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July 25, 2023

Written by: Anthony Peressini, PE

With the release of the new Hyrox Season and it's "Major" competitions we can confidently assess where the biggest events for this year will be and plan the programming around those.  If you missed the events, they are:

HYROX Major November 11, 2023 Chicago, USA

Scandinavian Major  December 2, 2023 Stockhom, Sweden

European Major February 10, 2024 Vienna, Austria

US Major March 2, 2024 Washington D.C., USA

For more details on how to qualify in the elite 15 wave, head on over to our friends at HFM for the article or click:

https://hybridfitnessmedia.com/2023/07/19/hyrox-elite-15-series-2023-2024-updates/

Our very own Coach, Lauren Weeks, has pre-qualified for all the Majors due to her World Championship performance last season! 

Combining this new information from Hyrox with the DekaFit and other seasons, we can see how the Season might play out and how our calendar year of planning will come about.

Dubai Hyrox September 2, 2023 Dubai, UAE

BattleBunker - Hybricon Games October 28-29, 2023 San Diego, CA

DekaFit World Championships December 2, 2023 Dallas, TX

MORE INFO TO COME AND A BREAKDOWN OF THE STRUCTURE SOON!!

June 24, 2023 - San Antonio, Texas

The Hybrid Engine had one athlete at the Battlebunker Western Regional for the Hybricon Games.  That athlete was, of course, Lauren Weeks!  She was the number one seed going into the weekend and competed to that by winning two of the three events. We had some concerns about the heat that was supposed to be in excess of 100-degrees with Texas humidity, but the mitigation techniques used helped alleviate any ill effects!

Lauren came out hot on the first event running the first mile with a 14-lb vest in 6:08, nearly a minute faster than second place, Calypso Sheridan.  The event was ran on an asphalt parking lot behind Alpha Warrior Fitness in the Texas heat.  The loop ended up being about 340 meters so the athletes had to run 5 laps. This meant the runs for event 1 were about 100m longer than a mile, as opposed to the Eastern Regional where the miles on the event 1 were about 100m shorter than a full mile (6x250m), but the Eastern Regional was run on grass instead of asphalt.  After the run, Lauren had great movement on the reps, completing the 60 Sandbag S2OH, 120 Push-ups, and 240 Air Squats with a 14-lb vest in  16:08 and running her second weighted mile in 7:36 for a total time of 29:52 on event 1.  Lauren finished over 6 minutes ahead of second place.  Without the pressure of possibly being caught, Lauren was able to back off on that second mile to save herself some energy for the upcoming events.  

In event 2, it was size and strength that would show up!  After just getting into off-season training after a full + 2 week extended Hyrox season of endurance, strength was down a little.  Lauren was still able to show-up and secure a top 5 in event 2 by Bench Pressing 135-lbs for 5 reps and deadlifting 225-lbs for 23 reps in 1 minute.  Her 28 rep total was good for 5th place, which is amazing considering she is one of the smallest athletes in the field.

In event 3, it was time to run.  The focus of the last several months has been improving her compromised running, so getting to showcase speed and endurance on a run only event was exciting.  Lauren took the lead after the first 100m of the Last Athlete Standing event 3 and never looked back, winning the event by over half a lap. Her placements of the day, 1st/5th/1st, put her atop the podium and in a great position to gear up for the Hybricon Games in October.

Written by: Anthony Peressini

ARTICLE INCOMPLETE, will continue and update...

HYROX: A History of the women’s field 

May 30, 2023

Anthony Peressini, PE

Introduction

In a world that constantly seeks innovation and challenges, the realm of fitness is no exception. New trends and training methodologies emerge regularly, captivating the hearts and minds of fitness enthusiasts across the globe. One such phenomenon that has taken the fitness community by storm in recent years is Hyrox, an exhilarating sport that combines endurance, strength, and muscular endurance. Hyrox has garnered a dedicated following throughout Europe, especially the UK, and the USA and will expand to the Middle East and the Asian Pacific next year.  Hyrox has transformed the traditional notion of fitness competitions, offering a unique blend of athletic prowess and mental fortitude. Hyrox offers a place for so many different types of athletes. CrossFit athletes that want to run and show off the longer duration of sport, Ex-college athletes of various backgrounds looking for their next challenge, Former Olympic Level Gymnasts, Runners who find the thrill of lifting weights, and so much more! In the four years that I have been around the sport I have seen all of these athletes come in and find joy on both the men and women’s side. As we delve into the annals of this captivating sport, let us uncover the origins, evolution, and remarkable journey of Hyrox. 

