Is HYROX Here to Stay? What Gym Owners Need to Know

HYROX just crossed 4,500 affiliates in North America. A year ago, that number was under 1,500.

In this episode of “Run a Profitable Gym,” Two-Brain CEO John Franklin sits down with Eric O'Neil, Head of Affiliates for HYROX (Americas), to talk about what’s driving that growth, what the best training clubs are doing differently and what’s coming next for gym owners who want to capitalize on the HYROX opportunity.

Eric explains how the affiliate program works, including the pre-sale ticket process and how HYROX markets affiliate events through their regional newsletters.

He also shares what separates the training clubs bringing 50-plus members to race day from the ones that never quite find their footing.

The conversation covers the full picture for gym owners who want to run a profitable HYROX program:

- Running sims and camps
- Adding personal training as an upsell
- Building a 365-day HYROX calendar around local race weekends
- Tapping into the massive pool of non-members who show up to these events

Eric also addresses the elephant in the room: Is HYROX here to stay, and how should gym owners think about the investment?

If you’re HYROX-curious or already affiliated and want to get more out of it, this episode is worth your time.

Get the full toolkit for generating ROI from HYROX affiliation via the link below.

Links

HYROX Toolkit

Gym Owners United

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0:00 - Intro

0:40 - HYROX affiliation growth

6:00 - HYROX trends in Europe and the Americas

12:37 - How the pre-sale ticket process works

14:32 - Sims, camps and monetizing events

21:56 - Youth HYROX

35:50 - Building a 365-day HYROX calendar

44:34 - Is HYROX here to stay?

