Hyrox is the new Crossfit—but what exactly is it, why do people like it, and what can you expect if you decide to try it?
Last Friday, my fellow Lifehacker writer Beth Skwarecki (a weightlifter) and I (a runner) completed a Hyrox race with far less than the recommended amount of training. We came out the other side with a final time of 01:36:48—and a lot of opinions about which stations nearly broke us. Let’s take a look at our personal rankings of the nine different movements that Hyrox demands.
How we're analyzing our Hyrox performanceWe tracked our heart rate data throughout the race, which gives us some data to back up what we intuitively felt like were our different strengths and weaknesses. A high average heart rate at a station means your cardiovascular system was working hard throughout. For a runner like me, a relatively lower average can mean I was pacing myself or recovering well during the runs. For Beth, her strength background means she can handle heavier loads, but the runs didn’t offer much recovery. In the doubles format, we both had to do the runs together, but could divide the work at the stations any way we liked. That means that during the stations, we each got short rest breaks while the other worked. Our average heart rate for each station includes both the working and resting time.
