#85 To Hyrox Or Not to Hyrox....

Hyrox is everywhere right now, and the question we keep getting is simple: “Should I do it?” Larry and Daniel take a proper look at what’s really pulling people towards Hyrox, from FOMO and fitness trends to the very real desire for community, belonging, and a shared goal you can train for with your mates. We’re clear on one thing from the start: getting more people exercising is a net positive, no matter the entry point.

We also get honest about expectations. If your main goal is fat loss, building muscle, or getting stronger, Hyrox training may or may not be the best fit depending on where you’re starting from and what trade-offs you’re willing to accept. We talk about the “Hyrox athlete” illusion, why advanced physiques are usually built with years of structured strength training and smart programming, and how too much race-specific conditioning can chip away at strength and lean mass for some gym-goers.

From there, we zoom out to the fitness industry itself: why every trend is also a business, how “recovery tools” and supplements get bundled into the hype, and why nutrition and energy balance still decide whether you actually get leaner. If you love Hyrox, brilliant, stick with it. If you hate burpees, be honest about what you’re signing up for. The goal is a training programme you enjoy, can sustain, and that matches what you want from your health and fitness.

If this sparks a reaction, share it with a mate who’s thinking about signing up, subscribe for more straight-talking fitness chats, and leave a review so more people can find the podcast.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Hyrox Question

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, you're listening to the Gen Pop Podcast with me, your host, Larry Doyle. Each week, I'm gonna bring in friends, guests, and experts to help enhance your health, fitness, and wellness journeys. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversations.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Welcome back to another episode of the Gen Pop Podcast, where this week, co-host Daniel and I, we're gonna talk about Hyrox. Daniel, are we gonna do a tag team doubles high rocks?

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Yeah, I think high-rox uh workouts coming for all the clients shortly. Um yeah, I'd like to again, there's a million angles we could come for from this, and like just as you press record on this, I just had the thought of like, but why do people actually do higher rocks? And that's not me saying like, oh, that's a waste of time, but it's like genuinely had the question in my head of like, why do people do high rocks? Because like, is it that you want to be better at pushing a sled or you know, being more efficient at carrying dumbbells across a gym or whatnot? And I think a lot of people actually have never asked themselves the question is like, why am I actually doing higher rocks? Like, what is my expected outcome or my desire? Because, like, again, you'd have people that would join the gym because like I'm on to lose weight, or I want to you know run a marathon because you know I want to just say I completed a marathon, but like I've never actually heard someone giving their reasoning as to why they're doing a high rox, other than like I get a picture at the high rocks event, or like I have a social element to it.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

But can I tell you why people are doing it? FOMO, fads. I have nothing wrong with HIROX. I'm just gonna preface that straight away. I think HIROX is a net positive. There is more people exercising, there is more people in gyms, there's more people in groups, there's more people having crack with exercise and fitness and getting into it. And that like we're facing into a major epidemic with obesity levels. And the more people we can get into doing fitness, it's a net positive.