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to this very special episode of Run a Profitable Gym. I'm the Two Brain Business CEO, John Franklin, and joining me today is a very special guest, Eric O'Neill, the head of affiliates of Hyrox Americas. How are you doing, man? I'm doing good. Pleasure to be here. It's a beautiful day here in Chicago. Let's talk Hyrox. I want to do nothing more because it is all the rage. You suckered me into my first race and I have become a fanboy. So, you know, I've been looking forward to this talk myself. So let's talk about Hyrox North America specifically, right? Because you guys started off in Europe. This is unique in fitness trends because Europe is like two or three years ahead of us. What's the current state of affiliation and where's all the growth coming from now in North America? North America has been a fantastic market for High Rocks. And we have been growing like crazy and continue to grow like crazy. We actually just passed 4,500 affiliates last night here in North America. And I double-checked. I wanted to see where we were at this time last year in 2025, and we were below 1,500. So we've 3X'd in the last 12 months, which is fantastic. And the growth is not slowing down, man. I will tell you the growth of anything is accelerating as the excitement and kind of the passion and the brand awareness just continues to seep through the fitness industry here. So 4,500 in North America alone. Can you tell us where you're at globally? Globally, we're at 15,000 plus. So we're a nice chunk of that. Our goal is to be even larger percentage than that globally and across the High Rocks network. But yeah, it's been fantastic, right? And I've had the chance to travel around the world and see Hierarchy Training Clubs in Europe, in South America, obviously here, U.S. And Canada. And it's fantastic to see the excitement, the community. And I can go to a Hierarchy Training Club in London, or I can come to one here in Chicago, and the experience is largely the same, the community, the excitement. So glad to be part of the growth here in North America, for sure. So was that amount of growth planned or is that kind of like a surprise? Like what's been the most surprising part of the job in the last year? You know, I don't think the surprise is that for me in the last year is, you know, our bread and butter has always been functional fitness gyms. A lot of CrossFit gyms were some of the first adopters. And that really does continue to be the core of who is a High Rocks training club. What is the most likely gym to be a High Rocks training club? And I love that. That's fantastic. The biggest surprise for me over the last year is a lot of these big brands, large enterprise with, you know, thousands of locations in many cases who before were like, you know, High Rocks, too risky, too complicated. I don't really understand how this fits into our product and our brand are almost all of them coming to us now and saying, hey, wait a second, there's something here. We also want to jump onto the train as well. We weren't necessarily, you know, we were always hoping that that would take place. And we're always happy to bring High Rocks to as many different gyms and brands as possible. But the sheer number that have actually reengaged with us unprompted has been pretty crazy to see. Yeah, because what's unique about it is you have big box gyms that are affiliated. You have like chains that come from the functional fitness space. You have a bunch of independents from the functional fitness space. And then now we're starting to see a lot of High Rocks first concept. Do you have any data on which models are getting the best ROI and doing the best with High. Rocks affiliation, which ones struggle a little more? You know, the Hyrox affiliation program is a little bit different from others, and we purposefully come in broad rather than deep, right? And we want Hyrox to be able to show up in your gym in the way that best suits you. So that doesn't matter if you're a CrossFit gym, if you're a big box gym, you're boutique fitness, you're just running clients out of your garage. So the ROI, the definition of ROI for each gym is different. For some, it's a retention play. For some, it's a membership growth play. For some, it's an LTV play. And so I think the ROI is high for all of these different types of gyms. That's why we're seeing them all affiliate. Again, perfect example. You know, I told you we crossed 4,500 last night. Yesterday, that was 16 new gyms that are affiliated with Hyrox. Within those 16, one mega chain, big box location, one smaller regional player with about 10 locations and significant number of CrossFit gyms, former CrossFit gyms, functional fitness gyms and everything in between. Everything in between. So, you know, there's a way to fit High Rocks into your business plan, regardless of what your model is. And there are ROIs there. I can't really tell you definitively, John, is one category seeing higher ROI than the other, because the definition of what that ROI is does change. Are you seeing the demand change in different segments? I know you said like big box gyms are starting to circle back and get in there. Like, is the growth starting to come a lot more from the, you know, franchise enterprise side, or is it still like primarily driven by independents? Yeah, the growth is primarily still driven by independents just because there's so many of them. And that's really the model is kind of set there, right? The model is quite obvious on how to bring High Rocks into those spaces, how to monetize and commercialize High Rocks in a gym, in an independent gym. But right now, the opportunity for us is, hey, how can we bring high rocks to an even wider audience than some of these bigger brands. That's an interesting segue into my next question. You know, we talked a little bit about how Europe's a few years ahead of the U.S. On this trend. And what are you seeing in the European market that can kind of dictate where the Americas are going in the next couple of years? And do you have any insight on the demand side? Like, are things still as hot as they were? Are they inflecting or are you seeing things slow down? I would say demand is as high as ever. And I came into this role and I was really excited and I was like, you know, this is going to be amazing. Europe is two or three years ahead. We're just going to take all