Endorphins were high at the Marina Market this weekend as 500 athletes sweat it out to complete a tough Hyrox challenge.
There was a buzz like no other as the music pumped through the speakers and spectators gathered to watch participants take on the unique fitness race.
Spectators admired the commitment and strength of the athletes taking part in the challenging course, giving some that intrinsic motivation to take on a Hyrox challenge themselves.
Hyrox is a unique fitness race combining running with functional exercises, testing endurance and strength.
It is a competitive indoor fitness race where participants run 1km, followed by one functional workout station, repeated eight times.
Each race is hosted indoors in large exhibition halls, creating an immersive experience for both participating athletes and spectators.
This race format is consistent across the globe, enabling global leaderboards and a cumulative World Championships at the end of each race season.
Accommodating both professional athletes and everyday fitness enthusiasts looking to take their training to the next level, Hyrox is a sport for everyone.
The race structure and exercises are the same for every race at every venue across the world. Participants will always start with a 1km run and finish with wall balls.
The only elements that change are the weight used in the sled push/pulls, kettlebell farmer carry, sandbag lunges, and wall balls, which are set based on gender and open or pro categories.
The event is structured in a way that participants have to complete a 1km run followed by a functional workout, and this cycle is repeated eight times.
- 1km run
- 1000m SkiErg
- 1km run
- 4 x 12.5m sled push
- 1km run
- 4 x 12.5m sled pull
- 1km run
- 80m burpee broad jump
- 1km run
- 1000m row
- 1km run
- 200m kettlebells farmers carry
- 1km run
- 100m sandbag lunges
- 1km run
- 100 wall balls
Hyrox was founded by Olympic hockey champion Moritz Fürste and Christian Toetzke and was first introduced in Germany in 2017.
From its humble beginnings in Hamburg with 650 participants taking part in the first Hyrox event,the sport has quickly established itself as the fastest-growing fitness sport in the world.
There are now over 40 races across the world – in more than 11 different countries and over 30 different cities – including Cork.
Organiser of Cork’s Hyrox Sim event at the Marina Market in Cork and owner of Alpha gym Josie McCarthy told the Irish Examiner: “Over the last couple of years, fitness is getting way bigger. I think more and more people are looking after their mental and physical health. For me, it’s only as popular over the last 18 months.
“Some people have been doing Hyroxfor years, but for us, especially in the gym, over the last 18 months, it’s been pretty Hyrox heavy because we only got affiliated over a year ago which essentially means you can run Hyrox classes and have the brand above your door.
“Because we only got affiliated this time last year, we had been tipping away and doing quite a lot of Hyrox classes all of last year. We started doing Hyrox ourselves in races as a team.
“So the team at Alpha has been to a couple of different cities now doing different races and it’s just something we like to do together.”
McCarthy said that after some time of running Hyrox classes at the gym, some of the team got talking about the possibility of running an event and decided to “go big or go home”.
“We rang the Marina Market and it just sort of escalated. So the first one was 180 people and it was our biggest event but after it was done we thought we could do that again but make it twice as big. So this weekend now we have 500 people doing it,” she said.
She said running the event is very admin-heavy but that she has a great team and the Marina Market has been great to work with.
Speaking about the health benefits of Hyrox, McCarthy said: “Obviously, you are training your body but it’s such a mind game.
“You have to push yourself mentally as well which is really good. We really encourage training for your mental health at Alpha.
“I always encourage anybody coming into the gym to continue training for their head space as well. When you’re doing a Hyrox, it can get quite hard.
“There are eight stations and certainly after the fifth one it gets quite hard and it’s a big one to push through In terms of physical benefits, she said Hyrox is particularly great for heart health which she said is “really good”.
She said training for Hyrox involves a lot of weight training which is also great for bone strength.
Touching on the sense of community that events such as Hyrox creates, she said: “We are heavy on Hyrox at the moment but we’ve done run clubs, we do the Olympics in our gym twice a year and anything we do that brings people together is so important.
“We depend heavily on our community for growing essentially because word of mouth is so important to us. I’ve been in business for nearly four years. Alpha started in May of 2021 and it was coming out of Covid so I was in my living room of my house with cow mats rolled across the floor and five dumbbells and I was trying to create a community from there just by being on social media and getting to know like-minded people
“That grew quickly over a couple of months and then coming out of Covid we were trying to do outdoorsy bits so that kept going and eventually we outgrew the house and moved into the gym up in Grange and it’s crazy to see the growth in it.
“Having like-minded people for this kind of event is so important because everyone will cheer each other on.
“We have 60 volunteers over the course of the three days coming in to support people who they don’t even know just because they’re happy to support us which then, in turn, supports our members. So, community is the pillar of Alpha and long may it continue.”
McCarthy said there are plans in the pipeline to run another Hyrox event in May and said she hopes that it will attract an even larger number of participants – hoping for 700-plus next time around.
“This is our second one. The first one was unbelievable but it’s all a learning experience. Today is even bigger than the last one.
“This time around, we have more spectators which adds to the buzz inside, everyone is in a good mood and obviously after working out you’re going to have high endorphins anyway so I think that’s going through the entire of Cork today because it’s so busy inside there and even on a wet day like today it’s great to see because everybody is in good form.”
