How HYROX Is Driving Community and Retention in Gyms with Chief Growth Officer Douglas Gremmen

HYROX has evolved into one of the fastest growing competitive fitness sports in the world and its impact inside gyms is becoming harder to ignore.

In this episode of All Things Fitness and Wellness, Krissy Vann sits down with Douglas Gremmen, Chief Growth Officer at HYROX, to explore how the sport has moved beyond race day and into structured partnerships with gyms across North America and globally.

They discuss how HYROX is breaking down community barriers inside clubs, creating a flywheel effect that brings members in specifically to train for competition, and increasing engagement with personal training and goal driven programming.

The conversation examines why preparing for a sport changes member behavior, how affiliate gyms are building momentum around it, and what operators can learn from the explosive growth of fitness racing.

For gym owners and executives focused on retention, differentiation, and long term engagement, this episode offers a strategic look at where HYROX fits inside the modern gym model.

Transcript

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we've been able to break a lot of the community barriers inside gyms and then once that flywheel got going all of a sudden people were coming to gyms to train specifically for High Rocks they were entertaining a personal trainer to get them better this is all things fitness and wellness uniting industry thought leaders and fitfluencers on the mission to inspire innovation and encourage people to live a life fit and well on this episode of the ATF W podcast we're talking about one of the most talked about forces in global fitness right now and that is high rocks what started as a race day experience has quickly evolved into something much bigger structured affiliate partnerships dedicated performance centers enterprise brand collabs and perhaps most importantly a new way for gyms to think about programming retention and member commitment Hi rocks is not just a race series it's a sport and to talk to us about it more is Douglas Gremlin chief growth officer at Hi Rocks we're gonna unpack how High Rocks has moved beyond race day and into these long term partnerships with operators of all sizes look at the data behind retention and why goal driven event based training shifts member behavior before we get to it be sure to hit like and subscribe we have new podcast episodes weekly featuring industry thought leaders and influencers I'm your host Chrissy Van and this is ATF W Douglas here I I was really excited to do this interview because I had Jacob Tilly from High Rocks join me in 2022 at the time he was talking about bringing the first race over to North America and now we know that there has been explosive growth in fitness racing so we're gonna dive a little bit into that story also talking about your affiliate programs but I started this by saying I was excited to talk to you until our pre chat where somehow I think I've just committed to a High Rocks race at Fibo always what happens so you're absolutely in can't wait gonna put the fitness industry to the test a little bit and try to get many fun people to have a race enjoy the experience uh Alfie was gonna be amazing I think it's we've been there for a couple of years now but for people to really now understand the sport participate more and more and and we're seeing you know a lot of fellow co colleagues all of a sudden really changing their training habits because of getting race ready so um you're in it that's exactly it I think that's one of the things that attracted me to doing be to be in the fitness industry itself fitness industry I think is a really neat ecosystem because we do practice what we preach it's what we instill in our lives I'm curious the backstory of you though because you mentioned that Jacob and yourself had a relationship prior to you ending up in New York so tell me a little bit about how that came to be no so Jacob was one of the first first guys really pushing the needle on hyrox back in in Hamburg in 2,016 2,017 I was kind of in that ecosystem of sports marketing so a lot of my Hamburg based colleagues and I were training for the first ever hyrox called qrox at the time and Jacob Tilly was literally the first guy to take me through the High Rocks paces right I'd never been on a ski erg before didn't really know how to row let alone push a sled right so he's the guy that pretty much gave us three or four High Rocks introductory classes before showing up to the challenge of our lives right and uh literally 10 minutes before starting it was like okay guys you guys ready for your first fireworks this is how you ski work I'm like oh my god okay what are we in for so now that was an hour and a half of hell at the time uh it's always been amazing how it's kind of become so mass adopted and mass accepted not only the the sport and and the race but also the the the way that the training has evolved throughout those almost 10 years now right since since the exception of High Rocks and in 2022 when you were speaking to him I was working in the background to literally be be sent over to the US to say okay guys how can we make this work uh in the US we had made a little bit of a false start in the US prior uh slight introduction pre covid and then we tried to reignite the brand post covid but 2022 was really when we had a clear direction of a growth plan on how we would conquer the US looking four years ahead it definitely wasn't easy it's definitely a tough market to crack as a European fitness organization uh but obviously it's it's great to see where Jacob was in 22 and then last week selling 43,000 tickets in one day to the New York event that's kind of been everything that's going on and everything went wrong and everything went right in those four years and it's been a massive learning curve but you know an unbelievable experience to be part of the Grove journey but Learned a lot on the way yeah well let's dive into that I mean what were some of the levers that you ended up having to pull perhaps that you