of the lessons they've learned in Europe and we're just going to apply them blanket here in North America. And one of the things I've learned is it's not that simple and there are very different markets. So demand continues to be really strong in Europe, in the U.K., you know, in mainland. Europe, et cetera. And demand of course continues to grow here in north america what we've seen is we've hit incredible penetration in europe in terms of the number of gyms that have brought high rocks into their training and we are nowhere close to that number here in the u.s yet so we have a long way to grow and that is driven by the demand from the consumer from from the athlete on the street right whether they've signed up for a race or their friend has signed up for a race and now they're you know, High Rocks has kind of entered their consciousness, they want to be able to go out and train somewhere. And that brings gyms coming to ask, hey, how can I deliver High Rocks best to my members? So the demand from gyms to bring High Rocks is there. It's been growing like crazy. You know, our target is to get to 6,000 gyms here in North America by the end of the year. We're well on our way to that. And in terms of athlete demand, it has also never been higher. And that is something that we're constantly having to fight and wrestle with is, you know, we always want demand to be a little bit higher than supply, just like any business. But how can we really right set those two things so that if someone wants to race, they can. And that includes. And that includes adding more cities, more days to each city, larger venues, et cetera, et cetera. We're always, always adding new opportunities to race and to participate in High Rocks. I'll give you one really clear, easy, obvious example, John. Last year, New York City was our first ever three day race. And back then, the question was, well, wait a second, are people going to take Friday off from work and come to race in this weird high rocks thing where you run and lift weights and stuff? Lift weights and stuff? And the answer was unequivocally yes, right? And it was an absolutely smashing success. So this year we're doing, as you know, 10 days in New York City. And so now the question is, well, are people going to take Wednesday and Thursday off from work? And the answer for that is also unequivocally yes. So we're growing the number of gyms that are offering higher-ups training. We're growing the number of ways and places to race. And no matter what we do, the demand just keeps growing and growing with it. I will be taking Wednesday and Thursday off of work to go race High Rocks in New York City. So, you know, I'm living proof. And by the way, if you're trying to figure out if High Rocks affiliation makes sense for your gym, we put together a toolkit that has the exact playbook Two Brain Gyms are running to get a huge ROI on High Rocks. We even interviewed the best gyms in Two Brain who are affiliated with. High Rocks to have them break down their exact strategies. To grab your copy, just click the link below or scan the QR code here. We talked about supply and demand. And within Two Brain now, we probably have hundreds of High Rocks affiliates. And the number one complaint that we're getting from our affiliates is, hey, I'm signing up. I'm getting my member base excited about it. And we can't get members into these races because they sell out in 10 seconds. So what are you guys doing to make it so your affiliates and the members of affiliates can get into these races and actually, you know, take advantage of, participate on race day, which is like, you know, what they're affiliating for in essence? Yeah, no, absolutely. Right. And as I mentioned before, we're constantly trying to add to supply. So we've, we 3x'd, we went from one day to three days in New York City. So we 3x'd the size of the race. Now we're going from three days to 10. So we're more than 3x'ing the size of the race. Last season here in North America, we had about 14 cities and opportunities to race. Next season, it's going to be over 20. All likelihood, right? So this is something we're taking really seriously. We're coming into new markets. We're adding days to places where we've had races for a while, all with the goal of how can we enable people to race as often as they want and have a reasonable chance to get a ticket, right? Now on the flip side, I will say like, I'm a big runner, right? I love running marathons. It's kind of the other side of my personality when I'm not doing high rocks. I love to go out for a run and train for my marathons. I can't get into the New York City marathon. That's actually okay, right? I do my local marathon. I do one up in Marquette, Michigan every year. It's fantastic. They do a great job. It's a chance to go travel, have a good time. And we kind of see this the same way at High Rocks, right? We have a goal of having 100 million people participate in High Rocks around the world. Breaking news, there is not 100 million tickets available for people to race High Rocks. So this is where the affiliate program kind of comes in, right? And so whether you're in a place where we don't currently have a race, whether, you know, Des Moines, Iowa, Minneapolis, Minnesota, what have you, the opportunity to participate in High Rocks and experience High Rocks then becomes through the affiliates. And that's actually, I think, a really great opportunity, right? And whether it's a gym running a full High Rocks sim, and that's how I end up racing, maybe that's my introduction to the sport. And then eventually that kind of leads me down the path of, hey, I want to do the full thing somewhere. Or that's just enough for me, right? And I'm just going to dabble in High Rocks that way. That's okay too, right? So it's really where our affiliates come in and kind of fill that gap between our 20 or so race weekends that we have and the rest of the calendar year. And it's no real different than the sport of running or any of the other sports, right? So long way to answer your question. Like we're always adding opportunities to race, but also this is where our affiliates can really step in and help fill the gap and help profit off of that too. I do want to talk about sims, but the advantage now with the affiliates is there's a pre-sale, correct? And the affiliates get a code. Can you walk through how that pre-sale process works? Like how much