Our Take on Leveraging Gen Z’s Obsession with Hyrox

There’s a shift happening on the gym floor, and if you’re not paying attention, you’re already behind.

Hyrox, the fitness race that combines eight 1km runs with eight functional workout stations, has gone from a niche German export to one of the most talked-about fitness formats in the world. London sold out in hours. Chicago went to a lottery system. Global participation climbed from 600 athletes in 2018 to over 650,000 in 2024, and the series is on track to top half a million race entries in 2025 alone.

But here’s what really interests us: the people driving that growth aren’t elite athletes. They’re Gen Z gym members, and they’re bringing their community, their content, and their spending with them.

We think that’s a serious opportunity for gym owners. Here’s our take on what’s actually going on, and how to make the most of it.

First, understand why Gen Z and Hyrox are such a natural fit

You can’t leverage a trend you don’t understand. So let’s start there.

Gen Z doesn’t go to the gym just to get fit. According to Fitness’s 2024 Wellness Watch report, this generation prioritises stress relief, mental wellbeing, and social connection as much as physical results. They want their gym to be a place that means something, not just a room full of equipment.

Hyrox delivers on all of that in one format.

It’s goal-oriented (there’s a finish line and a time to beat). It’s communal (you train for it together, you race alongside others, you celebrate finishing). And it’s deeply shareable, the training journey, the race-day drama, the finish-line moment, all of it was built for TikTok and Instagram before anyone planned it that way. A 2024 study by Zing Coach found that 56% of Gen Z already use TikTok for fitness and wellness guidance. Hyrox content feeds that appetite perfectly.

It’s also worth noting that Gen Z is the most gym-active generation right now. 73% of 18–24 year olds are current gym members or studio users, higher than any other age group. They’re already in your building. Hyrox gives you a reason to keep them there.

1. Position your gym as a Hyrox training destination

The simplest and most direct move. There are now over 5,000 gyms worldwide running Hyrox-branded training classes, and over 1,200 official Hyrox Training Clubs in the US alone. If your gym isn’t one of them, you’re losing members to ones that are.

But even without official affiliation, you can build Hyrox-specific programming into your timetable. Sled pushes, ski ergs, rowing, wall balls, burpee broad jumps, most well-equipped gyms already have what’s needed. What you’re really selling is structured preparation for a goal that Gen Z already cares about.

Label it clearly. Market it explicitly. Gen Z searches for specific things; “Hyrox training programme” is a much stronger pull than “functional fitness class.”

2. Build the community, not just the class

Here’s where a lot of gyms get this wrong. They add the class and stop there.

Gen Z doesn’t just want a workout. They want to belong to something. Hyrox works as a cultural phenomenon precisely because it creates a shared identity: you’re a Hyrox athlete, you wear the bib, you post the time, you compare it with your friends.

Your job is to bring that energy inside your four walls before race day.

That means a dedicated Hyrox training group with a name and a face (a coach who owns it). It means tracking progress publicly, a leaderboard, a whiteboard and a shared Strava club. It means organising as a squad to attend events together, because nothing cements gym loyalty like shared suffering at a race. The Strava Year in Sport 2024 report found that 58% of fitness group members made new friends through group exercise. Nearly one in five Gen Z respondents went on a date with someone they met that way. Community is the product.

3. Let your members create the content

You don’t need a marketing team to ride the Hyrox wave. You need your members’ phones pointed in the right direction.

58% of Gen Z say they trust influencer and peer recommendations over traditional advertising, far more than branded content. A member filming their Hyrox training session in your gym, tagging your location, and posting their race-day result reaches more of your target audience than most paid campaigns would.

Make it easy. Set up a photogenic corner of your gym near the Hyrox kit. Put your handle on the wall. Create a gym hashtag and remind people to use it. Celebrate members’ race results on your own social channels. The content machine runs itself when you set the conditions for it.

4. Use Hyrox as a lead capture vehicle

This one tends to get overlooked.

Hyrox training is goal-oriented; it has a natural beginning (sign up for a race) and a natural endpoint (race day). That structure is a gift for lead generation. Run a free introductory “Hyrox taster session” open to non-members. Promote it as race prep. Capture leads, follow up with a trial membership offer, and let the community do the converting.

The format works because the value is self-evident. You’re not selling them a gym membership, you’re helping them achieve something they already care about. That’s a much easier conversation to have.

5. Make sure your operations can handle the growth

Here’s the part that doesn’t make it onto the mood board.

If your Hyrox programme works, you’ll have waiting lists, scheduling conflicts, equipment demand, and a surge in new memberships, all at once. That’s a good problem to have, but only if your systems are ready for it.

Online booking that handles class capacity and waitlists. Automated communications that keep training groups informed about schedule changes. Membership management that can onboard new members quickly. Digital waivers that don’t slow down the experience. These aren’t exciting features, but they’re what separates a gym that successfully capitalises on a fitness trend from one that creates a chaotic experience and loses the members it just attracted.

We see this pattern constantly. A gym builds something great and then fumbles the operational execution. Don’t be that gym.

The bottom line

Hyrox isn’t a passing fad. The numbers are too consistent, the growth too sustained, and the cultural fit with Gen Z too strong for this to fade quietly. It grew 1,000%+ in five years, and it’s still accelerating.

For gym owners, the opportunity is clear: meet Gen Z where their enthusiasm already lives, build community around that enthusiasm, and make sure your gym is operationally ready to scale when it works.

The gyms that figure this out in the next twelve months will have a meaningful advantage over those that wait and see.

We’ve watched enough gym trends come and go to know that the ones worth acting on share a few things: a clear community dimension, a social media feedback loop, and a goalpost that creates natural urgency. Hyrox has all three.

Now’s the time to move.

Want to see how GymRoute can help you manage Hyrox programme growth, from waitlists to member communications to reporting? Book a demo and let’s talk through what that looks like for your gym.