methodology provides a comprehensive base of fitness that can prepare athletes for nearly any challenge. However, targeting any of the eight Hyrox disciplines where an athlete may be weak and upping the running volume for four to six weeks before the event are essential for optimal results when the goal is the highest placement possible at a specific race.

CrossFit and Hyrox: Friends, Not Competitors

We’ve covered a lot of ground here, but circling back to the original question, I do not see Hyrox replacing CrossFit. Hyrox simply does not fulfill the same purpose as CrossFit. CrossFit is a strength and conditioning program, a lifestyle, designed to build work capacity across as broad a spectrum of physical qualities as possible so we can overcome as many physical challenges or adventures as possible, move all our health metrics in the right direction, battle chronic disease, and enjoy the highest quality of life possible for our entire lifespan. 

Optimal health is the need CrossFit satisfies. That’s what we were built for. 

Hyrox is a race, a single event, and it has never claimed to produce the depth and breadth of adaptation to deliver on health the way CrossFit does. 

Can someone get very fit training for Hyrox? Absolutely. But not as fit as a CrossFit athlete by OUR definition of work capacity across broad time and modal domains. CrossFit is the gold standard for developing health and fitness. Hyrox is an entertaining, emerging sport, and it’s fun to watch as a cadre of professional athletes push for incredible times. It is also a well-organized, exciting, unique, and extremely challenging race perfectly suited for testing a CrossFit athlete’s fitness. 

Despite what the press and many others would like you to believe, CrossFit and Hyrox are on the same side, and both bring something great to the party. Instead of the unnecessary and misinformed comparisons, CrossFit and Hyrox can co-exist happily in a mutually beneficial relationship for years to come.

About the Author

Stephane Rochet is a Senior Content Writer for CrossFit. He has worked as a Flowmaster on the CrossFit Seminar Staff and has over 15 years of experience as a collegiate/tactical strength and conditioning coach. He is a Certified CrossFit Trainer (CF-L3) and enjoys training athletes in his garage gym.