A Hub for HYROX Training: Falls Church’s Functional Fitness

It's not for nothing that the City of Falls Church was recently ranked the "healthiest community in the United States."

While active residents in the Little City are preparing for the 2025 Falls Church Fitness Challenge this April 1 - 30 involving activities “that fit your pace – from yoga to team sports,” many might not be aware that a major hub of personal and team training in HYROX, the “fastest growing fitness sport in the world,” can be found for more hardcore fitness fanatics at Functional Fitness of Falls Church, 2840 Graham Rd.

The Falls Church Independent spoke with one of the founders of Functional Fitness, training coach Kavon Atabaki, to find out what HYROX is all about and try to understand how it’s taken the fitness world by storm. The City of Falls Church’s Mayor Letty Hardi, a fitness aficionado herself, gave us the tip. And we thank the mayor!

With nearly 20 years of fitness training experience, Atabaki holds certifications in: "SFG II Kettlebell Instructor, SFB Body Weight Instructor, RKC II Kettlebell Instructor, CK-FMS Functional Movement System, ACE Personal Trainer, and NSPA Personal Trainer," per Functional Fitness.

Spreading Like Wildfire

According to Cosmopolitan, "HYROX is an indoor fitness competition founded in Germany in 2017 by Christian Toetzke and Moritz Fürste with 650 competitors." .... It's since grown massively, and [in 2024 was] set to have over 175,000 competitors." Now, HYROX sponsors “races in more than 11 different countries and over 30 different cities,” according to the HYROX website.

Where does HYROX get its chemical sounding name? "HYROX doesn't actually stand for anything," Cosmopolitan continued. "Instead it was said to be created by the founders on a night out, where they combined 'hybrid' and 'rockstar.'"

In the United States, HYROX is an east coast phenomenon for now, but is rapidly spreading west.

In fact, Washington, D.C. will be hosting the HYROX Open North American Championships race from March 29-30 at the Washington Convention Center. “Get ready for an adrenaline-packed day where FITNESS meets THRILL,” at this event, HYROX says, “whether you’re aiming to set a personal record, bond with friends, or simply challenge yourself in a whole new way.... Prepare to sweat, strive, and succeed like never before!”

"The one here in D.C. coming up on March 29, they’ll be at the Convention Center. And they’ll do it on the big floor," Atabaki said. "Like their biggest showroom there."

So, what is HYROX all about? 

“HYROX is a fitness race with eight legs,” Atabaki said. “It’s a German-based company that started it. Each leg is a one kilometer run that then also has an exercise.”

“And in order, the first leg is 1000 meters, or one kilometer, on the SkiErg. Then it’s a 50 meter SLED PUSH. And the weights are pretty significant on the sled pushes. And the turf, unfortunately, has a lot of friction, so – [Laughs] – it’s harder to move on there.”

“The third leg is a SLED PULL with a long rope, of 50 meters. And it’s twelve and a-half meter lengths on each sled, so you’ve got to stop and start – which is quite annoying. [Laughs].”

“The fourth is what they call the BURPEE BROAD JUMPS. You do a burpee, unfortunately, and your only path forward is jumping and there’s 80 meters you’ve got to cover. So, it’s quite annoying as well. [Laughs].”

“So, all these exercises end up being very annoying. And at the end of each, you’re running a kilometer. Then number 5 is 1000 meters on the rower [for ROWING]. Number 6 is a Farmer's Walk [or, FARMER’S CARRY], which is just carrying two kettlebells by your side. But, it’s 200 meters and the bells are not light. The men have to carry 50 pound kettlebells and the women, 30 pounds, in each hand.”

“Then number 7 is alternating lunges [SANDBAG LUNGES]. You’ve got a weight on your back – and it’s in the form of a sandbag – and you have to carry it and you do lunges 100 meters with your knee having to touch the ground every time, alternating steps. And again, it’s very annoying in that part of the race, it’s not getting lighter! [Laughs].”

“And then, the last one is the coup de gras, the 100 WALL BALLS. So, it’s a 10-foot target for men. Nine-foot for women. And men have to use a 14-pound ball and women use a 10-pound ball. You do a squat where your hips get to knee-height and then you stand up and throw the ball and you’ve got to hit the target 100 times. And it used to be 75 for women, but this year, they were like, ‘You know what? Why are we doing that? Let’s make it 100 for women.’ So everyone can be miserable. And that’s it.”

So, how long does it all take? “The average time, they say, is an hour and a-half. But they have some really fast people doing it in like 58 minutes. So, factoring them in there, that means that most normal people are closer to two hours. Yeah, it’s tough.”

Why the Growing Popularity?

I was curious about what accounts for HYROX’s rapidly growing popularity, since it’s all so miserable and annoying.