FOMO And Following The Herd

SPEAKER_01 2:05

And if that's dancing in your garden in a hula hoop, or if it's doing high rocks, or if it's doing marathons, or if it's doing lifting weights in a gym, doing whatever, it's awesome. More people the better, because we're going to have a healthier, more robust uh group of people within the population. That's absolutely what we want. Um, the typical thing, like one, if I was to try do a high rocks right now, I would not be able to do it. So that's probably why I have no interest in doing it. Uh physically not being able to do it because I haven't practiced the skills, I haven't ran, I don't, I don't enjoy these kind of things, even though I probably should put a little bit more focus on them. Personally, I like lifting weights, personally, I like feeling stronger, personally, I like having more muscle on my frame. And I don't think that those are net positives for what I'm personally looking to do with my own goals. Um, I am not anti those things, I am just pro-choice of my selections being more in line with the goals that I want to have. And I think this is a struggle and a conflict that people are having now at the moment because they're saying, Should I do HIROX? This is like a question that we get a lot every week with clients. It's like, should I be doing a HIROX? And it's purely from FOMO. They see so many other people doing it, and they'll say, Well, I want to look like HyROX athlete X. We looked up the stats just before we started this, and HyROX has been around since 2017. It's been a thing for quite a while, but like anything, it takes a while before it reaches that real critical ascension, right? And it starts to explode. And it's been like 2023-24 since HyROX really came on the scene. And now in the last year, 25 and into 26, it's been booming and it's doing an incredible. And we now see Troika, we see all the other events coming into it as well. This used to be CrossFit before the owner of CrossFit went crazy and started doing wild shit and putting out mental tweets, and people start fucking leaving it and doing whatever, and now it's just filling in a gap, and people are jumping on the next trend. But with so many people jumping on the trend, and we'll see influencers jumping on the trend, we'll see uh notable celebrities jumping on the trends, and it's cool and it's fantastic, and again, it's promoting health and fitness, and we're seeing people more getting into it because of that. And I think that's again a net positive. But people are getting into it because they just think they should be doing it because everyone else is doing it, they're kind of following the herd. There is a bit of a group thing with that, and I understand that people want to have a sense of belonging, they don't feel like they're part of a group when they go into a gym and just put their hood up and start banging plates off the ground doing deadlifts. Like that's it's very isolated, it's very a lonely endeavor, it's very like non-tribal. And as a human race, we want to have a connection, a sense of purpose, a sense of being, a sense of uh community. And

Community, Belonging And Motivation

SPEAKER_01 4:55

those gyms that are doing the likes of I'm using hierarchs, but let's just use insert fitness trend here as the thing. They're doing a fantastic job at building a tribe and a community, and that's the real thing. That's the real thing people are really looking for, I think, because there was so much disconnection, and the timing of hierarchs exploding was a big like you look at it, kind of COVID dies off, hierarchs inclines a lot very quickly because people lost that sense of community, that sense of belonging, that sense of group and environment. And now something was there to facilitate that for them, and they all got into it. But now you'll see again a lot of people kind of like, should I do hierarchs? Because you know, there's people in shape doing hierarchs, so I want to look like those people who are in shape. People who are in shape from hierarchs are not in shape from hierarchs because hierarchs hasn't been around for long enough for people to have like a physique from hierarchs, so it's like those people were running marathons, they were running, uh doing CrossFit, they were doing whatever, and you're just gonna see some jacked people. It's kind of like finding drunks in a bar, finding jacked people doing exercise because it's a byproduct of doing the thing that you're doing, that you're gonna have uh physiques related to that or people who look like they do the thing. Um, so there isn't really a high rock's physique per se, you know, because one a lot of people are doing it for physique aesthetic goals, and it doesn't drive any of the processes that will lend to positive physique outcomes. I think people are gonna lose a lot of muscle and a lot of strength from doing high rocks. If you're an absolute beginner, you're gonna gain a ton of strength from doing high rocks because you're moving your body weight, you're moving a heavy sled, you're moving the kettlebells, you're doing all that crack, and you're gonna do like an ORX version where you're scaling up towards the heavier competition loads. But when you get to those loads and you spend enough time at it, you're not gonna be getting any stronger because you're doing so much specific training towards that. You're not gonna be getting any fitter really because you're doing the same amount of distance, you're doing the same amount of uh events, they're grouped the same. It's like going in and expecting to grow a bigger chest, but always benching 60 kilos. It's nothing is gonna happen because there's no new novel stimulus, there's no reason to really drive that. So I think people looking at it with the goal of improving their physique, who are intermediate to advanced gym goers, are not going to see much return. If anything, it might be net negative. And I've seen this with clients who have done a lot more high rox training, and that's completely fine if there's a trade-off they're willing to accept with it all, of losing some strength and losing some muscle tissue. But I don't think from a longevity perspective that losing both at all is a good thing. You will improve your VO2 max, absolutely, from uh improving

The Hyrox Physique Myth

SPEAKER_01 7:35

your high rocks or kind of training more towards it if you haven't done much endurance sports before that, uh, which will see long-term return from a longevity perspective. But for the general and average population, I think they're kind of getting into it for the wrong reasons. Let me know your thoughts. What do you think? What do you see with people on it?