of the tickets are allocated to the pre-sale and how that, you know, I think it feels a little bit like a black box and they, you know, getting some clarity, that would be helpful for some of them. Yeah, absolutely. And the access to tickets, early access to tickets to race, right? So we do a two day pre-sale for our affiliates and it is not a guarantee of getting a race ticket, but it is two bites at the apple. You get the opportunity to get your tickets in pre-sale, but also during general release, right? And we allocate half of the tickets. So let's say a race has 20,000 tickets available. We will allocate 10,000 of those tickets. Just for pre-sale. And over those two days, that 10,000 tickets are available to members of affiliate gyms and only members of affiliate gyms. If we sell out all 10,000 of those in one day, then it's early access to tickets, therefore is closed and done, right? And then we will reopen the remaining 10,000 tickets to the general public. So this is kind of how we balance taking care of our affiliates and really making that a true benefit that they can tap into while also not totally blocking out people that are not members of affiliate gyms and just anyone that also would be interested in racing as well sorry so is it a percentage of the total ticket base did i did yes it's 50 okay okay 50 50 so so if it sells out in pre-sale the remaining block is the other 50%. That's right. You know, if it's Tuesday, Thursday, when everybody else has it, the other half. Got it. That's right. That's right. Okay. Understood. Now, I love that you brought up Sims and the opportunity for affiliates to basically do events of their own and help people in Des Moines, Iowa experience High Rocks. I've profiled quite a few of them of my own with the largest, I think, being 400. So they rented out like a full arena and did their own event. Do you have examples of other like affiliates doing really large scale Sims and in smaller markets? The number of events that are happening at any given time is incredible. We see gyms that are doing free events with maybe a dozen or so people exclusive to their members. And we see gyms doing huge events with hundreds of participants, again, in their own gym and monetizing that, you know, charging 200 plus dollars for a ticket and then everything in between. So I'll give you one quick example, John, right? I had a great conversation about a month ago with an affiliate in Miami, right? First-time business owners, really, they kind of opened a gym as a hobby, and they really got into High Rocks, and they've really done a great job of growing their High Rocks community. They decided they were going to have a sim, and they were able to sign 50 people up to participate. They submitted that event to High Rocks so that we can market it out on our regional newsletters, and they almost immediately got another 50 sign-ups to their gym as well. So they were able to host 100 people in their pretty average-sized space, charge $50 per ticket, right, and netted $5,000 in an afternoon. And so that's your most typical example, John, but we also see larger gyms that are able to handle a couple hundred people that are creating, to the best of their ability, something that's pretty close to what you would get on race day as well. So I heard in the gym, that sounded like selected verbiage. Is it against the agreement to do it outside of your gym? Yes, it is against the agreement to do it outside of your gym. What we really want to guard against is folks being confused about, hey, what is an official hierarchs race and what is not an official hierarchs race. And so a gym has to be able to host this on their premises or in the immediate vicinity of their premises, right? If they want to do it in the parking lot outside, have people run around the block or do their run route outside, totally okay. What we want to avoid is people renting out the local convention center or basketball, you know, court, whatever, and calling it hierarchs to mind is what we kind of want to get away from. Okay. I won't out my source then. Let's circle back to those regional newsletters because I spoke to another affiliate in Stanford where it was a similar story where you shouted out the camps they were doing. And that was like the program doubled in size as a result of that. So when should people reach out? How do they go about, having their event featured in the newsletter? And what are you looking for? Like what makes you more likely to feature something versus not feature something? It's really simple, right? What we need, all we need is kind of a description, a time, a place, and a link for sign up. And we will take that and we'll bundle it up into our newsletter. And assuming that everything's kosher and they're putting on what looks like a good event with good intent, we will feature them in the newsletter. We're not gatekeeping our newsletter. We're not kind of picking and choosing, to be honest with you, Cenk. Like John, who we feature, it's just a matter of, hey, we want to market these out for you as widely and as early as possible. So, you know, we have a forum that our affiliates use and they give us basic information and we will feature it in the newsletter for as long as they want, right? So, if it's three months into the future and that they want it to appear in every newsletter between now and then, happy to do that, right? We want to drive members to these simulations. And we want to do that for two reasons. One is we really want our affiliates to be happy and feel like they're able to commercialize and drive ROI off of our program. But also we want athletes off the street, you know, in their local communities to be able to go find and experience High Rocks in a great way beyond the confines of a High Rocks New York City or a. High Rocks Tampa, etc. So, would your response to an affiliate who said, you know, hey, 80% of my members couldn't get into this race would be throw your own? Absolutely. Yeah. Throw us in in a warm-up lead-up to a race is kind of a benchmark for all of your members or the people in your town, city to test themselves. Throw one right after the race for all the people that didn't get in and get official tickets. And throw one in the dead of winter when we're not going to be coming back to the area for another six months. And people are like, hey, like, I need my High. Rocks fix. I want to go out and race. And I