I completed my first HYROX fitness race—here's how I prepared

HYROX has managed to pull off quite the feat. It's beloved by the extremely fit—as you'll find out if the Instagram algorithm suspects you of even a passing interest—but it's also genuinely accessible to all fitness levels.

The race—which consists of running 1km then doing a functional exercise, and repeating that eight times—can be done individually or in teams of two or four. When doing it as a team you all have to complete every 1km run, but only one person needs to do the exercise and the other(s) can take a breather. The difficulty of the functional exercises are also adjusted according to division and sex.

You can also train for it at one of the many HYROX partner gyms that have recently opened, or by using training plans on partner apps like FIIT. Additionally, since last year, certain F45 gyms run HYROX-specific sessions for members.

I've been covering HYROX since 2021, but had never tried it myself, assuming I lacked the strength to complete one. Last year I stopped just running and finally learned how to deadlift so when F45 invited me to compete in November's London event I decided it was time to see what the fuss was about.

The nearest HYROX-partnered F45 to me was Oxford Street in central London, so because that was a fair distance from where I lived, I also went to my local F45—a mere five minutes away.

And I was glad I had the help. Even though I continued running and went to the gym by myself to practice wall balls and make sure I could get a 152kg (335lb) sled moving, I think the training I put in with F45 was valuable.

Here's how it helped.

1. F45 made me lift stuff overhead

My foray into weight training earlier in the year revolved around training with a barbell—especially deadlifts and bench presses. A blind spot in my workouts that I hadn't recognized was the almost completed lack of overhead presses.

That meant wall balls, the final exercise in the race, was a glaring weakness, but I could rely on there being multiple presses in every F45 class I attended.

2. F45 made me do burpees

Similarly, I hadn't included any burpees in my individual visits to the gym, because who wouldn't swerve the worst exercise of them all given half a chance? But again, with the burpee broad jump featuring midway through the race, I was glad they were programmed in almost every F45 class I took.

3. I got used to working hard for a long time

No matter your good intentions of starting a HYROX gently and letting your heart rate build gradually over the event, you will start too fast and spend the entire time in a high heart rate zone.

F45 is an intense class once the warm-up is done, so my body got used to working in a high heart-rate zone for 40 minutes—a shock at first but over time I found I was able to put as much effort into the last exercise as the first—building the endurance that would see me into the latter stages of the race.

4. I got to try the P’F”T

As part of its service to members, the Oxford Street studio hosted the HYROX Physical Fitness Test (P’F”T), a way to guage which division to sign up for. You do the following as quickly as possible:

• 1,000m run
• 50 burpee broad jumps
• 100 lunges
• 1,000m row
• 30 hand release push-ups
• 100 wall balls

The best bit about this was getting me used to knocking out 50 burpees and not having a little sit down for a couple of minutes. The worst part was the wall balls, but that at least convinced me to work on them multiple times a week and break them up into multiple sets during the race so they didn't break me.

5. People to talk to

As I said, once Instagram gets a whiff that you're interested in HYROX, your feed will be flooded with training and race tips from the very fit—which, to be fair, are very useful.

What you get from F45, however, are people of a range of fitness levels to chat to and I got the best tips from those members who had done it before. "It's going to hurt, but you'll finish it", being the most memorable.

6. People to cheer you on

I went once or twice a week to my local F45 studio for about four weeks, and didn't mention I was doing HYROX. I then stopped going when I hurt my ankle on a treadmill around two weeks out of the event.

So I was surprised when someone from the crowd called my name as I began the burpee broad jumps. It was an instructor from F45 Streatham who had come to cheer on people from the studio, not knowing I would be there. It was a lovely surprise on one hand, but awful on the other because I felt I better respond to the support by speeding up.