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah, no, 100%. And like, I think uh just to kind of like carry on from that, that the first thing you need to realize with like any of these things is like it is a business, it is a business at the end of the day that they need to make money because like I didn't watch the video, but I just saw the title of the video, and I think I might have it saved on YouTube, but it was something along the lines of like front running is free, so who's actually making money from it? And like if you look into like say marathons, like marathons make like five billion a year or something just purely based off of entry fees, and like look at like the amount of money that's uh generated through like say running shoes, clothing, supplements, and all this kind of stuff. Because it's being sold to you, is like if you get this shoe, you're going to run a faster time. If you use this supplement, you're going to get a faster time, your recovery is going to be better. So, like, they're making money off of something that essentially is free. Like, running costs nothing at the end of the day, but they're making money off of it. So, like, every now and then there has to be a bit of a shake up in the industry to kind of like sell it to you as a different package, but you're kind of doing something similar. And like, again, I'm not we're not picking on CrossFit or Hyrux, whereas, like, look at the bodybuilding world, you would have had like say uh FST7 would have been a popular style of training with uh with Rembrandt type of training, and like even probably would have peaked or not peaked, but it probably would have picked up a bit more uh momentum again a couple of years ago when like Chris Bumstead sort of being coached by him again, like and he started training like that, and people would look that saying, like, I need to also follow that type of training to look at Chris Bumstead. It's like Chris Bumstead has looked fucking incredible for the last 15 years, and it wasn't because it's Chris Bumstead. Exactly. And like again, you could pick like say DC training, like it, and that went through like another trend again not so long ago, Dente Trudel's type of training. But like at the end of the day, it all works, but it all depends on like like what do you enjoy doing and like what can you stay consistent with, and that's going to give you results. But the problem with high rocks that we tend to see is like someone's like, I want to get leaner, bigger, jacked, have more muscle. I'm thinking about doing high rocks. What you think is like, but like that is not what's going to get you to the position you want to be in. If you want to do high rocks and that gives you enough enjoyment and that kind of like you know, is a higher priority than you actually gaining muscle, by all means go for it. But like if your priority is to get more jacked, to build more muscle, to be leaner, then you probably want to look at something else. Again, you could maybe have a compromise where you have a higher rocks, you know, class a week, or maybe you add in a finisher to your sessions that is kind of a higher rock space where you do some fire carries at the end, or you add in like the skierg or something, whatever it is. But you really need to look at like what is your actual goal, what is your outcome, and then let's see, does that actually align with that? Because again, I think as you said, like higher rocks, crossfit, all these things are great because from like a your group setting and socializing perspective, and like if you look at things like Weight Watchers, Slimming World, all these things, you again you could make arguments saying, like, yeah, but they're fucking what they're educating them on, or what their outlooks are, or their different strategies and stuff like are questionable, and we'd all agree on that. But the one thing you can't argue against is the fact that like it's bringing people together to have a similar goal, and like a lot of time what you will see is they might do that for like a year, but then kind of realize, you know, this isn't really working for me, but they have the kind of the foundations in place, and then they do some work theirselves and they kind of realize, okay, I found this calorie counting thing. I'm gonna see what that's like because that's saying that I don't have to like you know track sins, and there's no such thing as like these free foods or whatever they call them. That like I can still eat you know a piece of chocolate if I want to don't have to like call it a sin. And it kind of fits my lifestyle a bit better. So it's you know, it's all about kind of like progressing and kind of seeing, like, okay, what actually do I find enjoyable? What can I adhere to long term? And is it in line with what I want to look at achieving? If it is, then stick with it. Like, don't look at kind of jumpy on the bang wagon because like everyone else is doing it. Look at it and kind of say, like, is that something I really want to do?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah, it's huge. And like to like for me, it like you know, I look at this with clients that be like, okay, if you want to have something in a group and community environment because you don't want to feel isolated in the gym and you want to have that something that's gonna um work alongside a goal

