Should you become a Hyrox affiliate and train people for races if you run a CrossFit Gym?
Hyrox training is an easy add-on in a CrossFit affiliate as “the sport of fitness racing” increases in popularity.
The overlap between the two methods is obvious at a glance, and you can easily incorporate Hyrox training into your gym’s model to serve clients better and generate more revenue.
In fact, one Two-Brain gym owner used this plan to set himself apart in his local market and give his clients what they wanted. Hari Singh is one of the longest-serving CrossFit affiliate owners in the world, and CrossFit NYC is now a Hyrox affiliate.
Remember, your method is the collection of tools you use to get results for clients. A good trainer might use barbell training to help one client prepare for a powerlifting meet, and she might use heart-rate training to help another client prepare for an endurance event. Great trainers use whatever method will help clients accomplish goals fastest. CrossFit, Hyrox, F45 and Tae Bo are all methods.
Your model is how your deliver your method. It can change over time, but adjustments are relatively rare. An example: You might sell group coaching, using CrossFit and Hyrox to help clients get results.
We help gym owners select a model that ensures they can evolve and adapt to use new methods. I mentioned Tae Bo above—does anyone do it anymore? Not really—but people are way into Hyrox in 2025.
Below, I’ll give you the exact steps to add Hyrox training to a CrossFit gym, with ground-level tips from Hari at CrossFit NYC.
And can you become a Hyrox affiliate if you aren’t a CrossFit affiliate? You sure can. If you run another type of gym, your space and gear might not create as much overlap with Hyrox, but you can still add another method to your model.
What Is Hyrox?
First, the 411 on Hyrox.
Hyrox is a fitness race, and it’s always the same, allowing people to compare their results to world records and work to improve their own times from race to race.
Here are four helpful links:
The Hyrox race has eight different stations, with a 1-km run after each station but the last one. The race starts with a 1-km run as well, for a total of 8 km of running. Here’s the exact test, with loads varying in different divisions:
- 1-km run
- 1-km SkiErg
- 1-km run
- 50-m sled push
- 1-km run
- 50-m sled pull
- 1-km run
- 80-m burpee broad jumps
- 1-km run
- 1-km row
- 1-km run
- 200-m farmers carry with kettlebells
- 1-km run
- 100-m sandbag lunges
- 1-km run
- 100 wall balls
The current world records are held by Hunter McIntyre (53:22) and Lauren Weeks (58:03).
What Equipment Do You Need to Become a Hyrox Affiliate?
You’ll note that Hyrox races use equipment that’s very common in CrossFit gyms:
- SkiErgs
- Sleds
- Rowing machines
- Kettlebells
- Sandbags
- Medicine balls
Do not do this: Go out and buy every piece of equipment if you don’t have it. That’s not necessary. As legendary powerlifting coach Louie Simmons proved before his death, you do not need to max out your deadlift every day to PR your deadlift in a big meet. If you’re a good coach, you can 100 percent get an athlete ready for Hyrox even if you don’t have the exact equipment used in the event. Yes, athletes should know how to use a SkiErg efficiently, but it’s a mistake to buy a fleet right away. Work around any gear limitations.
Do this: If you don’t have something on that list, make an easy substitution. For example, you can do farmers carries or lunges with dumbbells. Similarly, stamina and endurance built on a rowing machine will translate to a SkiErg, even if an athlete can’t train on that machine every day.
If you do buy gear: Buy the bare minimum and tie every dollar to revenue generation. You’re not starting Hyrox training at your gym to build a massive collection of sandbags and sleds. You’re doing it to serve clients and turn a profit. Any equipment you purchase should generate a return.
You have a few other considerations:
1. It’s ideal if you have a place for athletes to run. But in some areas that isn’t possible, especially if it’s -40. Treadmills are a costly solution, and they take up a lot of space. Get creative: Assign running “on your own” in training plans, use shorter shuttle runs or sub in another piece of conditioning equipment.