didn't have awareness over until you were actually boots on the ground trying to make this happen it was really much the same marketing trajectory in every market the only difference was of course the US and let's talk about North America generally because we also have the Canadian audience apparently it's it's a big footprint right it's you know you're in Vancouver if you do something in Toronto not everybody in Vancouver finds out about it if you do something in New York not everybody in LA is gonna find out about it and I think we came a little bit the mindset that in Europe it was relatively easier right you do something in the Netherlands and you go to Amsterdam and then 20 miles down the road you have Rotterdam and you're immediately tapping into the same audience but also a small new audience right so the ability to continuously accelerate and build momentum on the back of one event to the next event just allowed us to grow very very rapidly and we just realized in the US that New York was growing in relationship to New York 12 months ago LA was growing to LA 12 months ago nothing was really getting the flywheel going in the same way that in the UK we went from 500 to two months later 1,000 to three months after that to 2 thousand and before you know it we got to what we called critical mass at that time 4,000 athletes to an event that became our foundation level from there we were able to grow in the US in the US and North America took us 4 5 years to get to critical mass to 4 5,000 participants and then we realized that when we launched in Toronto back in 20 24 25 we immediately started with 4,000 participants why because the foundation was laid and all of a sudden that critical mass was there but for us to get the critical mass in the US were three a very expensive year so to speak yeah no doubt but I'm imagining at this point certainly paying off I mean I'm of the demographic spend time on social media obviously by nature of my career I'm fed fitness content and every couple reels it's somebody that's on that training journey so impressive but another element of the ecosystem that's very important and especially for our audience is the fact that you have affiliate programs with gyms and working with these partnerships so tell me a little bit about the role that gyms play in the long term growth of High Rocks first of all they're the key right they're they're the cornerstone of the sport and and we've very quickly identified ourselves as a sport and not as an event based and that sport is the sport of the gym it is what's happening on the gym floor every day our athletes are the members in the gym right so it's absolutely clear that the sport is built on the cornerstone of what the gyms have already built over over years and communities that they've built and training methodologies that they've exploited right so I think we were very lucky or very smart and you can look at it both ways that we were like okay the infrastructure is there the communities are there the coaches are there the athletes are there we just need to give them something to train for at the top a goal to work towards it a sport to get behind you know uh we were at Connected Fitness and and later at Stanford this weekend and we spoke a lot about shared suffering brings people together and I think that's really been what we've been able to create we've been able to break barriers we've been able to create mini communities or hyrox has facilitated the building of mini communities in those gyms that might have just been traditional group training or they've been traditional I'm gonna walk in with my headphones and do my my bench press and my my my own workouts right so I think we've been able to break a lot of the community barriers inside gyms and then once that flywheel got going all of a sudden people were coming to gyms to train specifically for High Rocks they were entertaining a personal trainer to get them better at High Rocks they were starting to build friendships around hey let's travel to Toronto let's travel to New York together and all of a sudden the dynamic around how this sport lives inside the gym has fundamentally changed the way that gyms are looking at High Rocks and the way High Rocks is looking at gyms shared suffering brings people together it's so funny when you think of every conference that we go to and how the industry is trying to crack the code on creating third spaces and social wellness who knew that it all lied in the suffering but I think no literally I mean the the cold plunge the cold plunge is that shared suffering the solarcourse is the shared suffering it obviously goes beyond the experience only you've got to be able to make that community live outside the four walls or outside the cold plunge as well and I think that's really when you know that you've cracked the community code is when outside the shared suffering people are hanging out together they're getting drinks together they're you know they're doing the wrong clubs etcetera so I think all in all it it kind of breaks the barrier a little bit and from there I think you know that's where the most amazing things happen and then you can have technology and you can have AI and you can have all the other things but the real power sits in true communities and first spaces yeah well and that kind of leads us into you nail that then it also helps largely with retention so what have been some of the real use cases that you've seen in regards to impact on retention when gyms lean into the fact that their consumers are training for these and are demanding an ecosystem that they can get ready for race day and that's and that's been our our fundamental mindset of of seeing this as a sport and not just a trendy oh this week I like this type of training and next week I like that type of training we all come from traditional sports right so I used to play tennis we have guys that come from field hockey we have guys that played soccer they don't change clubs every six months because it's cheaper next door they they they are part of a club because their father was part of a club because their