Pick The Right Training Vehicle

SPEAKER_01 12:15

that we have of doing fat loss and you want to increase your expenditure, cool, let's do a class. Exactly, like you said, I think it's very worthwhile. Like for me, I did my cardio yesterday because I was mowing the grass and I put it on a weighted vest, and I didn't use the little thumb push button thing, and I just made it a little bit harder. So I was essentially pushing a sled for 40 minutes. That for me, I was able to fit it into my day, my lifestyle, my everything else. Something I have to do, and I can combine it because I'm time poor. I don't have time or interest to go to other classes. But if you can fit it in, I've again got clients who their goal is fat loss and they're running a half marathon. And we have a couple of clients doing this at the moment, and I think it's awesome to do it because now we can lean in and leverage off that, where they're gradually increasing their output and activity, and we want to gradually increase the amount of body fat that's coming off their body. Um, so we can keep their calories in check and their expenditure increases. Now we're positively impacting their energy balance. Now we see more body fat coming off while we're still fueling the process. We can use that alongside the goal. So again, it's there's no muddying of the waters with the goal. The goal is still to get leaner, to have a better physique, but they're using a half marathon as a driver, as a vehicle for some of the fat loss to increase the expenditure. That's intelligent programming around it, and it's something the client wants to do and enjoys doing, so that's cool. But it's making sure that there's purpose behind what you're doing, that you're not just blindly following the trend just for the sake of it. I had a client reach out the other day and they were kind of saying, like, should I be doing high rocks? And I was like, Well, do you fucking enjoy doing burpees? And I was like, No, I hate them. I was like, Well, chances are you're gonna fucking hate high rocks then. It's like, right, there's the whole do hard things and lean into things that you don't like doing because it's probably telling you something about yourself that you need to do. And I'm like, there's better ways of doing that than doing burpees, you know. And again, I'm not hating on it and I don't want to come across like a hater. I really think it's a fantastic idea, but I just want people to be doing things that are in line with what they like and enjoy. And by all means, go try it out. And maybe you know, something crazy can happen, and I'll go try it out down the line and you know, maybe I'll enjoy it and maybe I'll start posting my times and whatever. Um, but again, at the same point, it's to make sure that it's in line with the outcomes that you actually want. And when we look at the physiques that, you know, are aspirational for people that maybe are more uh to the fore within CrossFit, within high rocks, within whatever, that's getting a lot of coverage now at the minute. They're full-time athletes, and the people who are looking up to them are not full-time athletes. Those people are doing multiple sessions per day. They are peaking for specific events. You don't see them when they're six months out from a competition and they're carrying more body fat because now they've increased their training volume and they've dropped some body fat. They've probably been doing some strength and hypertrophy training as well, too, to complement it because they will have a uh macro mesocycle built out for the whole year based off specific events that they're looking to peak for. And they will run through periods of uh more intensity with their training, more volume with their training, lower intensity, less volume. And they're gonna run through specific periods of again, more Olympic lifting, more uh heavier compounds, more strength training, more higher calorie phases as well, too, whatever it might be. And they are ultimately managing their physique by doing all these things. And they're also those who are at the the higher end of the scale are gonna be genetic anomalies as well, too. So again, it's like me trying to play basketball to get taller. It's like it's not really gonna happen because you know, tall people play basketball. So again, it's looking at the likes of the thing. And are you gonna get the outcome that you're looking for, or is it just actually misaligned with the the inputs that you're doing as well too? And again, I'm gonna stretch back to that. I do not hate it. I really think it's a