Origins and Concept

Hyrox was first conceived in 2017 by Christian Toetzke and Moritz Fürste, two passionate fitness entrepreneurs hailing from Germany. Driven by their shared desire to create an all-encompassing fitness challenge, they aimed to design an event that would test athletes across multiple domains of fitness, offering a fresh perspective to the world of competitive sports. Drawing inspiration from functional fitness, obstacle course racing, and CrossFit, Toetzke and Fürste set out to craft a comprehensive competition that would push athletes to their limits and beyond.  They brought on Mintra Tilly and created an event that Toetzke hoped he could grow in the way he had helped Ironman grow in the 80s and 90s across the world. 

Format and Evolution

The inaugural Hyrox Season took place in 2018-2019, featuring a grueling combination of eight 1-kilometer runs interspersed with eight functional fitness workouts. The sport quickly gained traction in Germany and across Europe, captivating athletes who craved a multidimensional challenge. As the popularity of Hyrox soared, the organizers expanded its reach, creating a series of regional and international competitions, each attracting a diverse array of participants from different athletic backgrounds.  Hyrox first broke into the USA by announcing they would have their first US race in October, 2019 in Miami and the traditional prize money would be doubled, plus an extra incentive that anyone who beat their reigning world champions' World Record times, Imke Salander or Lukas Storath, would win a $5,000 bonus! This first race attracted a lot of attention in the states, and would feature two athletes that have since gone on to win three World titles each for the USA, Lauren Weeks and Hunter McIntyre. In this article, I will be focusing on the path of The Hybrid Engine athlete, Lauren Weeks from that first race in Miami through the 2023 Hyrox World Championships that were just ran in Manchester, England. 

The event consists of Eight challenging fitness stations, each demanding a unique set of physical skills.  The setup is never the same, the difficulty of the sleds from venue to venue has been a point of contention to the athletes and fans, the course length and how it is measured is sometimes called into question (whether a venue actually runs the full 8.7km – We will get into why it is 8.7km and not 8km later), but overall, Hyrox has gotten at least the top 5 athletes in each gender right each season of the Elite 15 they invite. The stations in order are: 1km Ski Erg, 50m Sled Push with 385/275lbs added to the sled (this changed in 2023), 50m Sled Pull with 275/165lbs added to the sled, 80m burpee broad jump, 1km Row Erg, 200m Farmer Carry, 100m Sandbag Walking Lunges 66/44lbs, and 100 Wall balls 20/14lbs to 10/9ft, with 1km of running between each station and a transition area called the RoxZone.  Athletes tackle these stations in succession, while maintaining an unwavering focus and a relentless drive to push beyond their limits.

The Rise of a Community

Beyond its physical demands, Hyrox has fostered a vibrant community of like-minded individuals who share a passion for pushing boundaries and embracing fitness as a way of life. The inclusive nature of the sport has attracted athletes of all ages and backgrounds, encouraging camaraderie, support, and personal growth within the community. The Hyrox community has expanded globally, with events taking place in major cities around the world, offering participants the chance to connect, compete, and celebrate their shared love for fitness.