want to, you know, get that sense of community and excitement and rush. And I want to test myself again. All of the above are fantastic opportunities and reasons to throw a High Rocks event. And so you guys, do you guys think about your calendar year and seasons, correct? Yes. Okay. So what are the high seasons for people unfamiliar? Like when are the good times? When are people thinking about the brand a lot? And then when are the dead times that may be better for capitalizing on, you know, people who love the sport and want to do it, but maybe can't go travel somewhere and do one? Well, the goal is no dead time at all, right? And that comes with adding more and more cities and more and more opportunities to race. We're going to get to the point. We're already at the point where there is a High Rocks race somewhere in the world every weekend of the year, essentially. And we are going to get to the point here in North America where there's a race, if not every week, every two weeks somewhere on the continent, right? And that's all good news. And that means that there really is no dead period or lull for us. And so to answer your question, it really depends regionally. You know, if you're a gym based in the Los Angeles or SoCal area, you definitely want to be thinking and aware of when is High Rocks Anaheim coming up on the calendar and capitalize on that as an opportunity. And, you know, again, High Rocks Anaheim in this example is in is in. December every year. And so from that perspective, the dead period, quote unquote, for any gyms in. SoCal would be in the summer, right? The off season, if you will. But for the ones that are doing camps and that type of thing, they're probably spending that stuff 16 weeks out. So that would put them somewhere in August. Exactly. So typically 12 to 16 weeks is the ramp build up towards a High Rocks race. And so that's when really people are going to have their tickets. People are going to know, hey, I'm definitely racing in four months, five months, what have you. And they're looking to start that training block and find their community and get themselves race ready out. Exactly. Awesome. And so to add to the chaos, you guys just announced that you're doing youth races as well. And so how should training clubs be thinking about the youth opportunity? And, you know, what what is that on lock for them? Yeah, absolutely. For sure. Some gyms already offer youth programming, and this is just another way to deliver that another dimension that they can kind of bring into their portfolio for gyms that aren't doing that and are maybe thinking about it. This is a great entryway for them as well. For those that aren't as familiar, High Rocks Young Stars is our youth division. We actually were just piloting it last season in Europe, and we are bringing it to market here in North America for our upcoming season, starting with Salt Lake City and then High Rocks Anaheim. And that, you know, our normal athletes, our normal divisions are for ages 16 and up. So this opens up an opportunity to race for athletes 15 and below. And there's various tweaks and changes to the format based on your age range, right? How long you run with the weight that you're going to end up handling, etc. But it's a fantastic opportunity for us to grow the sport. And it's also a fantastic opportunity for youth athletes and gyms that want to or already are offering youth training. So we see this as more opportunities to commercialize on the High Rocks affiliation program, but also it's a fresh way to add to youth training if that's something that you're interested in. As of today, this is still very new in North America, and we do not have official guidelines on exactly how to roll out High Rocks Young Stars in your gym. And that is coming, and that's something we're taking very seriously because, you know, the youth market requires a certain sensitivity and extra attention to detail when it comes to youth athletes. So more to follow on that. But as of today, we do encourage our High Rocks affiliates to start leaning into offering youth training to their athletes. And I'll be in Salt Lake City to see the first iteration of Young Stars there, and I can't wait to see the young athletes that have been training for the race, like, do their thing and be able to compete for the first time. It creates such a huge opportunity for these sports performance gyms who train, you know, the kids and then bring in the parents as well. Like, a very popular model for sports performance will do small group training for adults during the time they're not doing kids. So you just kind of get an extra reason to pull them in there when you're doing the events and everybody comes to watch the events and the sims there. I can see how that would be a great add-on for the affiliate community. My question on that is the intention for them to be like a different standalone circuit, or will they eventually become bolt-ons to existing races and you'll just be there for like three weeks where half of its kids, half of its adults. So the way it's going to show up is there's actually going to be a bit of a separate High. Rocks Young Stars. Race area. So the quote unquote normal race will be happening in our venue, taking up the majority of the square footage. And then off to the side, there's going to be a special High Rocks Young. Stars area with these entirely special setup that we have there with the branding, the High Rocks. Young Stars logos and its own warmup areas and its own finish line, its own equipment, et cetera. So both things will be happening simultaneously, essentially. And it's starting small and it's going to continue to grow and grow and you'll see it in more and more cities as well. Awesome. So, so literally in conjunction, so dad can be racing and Junior could be racing at the same time or something like that. Exactly. Okay. All right. So it can be a family vacation now. I love that. So I've profiled a bunch of High Rocks first gyms in Europe. Are you starting to see more of those popping up in North America yet? And, and talk to me about the state of High Rocks first gyms here. Yeah, we are starting to see that here in North America. I think it's, it's two things, right? One it's gyms that are popping up entirely on. I, my intention is to be a High Rocks first gym and I'm going to create a new gym from whole cloth and be High Rocks first High Rocks all the