2. Sleds take up storage space and can be costly. If you have them—and space to push and pull—great. But even then it can be challenging to replicate the exact resistance when you figure in friction and humidity. Get creative with wall marches, bear crawls, plate pushes, banded resistance runs, plate or tire pulls, rope climbs and so on. At CrossFit NYC, Singh has sleds and the space to use them, and he uses carpet to keep the conditions the same for everyone in the building even if they aren’t an exact copy of the set-up on race day.
From the Hyrox site: “There are no minimum requirements to become a Hyrox Training Club. However, we do advise on having most of our equipment or alternatives and suitable space for either personal training, open gym or group classes. It all depends on what you want to offer.”
That last part about PT, open gym and group classes? That’s your business model—and Hyrox, a method, can fit into many models.
Hyrox Affiliate: How to Become One
You can’t just start offering Hyrox training at your gym, just as you can’t market CrossFit training without affiliating. You must become a Hyrox affiliate.
Hyrox has an affiliation plan, which you can review here.
The short version:
- Any facility can become a “training club”—just like CrossFit NYC. The price in the U.S. is $1,500 per year or $130 per month (rates may vary in other countries). We recommend this option if you already have a gym and want to offer Hyrox training. The contract period is 12 months.
- Entrepreneurs can open a standalone “performance center.” Talk to a mentor if this interests you to ensure you have a rock-solid business plan.
- Coaching credentials are also available. Info on the Level 1 credential is available here—current listed price: $499.
As a Hyrox affiliate training club, you get access to the Hyrox365 program, the Performance Hub of resources and the Hyrox365 Academy for training.
Review the full FAQ here.
Marketing Your Gym as a Hyrox Affiliate
After you’ve become a Hyrox affiliate, you get access to the name and the brand—which are hot commodities right now—and you’ll be added to the map of Hyrox affiliates.
You can then promote yourself as a Hyrox Training Club, offer Hyrox classes to your members, use Hyrox branding in digital and print marketing, and offer in-house Hyrox competitions if you don’t present them as “official events.”
It goes without saying that you should ensure the Hyrox brand is prominent on your website—you want all the SEO the brand can offer you—and inside your building so existing members know about the new program.
If you’re in an area with good traffic, you might consider exterior signage—but don’t break the bank here.
Content Marketing
Make a big deal when the ink is dry on your Hyrox affiliate agreement and you’re ready to launch your programs. I’d recommend the following general content marketing as a start:
- Send out an email blast to your mailing list—many contacts might be very interested in this new program. Don’t hesitate to send out more emails about the program down the line, especially if a nearby race is coming up.
- Write a series of three to five blogs about Hyrox training. This will help with local SEO and give interested visitors something to read when they find you. Announce that you offer Hyrox training, describe your program, explain who can join, and lay out the problems your program solves (in most cases, you will be helping people perform better at races, but don’t forget that some people will want to use an exciting new program to improve conditioning, lose weight, etc.).
- Use your blogs to create a series of 10-15 social-media posts about the program—photos, photo carousels, reels and stories. Make sure your social media has a heavy Hyrox presence.
- If you create YouTube or podcast content, make at least three episodes dedicated to Hyrox. On video, show people having fun training for Hyrox races at your gym.
Share all your content everywhere, and make sure you post it in any local groups for fitness aficionados, runners, obstacle-course racers and so on.
After that initial campaign, create more Hyrox content regularly so people keeping hearing about the program.
Hyrox Affiliate Launch Event
A launch event can be a great way to acquire new members for your Hyrox program—it’s relatively easy to get a newbie moving, so you might consider a “free drop-in grand opening event” or a “bring-a-friend event” for existing members.
If you choose this path, speak to every guest before and after the workout with the goal of getting them to join the program. Collect email addresses and follow up with each participant personally after the event—and add the addresses to your long-term lead-nurture campaigns and general email list.
Race Prep and In-House Events
Be ready to ramp things up if a local race is announced. That’s the time for a full-court press, which can include pushes for general membership or special pre-race training programs.
Use standard marketing principles here: Let people know how your programs can help them perform in the official race, and use scarcity and urgency to motivate people to join: “Only five spots left in our Hyrox training group for the July 10 race!”