Hyrox Season 2 - Coming to America

Sometime in July or August of 2019, Hyrox announced that it would be hosting it’s first race in the USA in October in Miami.  They were offering $2,500 to the winner of each gender, plus a bonus of $5,000 if you beat the reigning World Champions' World Records.  The news spread through the OCR and CrossFit communities like wildfire, with several athletes posting videos of their run throughs breaking the established World Record times by several minutes.  In Las Vegas, Nevada at the gym we trained out of, Lauren got a call from Yancy Culp (more likely a voice message) telling her that she should race in this event because it was exactly her type of Cyborg fitness.  Lauren had been training in CrossFit at this point for about 5 years but had maintained a base of running about 30-40 miles per week throughout all the hours of CrossFit training. As the race approached, all the pundits focused on Hunter McIntyre, Isiah Vidal, Corrina Coffin, and Faye Stenning.  The bravado of the American Men at this race was hilarious, every single one of them just knew they were about to break that record time and win $5,000.  In that first race, Hunter McIntyre was victorious, but failed to break the 60 minute mark and did not win the $5,000 bonus (yet, he would later win the bonus in Chicago a couple months later).  

This was Lauren's first Hyrox race and the goal was to make the podium or see where she stacked up against the field.  We knew going into the race that Lauren would be strongest on the sleds and wall ball stations compared to her competitors, if we knew then what we knew now, we would have strategized that first race a little differently.  The women's race had some back and forth in the first few stations with Imke falling back to fourth after the ski, When Faye hit the sleds, Lauren and Imke overtook her, but she made up for it on the runs.  Lauren was in third from the fourth run until the wall ball station.  Faye and Imke had some back and forth but Faye had begun to open a lead on each run gaining 10-15 seconds each time on Imke and ~30 seconds per run on Lauren.  Lauren and Imke would claw some time back in the station work, but Faye entered the Wall Balls nearly a minute ahead of Imke and three plus minutes ahead of Lauren.  Lauren put down the fastest wall ball time of the day though, nearly catching back up to first place in that one station but ended up in Second Place to the reigning World Champion, Imke Salander, by 1:50.  Faye ended up taking nearly eight minutes on the wall balls and falling back to third place.  A few lessons learned from the first race showed us that even if you think you are in a spot that is too far behind to catch those in front and too far in front to be caught from behind, keep grinding hard at your pace because you never know what weaknesses or fatigue the other competitors might experience.  For most of this first race, Lauren was in third place and trailed second by about 2 minutes and was 3 minutes ahead of fourth, so she ran solo just holding where she was because it did not seem likely to take any position but 3rd.  This lesson learned would be reinforced in Chicago a couple months later.

Hyrox had a race in New York later that year and then Lauren and I would catch the third USA race in Chicago in January 2020.  It was actually in a hotel room here that we first heard of a case of COVID-19 spreading to the USA.  The plan going into Chicago was to dominate the stations and recover on the runs with a 4:30 per 1000m run pace.  This seemed to work at first, with Lauren leading the field of Faye Stenning, Alyssa Hawley, Morgan Shulz, and Rebecca Hammond.  Lauren had a fantastic sled push of 3:15 that was great at the time, but ended up in a tough spot on the sled pull and whether it was the lane, the carpet, or the sled, her sled pull was 8:49 which still stands as her slowest to date.  She again ended up running this race nearly solo because she was behind the three leaders of Faye, Alyssa, and Morgan by a couple of minutes, but ahead of Rebecca by a few minutes in "no man's land".  She had learned from Miami to keep pushing and when she got to the wall balls, she threw down a time that still stands as one of her top 3 fastest wall ball times, 3:12, breaking only twice in the set of 100.  Unfortunately, it was not enough to propel her to first place but it did get her to the podium by passing Morgan to finish Third.  Lauren finished Chicago 18-seconds behind Faye in 1st place and 14-seconds behind Alyssa in 2nd place.  Another lesson was learned from this event.  Some work was going to be done on that sled pull!

It was Dallas 2020, just a couple weeks before the world shutdown from COVID-19 that Lauren put it all together, broke that 70-minute barrier, and stood at the top of the podium.  

ARTICLE TO BE ADDED TO AND CONTINUED.... 

Conclusion:

As Hyrox continues to captivate athletes and fitness enthusiasts worldwide, it stands as a testament to the ever-evolving landscape of competitive sports. From its humble origins to becoming a global phenomenon, Hyrox has redefined the boundaries of fitness competitions, challenging participants to go beyond their perceived limitations. With its unique blend of athleticism, strategy, and community spirit, Hyrox has undoubtedly secured its place as a thrilling sport that celebrates the relentless pursuit of excellence.