time. The second way you see it is a gym that has just decided, you know what? We've done CrossFit, we've done functional fitness and we are ready. Our community is strong enough. We think the opportunity is there. We are ready to be all High Rocks all the time. And so both things are happening as we speak right now, it is still early days. Again, like, as you said, we are a few years behind Europe, but it is something we're starting to see. And it's something that we love because it really shows that what we offer, both our sport, our affiliation program, our communities around the US and Canada are strong enough to be able to keep businesses that are High Rocks first afloat. I would love to see more of those come. I believe we will see more of those pop up. It's just a matter of time. And I believe we'll, we'll see the next generation of, you know, really high end elite 15 athletes come out of these types of High Rocks Academy type formats as well. I, you saw that in the early days of CrossFit where you'd have these super gyms and a lot of them are still super gyms today and still dominating the sports and, and large brands came out of that. And so are you starting to see that formulate? Like, can you shout anybody out being like, oh yeah, like people are starting to move at, to train at this gym. Like, is that happening? I can't shout anyone out yet. I have been in early conversations with a couple people that are really trying to grow, like create brands, as you said, create High Rocks first, brands and kind of grow that across the US. Unfortunately, I think a lot of these are still early days conceptually, but you will start to see that more and more often. And I think you will start to see these brands also as they continue to grow, bring, um, sponsored athletes, really, um, elite athletes to, to races as well and grow, um, you know, grow the social media following, grow the, the members, their membership base, um, by being really powerful, um, brand holders, um, at our race weekends. And so, uh, I would say let's have this conversation again in a year and I'll be able to update you on the status of that, but it is coming. It is certainly something I'll be watching closely and asking you about offline. There's been a lot of success doing High Rocks or offering High Rocks in large group, right? So, you know, I've camps with 70 people, 30 person classes, a SIM with a hundred people. Are you seeing examples, examples of people having success offering it in smaller environments, say like personal training or small group training, or is it still just a group first? We believe that High Rocks can show up in a gym and all of the above formats that just mentioned big camps, big events with hundreds of people group X, like you said, about, you know, anywhere from 15 to 30 plus people, small group training and personal training, right? And we offer the tools to gyms to be able to do all of the above. What I have seen too, which has been really interesting to me is some, um, James have come to us and said, Hey, we don't offer personal training yet. That's not part of our business model, but we see High Rocks as a way to dip our toes into that and grow that out as an aspect of what we offer our members. So absolutely 100% High Rocks is an additive to any personal training, um, private personal trainers, but also personal training within the confines of the gym. Or small group training. And because people are starting to take this more and more seriously, right? Like, Hey, I've got a certain time that I want to hit, you know, me and my partner we're training. We need to train together. We need, we need time in the gym together. People are taking it much more seriously. It really turns members into athletes and that shifts the mentality, but it also means that they're looking for much more of a personal touch from a coaching perspective. So that drives people that maybe started out in the group X space to, Hey, you know what? I think I'm ready for more personal coaching. Uh, I've got a time I want to hit, or, you know what? My rowing, uh, is, is really weak. Like that's my worst station. I can never really like get out of that station and feel fresh. And so, Hey, I need help on how to, you know, get better at that dimension of the race. It, High Rocks is a sport and the same way that you would get better at basketball, you kind of break the sport down and the movements down and you kind of focus on one dimension to the other. It's the same thing with High Rocks and actually personal training, small group training is one of the best ways, um, to address some of that stuff. And so absolutely, um, High Rocks and personal training really go hand in hand. And it's something that we see a lot within our community. We have examples of both. And so I know someone who is exclusively offering High Rocks as personal training, that, that is it. And then small group training as well. And to your point, I'm starting to see older and older people surfacing on the feed, like, Hey, I'm 65 and I just did my first one. And that clientele seems to be drawn towards the more personalized training, especially if they're coming from marathon triathlon world. They're, you know, they're, they do not, if you're an iron man, you don't bat an eye at a $200 an hour session for your sport. Yeah. I mean, this is this, you know, people are spending so much on health, wellness, et cetera. People are spending to travel to races. They're spending on the equipment they're spending on their hotel rooms, et cetera. Why not, you know, get a little, spend a little bit extra for some extra help, having the best possible race experience and get the best possible time. So you can kind of go home and feel like, you know what? I had a great time at a great new city that I'd never been to before. And oh, by the way, I hit my goal time. Right. And that's worth, um, the little bit of an upspend I think on that. And so I don't think I asked you this, but if you affiliate, can you put High Rocks in the name of your gym? Can you be High Rocks town or whatever, or is it strictly, you got to keep your gym name? You got to keep your gym name. And again, this goes back to the, we go broad rather than deep. We do not want to change the, uh, the branding of your gym. We do not want to change the personality of your gym. We want to be able to add and build on top of your brand and your gym and your members and your