wife goes to that club because they love the coach they love the owner they love the FNB experience right that's what I that you identify with and I think that's really where the retention plays very much coming into play where you're saying hey we're training together I've got my coach I've got my whole ecosystem supporting me I feel that my fitness goals are met but also my community goals are met then you're not gonna be shopping around so we've always said that the moment somebody signs up to his first race you have at least a client for the first nine months cause you know he's not gonna change on that journey when he then finishes and crosses the finish line you pretty much have him for another 12 months because first of all he's so addicted to that finishing moment and the dopamine that's been created but also shoot I can do better I can improve here there and everywhere that's the first thing and the second thing is hey that experience with my fellow gym members was so exceptional he's not gonna give up his gym membership the day after and go hey thanks guys for the ride now I'm gonna join Club XYZ around the corner because it's $10 cheaper right that's not what you do when you're part of a club when you're part of a sport and I think that's the dynamic we've changed a little bit that the gym is no longer a commodity with equipment it really is where you go and hang out three four five times a week yeah and really that results in the long lasting behavioral change which is what we've been trying to crack as an industry for so long I know that you do have affiliate programs with Jim so tell me a little bit about what makes the ideal partner for that first of all it's been so interesting to study across pretty much since the revamp of our affiliate program which was originally very focused around brand association later ticketing access to now fully fledged services for hundred dollars a month right so we're seeing Anytime Fitness we're seeing good life we're seeing Crossfit boxes we're seeing F40 fives we're seeing boutique gym concepts so we're getting a really good overview that in the end it's the consumer that decides where they wanna go and train this sport every consumer has different needs they have a different need for community to have a different financial means as well I mean not everybody can afford a Crossfit box some people prefer running some people don't like running so your choice between F45 and orange theory becomes based on your needs and I think that's really been one of our biggest learning that we're trying to build a system that accommodates every gym's unique look at how they see hyrox and how hyrox serves their customers so when you talk about gyms being successful I think it's those gyms that have a very strong own identity and that can translate hyrox into a way that suits their customers and therefore also lure customers in that are you know tying themselves to that identity to that shared experience to that way of training or that financial you know we always forget about it we always talk about oh it's so important to build community but we also realize that Planet Fitness has a different mindset on how they have to treat our customer but we cannot devalue that customer cause that customer at $29 a month is as important to us as the customer paying $300 a month at a local Crossfit box and we've got to be able to create a sport for everybody and the gyms have to tap into serving the member or the athlete where um where they can meet uh ticking all those boxes yeah it is fascinating to see how applicable it is to all those different settings but exactly that having a really strong brand identity is key another element that's key in any path of growth is generating strategic partnerships so obviously gyms are logical for your teams but you've also done some really interesting ones as well working with surf dating and one of the things I've quoted so many times on this podcast is that run clubs are the new dating apps and there really is this shift because there's just not as many in person spaces that people are meeting we're seeing consumption of alcohol and bars go down so tell me a little bit about your thought and strategy because you talk about how gyms need to really know their audience and then cater to that but it seems like you're doing the same thing in high rocks of who are we serving and where are they at in life and how can we meet them there it's always a super interesting discussion around who do we partner with who don't we partner with and do we make a selection or do we not make a selection I think we have to firm up there I mean obviously at two years ago it was every dollar coming in is a dollar earned and when we have to grow the business we have to get into growth mode right but I think now we're in a slightly different position where our No. 1 priority is the athlete our No. 1 priority is is the member additional revenues is nice but can we really find brands that can enhance the athlete experience that can bring something more to the table and of course very clear in the endemic space of let's say energy drinks or nutrition or footwear and apparel those are all givens that are very natural extensions to what the sport is all about but how can you learn an insurance company a bank a dating app slightly different of course but we're seeing that these brands are bringing something new to the overall experience and they're bringing the after party to life because we truly believe that the Celebration is just as important as the journey towards that right being able to celebrate with your community the hardship you've just gone through and and build new relationships on the back of that so I don't think necessarily it's about oh now we're fully behind a dating app I think it's more important that we find partners that help elevate the overall event experience and like surf dating I've taken ownership of the after party and that's also as important as the guy that's taking part of the hydration during the race because it's all part of the athlete journey and we're trying to recognize that