You could also run an in-house Hyrox event if there are no local races scheduled. This is a great option in areas without a race. Your affiliate becomes the event host and fills a gap in the market. By creating a competition, you’ll give people a reason to start or keep training.
Affinity Marketing and Referrals for Hyrox Affiliate Events
My favorite way to fill any new program? Ask existing members if they know people who would be interested. We crushed kids programs at my gym for years with this strategy.
Simply speak to each member and ask if they know anyone who’s interested in Hyrox. It’s even better if you know the member well and can say something like this: “Your wife destroyed that obstacle-course race last year. Do you think she’d want to try a Hyrox race?”
A similar strategy: Get out and about at local running and obstacle-course races and let people know about your Hyrox program. You could even bring a printed pamphlet or DM info to people digitally.
Use your local connections!
Paid Marketing for Hyrox Affiliates?
You can, of course, run paid ads for your program.
I don’t recommend a massive spend—and I’d use the tactics listed above first. But paid ads can get Hyrox training in front of people you can’t reach in other ways, so consider promoting your program on Instagram, Facebook and Google.
Here’s the secret: Start small and do your “ad math.” You want to know what it costs to acquire a client and how much that client is likely to spend in your business. That will help you ensure you aren’t wasting money on ads.
For example, if it costs you $50 to get a person to sign up for training at your Hyrox affiliate, you’ll know it’s a great investment if each client is likely to stay for 15 months (length of engagement) and spend $210 (average revenue per member) for a lifetime value of $3,150.
Paid marketing can be complicated—we teach Two-Brain clients exactly how to do it, and they can apply sound general principles to a Hyrox affiliate campaign. If you aren’t a Two-Brain client, start small with ad spends and track your metrics carefully.
Hyrox Affiliate Scheduling and Programming
You have lots of options here. The greatest concern for scheduling is that Hyrox training can eat up real estate. You can, of course, use alternative movements and implements to preserve your square footage, but sled work, burpee broad jumps, farmers carries and running/shuttle sprints create space considerations.
At CrossFit NYC, they roll out carpets for sleds and set up lanes, so they don’t want to put everything away after a one-hour session. Instead, they make Wednesdays and Saturdays Hyrox days and ensure the workouts fit perfectly into the CrossFit programming stream.
“Our regular CrossFit members have access to all our classes,” Singh said. “And from their point of view, the Wednesday and Saturday classes are the Wednesday and Saturday classes. … If Hyrox didn’t have a name and we just programmed those WODs, no one would think, ‘Well, why are you doing wall balls and rowing and pushing this sled?’ It’s CrossFit. No CrossFitter says, ‘What is this?’”
Another cool feature: Hyrox training is relatively simple, so Singh will even use the sessions as a Sweat Intro—a sales process that involves a trial and a follow-up consultation. (Two-Brain gyms most often use a No Sweat Intro as part of the Prescriptive Model.) Because Hyrox movements are very accessible, Singh has no problem putting people right into Wednesday and Saturday classes.
You can see some of CrossFit NYC’s programming here. You’re no doubt a great fitness coach, so it won’t be hard for you to evaluate the Hyrox race and create a training plan that will help clients post better times. Intervals, chippers, AMRAPs, couplets, triplets, monostructural work—all of it can work.
Finally, Singh uses Hyrox to take the pressure off his busy days and fill his non-peak days.
“I was always opposed to two-day memberships,” he said. “Everyone comes on Monday and Tuesday, when I least need them. Now if I have Wednesday and Saturday memberships, I’ve got all the capacity I want. They’re not crowding out me on Monday or Tuesday. So it’s perfect.
“People can do packs and drop-ins. … One of the problems with drop-ins is people want to drop in at 6 a.m. on Monday or 6 p.m. on Monday or Tuesday, when you know you are already full. Now they want to drop in at 6 a.m. on Wednesday or 7:15 on Saturday. It’s fine with me.”
Many gyms have struggled with busy peak times and dead off hours—perhaps Hyrox training could bring new clients in to fill vacant space in your gym.
With that in mind, you have great flexibility when it comes to scheduling Hyrox training and programming workouts.