community and your coaches. And so even if you want to go all in on High Rocks, unfortunately, um, you cannot change your name to, you know, High Rocks River North or something like that, to take an example here in Chicago. Okay. So we're talking about the affiliate community. The growth is off the charts. Um, you know, you got no problem bringing people in. What are you doing to keep affiliates? What's coming down the pipeline in the next 12 months to educate them and help them get more from, um, you know, the, the, the payment they're making to fly the flag. Absolutely. A couple things, right? For one thing, we are always looking at how can we increase the value that we're bringing with our affiliation program, whether that's keeping the workouts fresh. We just recently added our first official High Rocks, 13 week progressive training plans, adding, um, turnkey engine challenge challenges that gyms can run. Um, we are working on improving the gym finder tool, right? We're constantly in a mindset of, Hey, for the same price, like how can we deliver more and more and more value for our gyms ways that new ways that they can bring High Rocks to their members, new ways that they can monetize their affiliation, new ways that they can activate and take advantage of all the excitement around of a race weekend, et cetera. So that's definitely the first thing. And, you know, I'm really proud to be part of an organization that has that type of a mindset. On the flip side, we are constantly working with gyms, whether they're struggling or they're not quite able to find their foothold or really have the community take firm root on how they can help activate, market, and ultimately grow their. High Rocks community as well. And thirdly, you know, we talked about this before, John, but more opportunities to race, more race days over each weekend. We want people to be able to experience the true official High Rocks races. And that's only a good thing for our affiliates. Rumor has it there's an affiliate gathering coming up in Berlin. Are we going to see any of those in North America in the next 12 months? Oh, we'd like to. It's something we're thinking about. And I won't break any news on this podcast, but it's definitely something that we'd like to do and something we're thinking about. We just had our big Coaches Summit in. London in coordination with our event there, our race there at London Olympia. And so we're constantly looking at ways that we can bring Hierarchs affiliates, Hierarchs coaches, the. Hierarchs community together in new and interesting ways and think outside the box from that perspective. You mentioned affiliates who kind of struggle to get their foothold. You know, what are kind of the common things you see amongst the best training clubs versus the ones who struggle? Like, what are they doing differently? The ones that are really crushing it and knocking out of the park are really, they're taking like a whole of Hierarchs program approach. So they're thinking about what's the best way to bring Hierarchs group training into my gym? What days? What time slots? What? Coach is best fit and matches up with that type of a training environment. They've introduced personal training as an upsell opportunity for their members who want that little bit of extra help. They're running events, right? And they're using events as a chance to monetize. They're using events as a chance to really showcase their gym. They're using events as a way to drive in and bring in new members. And they're really savvy on the marketing piece too. Social media on their website, and they're bringing attention to their gym based strictly off of their Hierarchs offering. It's not just about, yeah, I want to run Hierarchs classes twice a week. And, you know, hopefully that draws a lot of people. Or, hey, I'm just affiliating because. I want early access to tickets for my members. And that's really all I'm here to do. Or, you know what, I'm going to run an event and I'm not really going to market it that much. And I'm not really going to reinvest into the experience and reinvest into the athlete experience. And if you're not thinking about all of it, you really are kind of missing the mark and you're not able to build a whole ecosystem that each piece kind of reinforces the other. And so that's a lot of what we do is working with gyms on, hey, how can you actually build a community and ecosystem that's going to stand on its own and that each piece builds on top of the other, whether it's the events, the group training, the personal training, the marketing piece, and bringing athletes to the race as well. So that's what the standout gyms are doing. And I'll tell you, I go on and I look for every race weekend. How many gyms are bringing 50 plus people from one gym to a race? And the numbers are incredible. For New York City, it's 30 plus gyms that are bringing over 50 members. Some gyms are bringing over a hundred members. And that is not by accident. It's because they built a really strong High Rocks community and they're doing that by tapping into the things that I was just talking about. And so would you recommend reverse engineering from a specific race and then just kind of like... Layering in camps, classes, personal training, planning on top of that? Absolutely. We call High Rocks 365 because we really believe that you can bring High Rocks into your gym 365 days of the year. I joke, hey, we come to Chicago one weekend a year and that's obviously a big deal and there's a ton of energy and excitement about it. But for the other 360-ish days of the year, the only way that members can tap into Hierarchs is through our affiliate gyms in the Chicago area. So what I would recommend a gym do is take a look, hey, what is the nearest race to me? If they do nothing else, take a look at what is the nearest race to me, back plan four months from that, put together a, hey, here's what our group training plan is going to be. Here's what our cadence of events is going to be. Maybe we do one at the beginning to kind of celebrate the kickoff of the local Hierarchs season. Maybe we do one in the middle as a benchmark kind of activity. What are our in-gym challenges going to be? How frequently are we going to run workshops? How are we going to market this to our current members? And how are we going to go out and find those members in the community that have signed up for the race or