the journey doesn't stop and start at the start line and the finish line and we're trying to build a more holistic lifestyle around it and find brands that can tap into that narrative yeah how much has that athlete journey changed from when you initially started to what the race day looks like now it's constantly changing right so going to Phoenix a couple of weeks ago and realizing it starts here in New York at the airport with certain gyms coming with 15 20 people to then jumping in an Uber at the airport getting to the experience finding the right hotel athletes finding really cool travel destinations athletes going on cruises athletes going to training camps like everything is generically changing around what an athlete or how an athlete identifies himself as a high rocks athlete and how he's filling in his life gaps right it's not only how he goes to the gym it's not only how he shows up to an event but it's literally how he's filling in the dots 365 days a year and we're trying to find more touch points and ability to bring other brands in but also for our ability to cross promote cross sell and bring value added services to the athlete experience or to the gym experience by empowering the gym to do more with their athletes right so we're very much thinking about what are some of the services that we can bring to the gym that can subsequently help improve the athlete's performance so think about generic assessment scoring to business tools and tips and tricks programming uh running collections right we always talk about that Harvard is a running sport but how do we empower the gym to bring running more to life with the right technique training the right programming track days run clubs like you mentioned as well like we have to offer so much more to the gyms nowadays so that they can service their member and their athlete better than they did before well and I know in the discussion you said this isn't just I I mean it's not even that it isn't just it is not an event business you have created a sport but there's no denying for example I'm here in Vancouver and you had your race here last fall people had to plan traffic around it because they knew High Rocks was in town that's where we're at when these race days happen so I'm just curious when you say high rocks is a sport I've heard rumblings of getting into very high level competitive landscapes in the future like the World Olympics thrown around and things like that what is the vision here of the level of recognition that High Rocks is looking from that sport element versus people associating it with an event day it's interesting because we always talk about the top of the pyramid which is the Olympics when we talk about sports we also very much talk about the grassroots level of sport and we believe that a good sport lives at every level so it's got to start in schools and then it goes to collegiate and then it lives in the gyms and then we've got to find another way that gyms can compete with one another then you go to our events and then you might end up at the Olympics or in one of our pro league series of racing think F1 of high rocks right so we valued the grassroots as importantly as the the Olympic aspiration and we've got to be able to serve the athlete at every level which is probably division it's harder in the execution right so how do you get High Rocks into school programming is probably our our next biggest challenge but I think we truly believe that if we want to service the top we also have to service the bottom of the of the food chain and really be able to bring next generation talent through the ranks of the sport and I think that's the beauty of of the philosophy and and the vision that we have is that we're not only trying to be the top of the sports ecosystem where we're only servicing the elite athlete but we're thinking it through not only for this generation but for generations to come that's fascinating I don't know how much you can speak on that but you know it's undeniable that the level of resources that are put into physical education for youth aren't what they were when I grew up and they probably definitely aren't what people who grew up you know 30 years before I did so what are you seeing in regards to the need or the appetite for schools to integrate this when you're doing a little bit of this research and the appetite is super high one because the teachers in the schools are participating they're seeing it in their local gyms they're seeing the translation on how easily applicable this is to the school ecosystem one because it's a relatively safe and non technical sport to implement right it's all based around natural body movements is very easy to scale from age group to age group you need limited equipment if no equipment at all and the benefits and the physical benefits of the sport are immediately there as well that everybody can participate and hopefully get a better understanding on how to train in in the future so I think overall it's gonna be interesting to see how first of all we can make it safe in schools because that has to be our prerequisite can we get coaches educated in the right way to deliver the sport in a safe manner then secondly how can gyms adopt maybe that second tier of hey I love in my PE class I love High Rocks can I go to a local gym as a 12 or 13 year old and meet my sporting needs we also have to get that part right and then it's a step by step process to potentially going into collegiate sports and and building more of a sports ecosystem around it so it's definitely not an easy one I sometimes challenge the team saying hey is this truly scalable if we do it in us what do we learn that we can apply to Canada it's not that straight forward right so I also have to say look we're doing this very diligently and very patiently The Olympic Pathway is complicated but rest assured that the school pathway is also extremely extremely complicated but luckily we have time we're trying to do things step by step and you know we will see a couple of first in gym Young Stars projects taking place we have our first Young Stars racing hopefully