“Yeah, people like being miserable out there. [Laughs]. I’ve been in the fitness industry now for almost 20 years and about 15 years ago was the rise of obstacle course races,” Atabaki continued. “Spartan Races and Tough Mudders, things like that.... Because running is popular. You know, 5ks, 10ks, marathons, that’s all super-popular. They kind of always will be. But then, what else is there, right? You know, you go to the gym and you do more than just running.... But, if you can find a way to incorporate other things – and not everyone wants to get muddy or dirty –  So, I feel like, this is the 'new kid in town,' and even though it’s like seven years old, this is only the third year it’s been in the states, really. And in the first year, it was in like two locations. D.C. and, I believe, New York.... I could be mistaken on which cities it came to first. But D.C. is definitely one of them. And last year, being the second full year in the states, that kind of blew up to seven or eight locations. And now this year, it seems like every major city is getting one.”

Different Options for Competition

HYROX is “spreading like wildire, then?”

“Yeah. Exactly. And, again, because you know exactly what it is, right? The events are known going in. There’s no randomness to it. You can test yourself against that standard. It’s like, everyone knows their 5k time as a runner. And a 5k is a 5k. So you can always test yourself against that standard and see if you can improve it."

"But HYROX also has different options for people at different levels. There’s a Relay Option which gets people to our gym doing that this year. And a Partner Option because doing that full event is quite difficult. So, some people may never do a full event, but they’re going to do a Relay or Partner Option, or they do that for the first time, but maybe for the second time they do the Full Course. So some options make it more do-able.”

Participants have the option to tag-team certain events then? “Yeah. The relay is four people and each person chooses two of those legs. And I think they have transition zones. So one person comes in and – boom! – you’re out. But with the Partner Option, you go together. When there’s two people, you’re just doing it together and you have to run every foot of that together, which for me is the worst part. [Laughs]. But the [relay] events you split as you see fit. So if one person’s a stronger rower, they do more on the row, and so on.”

Functional Fitness

I asked how long Functional Fitness has been in the fitness business. “We’ve existed as a business since 2011. We were in Falls Church City proper, at 350 S. Washington Street for eight years. Right next to it on Annandale Road, 510 Annandale Road, for a few years before that.... And, we’ve been here, going on soon to be two years…. We’ve been an affiliate of HYROX’s for over a year and have been doing this style of training for a few years now. So it’s been something we have a good understanding and hold of.” 

And recently there was a race in Falls Church City? “We held what HYROX calls a Personal Fitness Test (PFT). Think of that as like a very mini version of the HYROX. Because as I said, the full event is a big endeavor. So the PFT – and it’s free for you to come in, for every attendee – and there’s a list of them you can access through the HYROX newsletter. You get a list of local events. They’re posted at an affiliate gym, and we are a HYROX affiliate. Because it’s a good way to give people a taste, right?”

“And, if you’re considering doing the full event, try this out first! [Laughs]. Lots of people will do it in 20 minutes. Most average people will be closer to 30 minutes or 45 being kind of the top end on it. So it’s really a good taste of it. It’s got some of the events that are in the HYROX. The order that becomes miserable when you do them back-to-back, so it feels a little like you’re doing the real thing. And then they have something where you can see your time and you can check in with the HYROX website to see what they suggest. Like if you do it in 27 minutes they’ll suggest you do a Partner HYROX. If you do it in, say, 22 minutes, they might say, ‘Oh, you’re good to go solo.’”

The Social Aspect

Having experienced many major HYROX competitions, Atabaki described what the upcoming March 29-30 event at the Washington Convention Center might look like.

“Yeah. It’s a pretty cool event. Like you’re walking in and…. coming down the stairs, and you can see down into the madness, right? [Laughs]. The track, the people are going right? Because the way they run it, people are going all the time. The people run in waves. And every 10 minutes – boom! – there’s another release of 25 people. Like all day long. All day Saturday, all day Sunday. And there are spectators watching, people finishing, people checking out and cheering other people, people warming up. So you step into it and it does just look like madness.”

But the competition is also an inspiration. “And the people who go to do it! There was an 80 year-old man, a cancer survivor. He did it with a friend of his. And they walked it. And there were people cheering him on. They had shirts made for people. And for whatever reason – spanning the gamut – like why do people run marathons? They do it because they love it and they’re fast. Some people do it because it’s really hard to do. And they want to achieve a difficult thing. So it’s a similar type of atmosphere.”

Why did Atabaki personally gravitate toward HYROX from other hardcore fitness competitions? “So, both for myself and for our clientele here, we kind of say, ‘Move better, get stronger.’ That’s our tagline, right? So we like to do things that help people move a little better and get a little stronger. Get a little better cardiovascularly. And HYROX is hard but it’s simple.”