are intending to sign up for the race but haven't found their gym in their community yet? And that would build a whole Hierarchs bundle business plan off of that four-month window. And if you do nothing else for the remaining eight months of the year, you will more than, you will easily make back the cost of the Hierarchs affiliation and have a great addition to your gym that people will be looking forward to. Obviously, we think there's a lot that you can do the other eight months of the year that we would recommend doing, but to your point, that is kind of the easy button that gyms can easily replicate around the country. We're seeing people get their affiliation back, you know, making double that in a weekend. And a lot of the people that we see affiliating don't offer any type of High Rocks class. It's just a weekend camp leading up to the race, and they're doing excellent with just that. And what's been crazy for us is we're seeing like 50 to 75% of the people that attend these camps don't go to the gym. So it's just been a great way to string in prospects. 50,000 people are going to race in New York City, right? Within that group, there are some people that are there to podium and they're there to win and they want to go to our world championships in Sweden. Do not underestimate the number of people that are there because, hey, my wife signed me up for this weird thing and, oh, crap, now I have to take training for this seriously because I don't want to let her down. My family is going to be there. I don't want to let myself down. I'm not a member of a gym today, but now I really need to start thinking about it. I need to go and figure out where to go and train for High Rocks. So that is an opportunity that we're bringing to, again, 20 cities next season across North America. And it's just a matter of going out there and grabbing them and bringing them into your space. So for my last question, there are plenty of gym owners who are High Rocks curious, you know, thinking about becoming a training club. And it's obvious that High Rocks is trending, but how should they pressure test that High Rocks is here to stay? Start by putting a couple High Rocks-ish classes on your schedule, right? That combination of strength and cardio, that really community-driven, like high energy feel, and see what the response rate is from your members, right? Is this a training format that they would, enjoy, that they are enjoying? You know, I would definitely lean into the whole challenge dimension of it too, right? We're going to put on a class that is particularly hard, harder than our other classes, and see who shows up, right? So that is one thing that you could absolutely do to kind of stress test whether High Rocks will work for your business or not. Go out and, you know, feel like you can put on an event, put on a mini event and see what the turnout is. From outside of your gym community, how many people can you bring in to the door from outside non-members for an event that incorporates rowing and running and weightlifting, right? I would ask your members, you know, I would, you know, it would be foolish not to ask your members how many of them have signed up for High Rocks already, or how many of them are planning on signing up for the upcoming High Rocks race once tickets go on sale. And that will give you a good sense, too, of what is the market out there for you within your current members, right? So those are a couple of things that I would definitely be thinking about. And once you feel like you might have an inkling that, yes, this type of training format, this very functional-driven, this combination hybrid style of training is something that there is appetite for with our members, come sign up to be a High Rocks affiliate. Tap into early access to tickets. Tap into the use of High Rocks Training Club brand so that you can bring in members who are looking for a great High Rocks-specific experience. Join because we are going to be able to offer you hundreds and hundreds of High Rocks workouts that you can just plug and play into your programming. Come join because your coaches are going to be able to get certified as High Rocks performance coaches, and now you can then market that out. To your members, it's something that you're able to offer that the other gym down the street can't, right? So a lot of ways to stress test it, but once you feel like there is an appetite there, you can really pour gasoline on the fire by becoming a High Rocks Training Club officially. And those are all great options, but what would you say to the person in the fitness industry who's maybe questioning the durability of the brand? Like, is the demand? Is the demand going to go away? Yeah, that's a great question. I hear it quite frequently, right? And who knows? It is possible. It is possible. But what I would say is that there's always a demand for functional fitness, right? Fitness that allows you to go out into the universe and push, pull, hinge, run, etc. But also say there is not a single, and this is intentional, right? There is not a single dimension to High Rocks Training or High Rocks Racing. That doesn't have, that wouldn't be at home in a non-High Rocks gym. So, you know, wrong machines. Most gyms have wrong machines already, right? And so if you think, hey, I'm going to put this investment into my High Rocks space and. I'm not really sure if it's going to work out, let's say that something horrible happens and High Rocks doesn't really stick around. Well, you have some wrong machines in your gym that you're probably going to need and use anyway, right? So. We're taking things that already exist out there in gyms today, and we're kind of combining them in this fun, competitive way. So outfitting your gym for High Rocks is really just outfitting your gym, right? And so there's no real –it really de-risks things from that perspective. And that's something that we think, again, that's intentional. That's why Hyrux was designed in this way. It's to make fitness a sport. And with that, Eric, thank you for taking the time. I know you are a busy guy, so I will let you go on your way. And if you guys got value out of this episode of Run a Profitable Gym, be sure to subscribe and leave a comment. It is tough getting on Eric's schedule, getting him on the podcast, and we certainly appreciate it. Thank you, John. I'll see you in New York City here in a couple weeks.