Fitness Trends As A Business

SPEAKER_01 15:55

fantastic, I think it's a net positive for the whole um culture, for the fitness thing, for the whole sphere in the world. I think it's a net positive. People are doing it. Um, but again, something like this, it will draw a lot of attention only to the exercise element of it. And you'll have people doing, I'm doing five higher sessions a week, but I'm not getting any leaner. Well, ultimately they need to look at their nutrition because they're not expending enough calories through all that. And the amount of calories you'll actually expend is not all that much. You know, you might expend five, six hundred calories in a session, regardless of what your Garmin or your Strav or whatever is telling you or your polar uh chest strop is telling you throughout these things. And that's not having enough of an impact because you're eating like a maniac on the weekend or you're eating like a lunatic there after those sessions, and you're still misaligned with your energy balance. And if fat loss is still the main goal, yes, use Hyrox, but you need to look at your nutrition alongside that. And you'll see the whole thing of people using all the gels, using all the powders and the fueling and the carb loading for it. If you're carrying, you know, an exceptional amount of body fat, chances are you really don't need to be carb loading already for that. You need to just make sure that your actual uh composition is addressed prior to doing that with your nutrition as well. Because if you can lose, you know, five, ten, twenty kilos, burpees are gonna be infinitely easier for you to manage as well, too. So it's you know, it's really worthwhile. If you're doing anything in terms of body weight, like if you want to get infinitely uh better at running, lose some body weight. If you want to get better at burpees, if you want to get better at wall balls, if you want to get better at whatever being lighter is probably and being stronger as well, too, is going to be very advantageous for you to look at in terms of that. Um let's talk about some other positives because I don't want to make it sound like I'm just ragging on it. Like there's so many things I could go off, and I'm not gonna say about it again. Um where do you think we're gonna see this trend going? Uh I guess is another thing to look at, Daniel. What's gonna what's gonna replace it in the next three to five years? Like it generally comes in cycles. What do you think is gonna be the next thing come on board to come on board?

SPEAKER_02 17:59

I generally don't know. I think it it's just almost just re-wrapping the same thing in it in a different way, because like you just see it being kind of you know marketed and sold as a different name, but it's kind of the same thing to a degree under the under the hood, like as I said, like named out like a FST 7 and DC style training, breast pause training, whatever it is, like it's all just a vehicle to kind of take you to the same place, and like it's all about just like like the things that I do like about Pyrox classes or whatever is like they're usually at a preset time, you know, like every Monday there's a class at this time, you know it's going to be an hour, you know, the people who are going to be there, so it's keep you accountable to a degree because you know the time it's on, you know how long it's going to be, you know, who's going to be there, and likely we'll kind of develop friendships, and that'll again will bring you along and keep you accountable. And that's where kind of some people can struggle with the gym, is like they're kind of like, Oh, I don't really know when to go to the gym, and like I don't have time to go to the gym, or like uh how long should I be in the gym? And this kind of answers all those questions for you because it's like, right, be at the gym at this time, we're going to do this for this length of time. This is going to be there, and then once you're finished, you're gone, you can do whatever you want. Um,