Singh’s No. 1 piece of advice on Hyrox training in a CrossFit gym?
“Do it on one or two days a week. Don’t try to say, ’We have Hyrox every day at 10 in the morning because it gets boring to the people at 10 in the morning, right? … I would recommend starting it one day a week or two days a week.”
Pricing a Training Program at a Hyrox Affiliate
You have many options here. You can sell Hyrox memberships to clients who want that style of training only, sell it as an add-on to current members or include it in an all-programs membership.
Be cautious with the last option: If you increase the value of an all-in membership, your rate should reflect the increased value.
I’ll just remind you that coaching is very valuable, and most gyms are underpriced. Further, specialty programs are not worth less than core programs—they’re special, not common. Uncommon things cost more.
The best plan: Work with a mentor to run the numbers. Include any equipment costs, consider staffing and staff training, build in a solid profit margin (33 percent is a good starting point) and create value. Base your pricing on a spreadsheet, not on what other people are charging.
With that said, Singh, whose gym is in New York City and pays Manhattan rent, includes Hyrox sessions with his fee for CrossFit clients—remember, Hyrox training is just “the workout” on Wednesday and Sunday at CrossFit NYC. Singh didn’t add anything new; he only adjusted his programming on two days for current members.
He has a separate price for Hyrox-only members.
“Our Hyrox membership’s $199 a month,” Singh said. “We actually added some Sunday classes because Sunday was just open gym. So you can come anytime to a class on Wednesday, Saturday or Sunday. But the average person, if they’re really religious about it, comes to … eight or nine classes for $199, relative to our regular membership, which is $335.”
Singh’s single-class rate for Hyrox is $45, and he sells these sessions on his site as “click and buy” because people can jump into the program right away and their goal is obvious: They’re going to a race and want to do well.
“There’s a stream of people in New York who wanna do Hyrox, and I don’t wanna give them any barriers to doing it,” Singh explained.
Hyrox Affiliate and CrossFit Affiliate?
Singh said it’s still too early to produce any numbers that show you should or should not become Hyrox affiliate.
But he said the New York race set for May 30-June 1 sold out almost instantly, and an increasing number of people are inquiring about Hyrox training. His play revolves around carving out space in a niche and separating his gym from others as a Hyrox affiliate—and he has the equipment and location to do that without spending a lot.
“It’s hard to tell how much of the uptick at the moment is due to the New Year and how much is due to Hyrox’s announced race,” Singh said early in January 2025. “But the beauty is I didn’t have to make a big investment. If Hyrox fades—although it seems to be a rising stock right now—what’s the worst that happens? Oh, I have six sleds and now four of them are getting dust. You know, that’s not like a huge investment.”
And that’s why you don’t blow your budget buying gear. A few extra sleds can be sold. Twenty underused SkiErgs on your credit card will create major storage and cash-flow problems.
The best plan with any specialty program is to run low-cost tests and analyze data.
For example, if you sell out a kids program three sessions in a row, you likely have a clear path to a new recurring revenue stream. If your powerlifting program kills it in Session 1 and has a single athlete in the next session, it’s not going to be a regular revenue stream.
With becoming a Hyrox affiliate and paying a fee, you can’t promote Hyrox training. But you can work with a mentor to run the numbers to create and market a Hyrox program that covers the fee and produces a profit. For example, you could affiliate and charge 10 people $200 for a four-week training block. Then do it again. That’s $4,000 balanced by a $1,500 fee, plus staffing costs.
Or you could market a general plan to help people perform better in any race involving obstacles or implements. If the trial sessions are lit and an increasing number of people are asking about Hyrox, you might want to consider becoming a Hyrox affiliate so you access the power of the brand.
The point: Run the numbers and make a detailed plan.
A secondary or tertiary revenue stream can be a huge win in a gym—like personal training, for example. Healthy-habits coaching, kids programming, Hyrox—all of them can become revenue streams. But the best gyms don’t do everything; they do the best things, and they always do them to produce better results for clients.
A mentor can help you figure out exactly how to help your clients best—and maybe the plan will include becoming a Hyrox affiliate. To hear more about that, book a call here.