that's gonna scale quite rapidly we had 2,000 participants in Amsterdam we have London coming up and we'll have a couple of races in North America as well dedicated specifically to kids so it's all part of of step by step approach to make this a safe a safe and fun sport for kids to participate in I love that especially when you think I to exactly your point I thought of my friends that are teachers both of them competed in High Rocks last year so I'm like you're not wrong but the really cool part is that bridges something that parents can do with their children and the big thing that we're trying to figure out is kids that fall off athletics like to your point you were exposed to it when we're a youth but then when you're an adult there's no denying that we have an issue with people that aren't getting that physical activity but if you can make them fall in love with it from that age and then grow with it that I mean creates a lot of opportunity from an industry side as well because we have that retention from the get go plus it contributes to the creating a healthier society so that sounds like a win win win I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation though when I chatted with Jacob just a few short years ago you hadn't even made it across to North America so I'm curious now obviously you do have a bunch of exciting initiatives but what is the thing in the High Rocks ecosystem that's exciting you most when it comes to the growth trajectory or where you're headed or what you're looking at building out the events have their own trajectory right like Jakob is spearheading that and I think we have a very clear growth plan being in 150 biggest cities we have 1.8 million people racing this year you know we're hitting new markets like China like India we're gonna change the way people train and that's almost my exciting part on on the gym side and I always talk about how do we touch 100 million lives how do we get how do you make High Rocks as mainstream as running has become with a very low barrier to entry low touch point and just saying hey I like to try High Rocks at my local gym I like to jump into that first class because the energy in that class is different than anything else I've experienced so for me it's really about lowering that barrier to entry in the gym so that we have people that might never think about racing that might never race but that they could start slowly enjoying the benefits of being part of that community being part of the sport and generally having the benefit of subsequently also getting healthier and training hopefully in a more smarter more structured and more communal manner and I think that's gonna be a massive win for us and we're doing everything in our power to build products and services that gyms can or that will help gyms get to more people inside their gyms and get them to train with that loyalty and retention that we were just talking about and the end goal could be a race but I don't want that to be the only focus because we can only accommodate so many races right 42,000 athletes in New York we had a waitlist of 30,000 so we cannot serve everybody's needs on the event day so we really want to make sure that we get really a large cohort of people just enjoying high rocks as a sport in their local gym yeah I think that's one thing that I do remember from my conversation as well in 2022 was about it making this accessible to everyone and that is a huge differentiator from a lot of sports like this sometimes it feels as though it's way out of reach and there's no way that I could do that but you've really designed it that anybody can start so on that note hot button question to end the interview if you're a woman that's a bit of a gym rat but also has never used a skierg and may have committed to a high rocks in about a month and change what's your biggest advice just have fun just go out hard struggle like we said we know the more vulnerable we are the harder we go the more experience you'll have so I wouldn't think about it too much you're obviously in a state of training every day you're ready uh whether you like it or not you know we're all gonna get nervous we all get nervous at the start line we all struggle at the finish line so it doesn't really matter I wouldn't overthink it uh enjoy the process and then start training for real after you've done your first one because that's really where the journey starts do you have a bucket sponsor oh we do have a bucket spawn but for two reasons one is to get no we don't but we have two reasons for buckets as you know is one is to measure wall ball depth and the other one might be for the one that we don't want to close this interview with it's super fair but if anyone that knows me and my workout style when I'm in go hard mode unfortunately that's a byproduct so at least we know now we'll put it on your T-shirt we'll put it on your T-shirt stay away at the finish line yeah exactly well Douglas I really appreciate you updating us it's been a super cool story to watch in the industry honestly and I think at the end of the day all of us can get behind a sport that is encouraging people from youth to adult to just get started and no matter what it looks like it's an accomplishment if you are getting started it's an accomplishment if you cross the finish line and it's really exciting and I do look forward will I see you in Febo then absolutely we'll be at the start line together brilliant and if people want to connect as well will you be at HFA in March HFA my team will be there I'll be at fibo Douglas at high rocks.com uh like I said we're always willing to learn uh open ideas you know uh we can only get better so any feedback any great ideas um the more the the more the better brilliant well thank you so much Douglas for joining me on ETF W cool thank you for having me Chrissy you've just listened to the all Things fitness and wellness podcast hosted by Chrissy Van be sure to hit like and subscribe we have new podcast episodes weekly featuring industry insiders and influencers together we're on a mission for everyone to live a life fit and well