“None of HYROX's events require much coordination. Under fatigue you can still complete them. And it doesn’t run too high a risk of injury due to – like in a Spartan Race, you’re climbing over things – and I like Spartan Races, they’re fun, I think, for the right people – but climbing a 15-foot cargo net when you’re too fatigued or too weak at that point, you’re going to hurt yourself. And with these events – I mean, injury can happen at any time doing anything, but with HYROX, it seems a lot less likely and it’s a good testing-ground for people’s fitness where they don’t want to have to train or test too many attributes. There’s strength, and there’s cardio.... And mental toughness, right? Like when you get to those 100 wall balls.”

“I don’t know if there are fewer injuries by design. Or, it's just like, ‘I want to push your resilience and toughness.’ And if coordination and skill are too high on the list of priorities – and coordination and skill are great – but if they’re too high on the list of priorities for an event, then toughness doesn’t get as tested.” 

“But, in this competition, you’ve just got to push that damn sled! [Laughs]. Like your coordination goes out the window. It’s just your leg strength and your lungs. Same thing with almost every one of the events. So it fits the box of a difficult thing, you know, but you don’t have to get muddy, you don’t have to have too much coordination, and, again, with the Relay and Partner options, it’s approachable for a lot of people.” 

I asked how it was really possible for a competition that looks so extremely demanding to be attracting newcomers.

“It’s funny, because on the surface it doesn’t look like it,” Atabaki said. “You see people sweating and you see six-pack abs, and they’re working hard and they look like Greek statues, and that can be intimidating.... but the atmosphere and the people want to see everyone try to do something difficult. Something that’s hard. And the rules are such – let’s say for the knee touching the ground on lunges – if you have a medical exemption, you say, ‘Look, I can’t touch my knee, I’ll do my best.’ They’re accepting of that. You’re not competing for the podium, but you’re competing with yourself to do it.”

How Does HYROX Differ from CrossFit?

How does HYROX differ from CrossFit? “There are definitely similarities,” Atabaki said. “Like the wall balls, a lot of burpees, using the rowers and the skiers, these are all tools utilized in CrossFit and they popularized a lot of them. But, HYROX caters a little more – as far as a sport and a competitive element – toward the endurance person. I mean, I like lifting weights. I like being really strong. I like all that. But, there are lots of people who just want to be kind of strong. And are maybe looking to compete at something that maybe isn’t just running, but isn’t requiring a lot, like CrossFit.”

“If you do well at CrossFit, there’s a high coordination level, a high skill level, a high strength level. And there’s cardio. Then there’s resilience, right? All those. But this kind of caters more to what I would call the average endurance athlete…. I’m not trying to vilify CrossFit, but as the resistance training gets more and more intense, it ups the risk of some of the injuries.”

Popularity Among Women

Remarkably, HYROX really appears to be taking off among women. “I mean, women are killing it as far as what we’ve seen here. We offer three classes a week here, specifically catering to training for it. And the attendance of those is like 95 percent women.”

The social aspect has really taken off. “One of our clients last year, she joined a team of three kind of middle-aged women, just having fun doing it. They worked. But, they were just kind of having a blast.”

Atabaki believes that women have come to the sport because they’re seeing the importance of strength and endurance, but also because its culture stimulates so much support among participants. “We’re doing interval sled pushes here and you’ve got one person pushing that 400-pound sled, and you’ve got six people cheering them on – I mean, guys can do that too, but women tend to root for each other a little bit more, I think. But then also, you’re moving weight, so it’s strength work, but it isn’t strength work that builds as much muscle. And one of our big things here is to promote strength with everyone, but especially with women, because ‘Strong is Good,’ right? And they all support that. And muscle is good. And the old 80s and 90s era, ‘Ew, muscles for women?,’ I think that’s mostly gone.”

Getting Started

Atabaki suggests that the fitness-curious try out a HYROX class as “a great way to get introduced to it.” 

“And it just so happens – you know, I’m promoting here [Laughs] – we offer classes. And we offer a free trial. So if someone wants to try it out. And if it’s not for them, it’s not for them. But you don’t know until you try, right? But it is the new fitness craze. Like the full race in D.C. is sold out…. But there are plenty of options for people to travel” to other events in New York in June, or Miami a “couple of weeks before” that. 

“It’s become a wildly popular fitness test-race event, so if people are curious about it, the best way to dip their toes in is to try a class at a local gym. And if there are other places, obviously, in Falls Church, then jump on it! Also, check out the HYROX website and HYROX on YouTube.”

For more information go to HYROX and Functional Fitness of Falls Church.

By Christopher Jones