Nutrition Reality Behind Fat Loss

SPEAKER_02 19:10

but in terms of like the future of it, I've no clue where it's going to go. Like as I've seen, I think I think we'll almost see people the world uh world um conspiracy theorists here. I think we'll actually see people start moving away from doing stuff and actually start doing less that people will start looking at like doing more recovery things than actually doing the work themselves. Because like I've seen like a lot of high-rocks CrossFit style gyms now start to put in like coal plunges and those fucking the shits that you put your legs into and all this kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah, it's it's another way of increasing your revenue. It's like, okay, how can I get those people to pay me more money and make them feel like they have to stay engaged? And this is like again, this we're capitalizing off the fitness industry, we're coaching people, not capitalizing, we're doing the right thing, in my opinion, and getting people to better outcomes, which is ultimately saving the money in the long term. But it's looking at how you can increase the revenue. So it's selling them supplements that they really don't need, it's giving them recovery tools that they really don't need. It's like it's a lot of it is actually removing the responsibility from the people to look after themselves because one, they're going to a class, been told what to do, then they've been put into a recovery room thereafter and told what to do, and then they're doing whatever they're after as well, too, right? So there's there is a huge aspect of of the capitalization on that. I think the I think it's gonna stay for a long time because it's way more accessible in terms of like CrossFit. You have to go learn the Olympic lifts, and you haven't a clue what's gonna come up in the workout because they can literally throw any random shit into it. It could be swimming, it could be seen in one of the events, they have to throw a tennis ball as far as they could one day. It's like, how the fuck do you train for that? It's like, you know, there's there's a lot of random things, uh, whether it's handstand walking, whether it's whatever. And immediately, if you start putting in kipping pull-ups, that's going to eliminate the majority of the overweight category that could go into a high rocks community as well, too, right? So because of the limitation that are there with the events with it, I think it's going to stay around for a long time, but everyone is going to start kind of peaking and really not being able to progress any further because there isn't any additional challenge with it, other than they'll get a time with their first event, and then they'll decrease that time and then they'll decrease it further. But now it starts to get really, really marginal in terms of how they can decrease it. And you know, they're not going to be able to push it that much further because you're ultimately staying at the same level of strength, and you're probably losing some muscle mass, you're not really gaining too much more fitness outside of it all. So, again, you're going to see that. But for the the average person who's doing it, they're going to get a lot of enjoyment and whatever out of it for a temporary amount of time, and then they're going to find they're getting fed up doing the same shit over and over again. So who knows where it's going to go. Um, so if it's triggered, yeah, I'm kind of sorry, but not sorry in a way as well too. On this episode, I think it's just sharing my feelings where I think it's coming from. What we're seeing with people who are coming into us in terms of not. Maybe having the wrong goal or using the wrong vehicle to try to get to the goal that they're ultimately

Where The Trend Goes Next

SPEAKER_01 22:05

looking for. I'm just feeling that there's that bit of FOMO, they're kind of missing out on something, and maybe to realise they are missing out or not missing out when they get to it as well, too. But just some insights shared from us. We'd love to hear your insights as well, too. If there's anything you find that kind of either struck a nerve that you want to have a discussion on, I'm absolutely up for it. Not just to debate with people just for the sake of having an argument, but to actually discuss and maybe you'll enlighten me on a few things as well, too. And to say for Daniel, um, if there's anything you think that is true within it all as well, too, that you want to discuss, make sure you reach out, touch base, and do ask us questions. If you think that is it right or not for me, ask us that as well too, and we'll help guide you. Because ultimately, we want to get more people into health and fitness. Ultimately, we want to have more people getting through the results that they want, but ultimately do it in a way that we can have it more sustainable, more enjoyable for them as well, too. Because again, everyone needs to do what they find the most enjoyable as opposed to what they think they should be doing because the crowd is going that way. Uh, Daniel, any last notes before we wrap it up?

SPEAKER_02 23:01

I think we've kind of covered everything. Like I think, like I know a lot of the discussion was around hierarchs, and you might think like we're picky on that, but that's why I wanted to include the gym-related ones, like from the if you want to call it bodybuilding world. But I think even if you just look at general gyms, because people could be looking at this and saying, Oh, they're just talking down hierarchs because like they're deeply invested in gyms, but like again, I'd say if you were to do some like wide-scale study on gym members, it's only a small percentage of people that go to gyms actually get really, really good results, and that's because the people that do get the really really good results are the ones that stay consistent with it, and it's the same. Like if you stay consistent with high rocks, you're gonna get some adaptation, it might not be the one you want, but you're going to adapt to the stimulus being provided by HIROX. Same with the gym. If you're coming to the gym and every four weeks like changing your training sessions, you're not probably not going to get good results from it. So at the end of the day, I think like the main takeaway is if you enjoy HIROX, great, stick with it. If you enjoy the gym, great, stick with it. But like you're only going to get results if you stick with something long term. And if you start giving up on things because it gets challenging or whatever, that you're not going to get results from it. So that's why at the end of the day, stick with whatever you actually enjoy doing.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Great takeaway to have on that with the wrap-up. Daniel, it's been an absolute pleasure as always.