Functional Fitness Powerhouse HYROX Invests in XENOM
XENOM, The Decathlon of Fitness™, and HYROX have announced a strategic partnership, signaling no slowdown in the popularity of mass-participation races and a commitment to functional fitness events.
On Wednesday, the brands announced that HYROX founders Christian Toetzke and Moritz Fürste are investing in XENOM and joining its board of directors. The announcement comes as XENOM launches its first international season in 2027, following a successful 2026 season.
The details: XENOM is a competition with 10 fixed, standardized fitness tests. The events test areas of fitness such as strength, gymnastics, and aerobic capacity. The ‘events’ favor those used to CrossFit movements, but are approachable enough for a hybrid athlete to attempt with some specialized training beforehand.
This format ties in well with HYROX, which has its own standardized set of stations and movements. However, the HYROX race is slightly more approachable to a mass audience as it involves mostly running with a few less technical fitness stations throughout, like the sandbag lunge or burpee broad jump.
- Together, HYROX and XENOM now span the full functional fitness competitive landscape, from the world’s biggest mass-participation race to its most complete test,” said the press release. “Both recognize how fitness has become a cultural force, a sport people train for all year and a live experience they travel to compete in and to watch.”
The tide seems to be turning as more CrossFitters turn to HYROX and XENOM throughout the year. Elite CrossFitters are no longer focusing solely on the CrossFit Games season and are instead branching out to other tests of fitness. 2026 Games rookie Siria Meha competed at XENOM alongside other Games veterans, including Emily Rolfe and Sam Briggs.
HYROX has also attracted elite CrossFit athletes, including Tia-Clair Toomey-Orr, James Sprague, Justin Medeiros, and Brooke Wells, among others.
Xenom Founder and CEO Keith Barlow and Toetzke and Fürste have worked together since 2020. This investment will build on that relationship, and it was a “very logical decision for us, because we share the same goal of making fitness the largest sport on earth,” Toetzke said in the press release.
- In practice, this will take the form of a strategic partnership focused on marketing, events, and education. Barlow adds that the investment will help XENOM build infrastructure for a global events system from the start, rather than entering each market the hard way.
“We see an incredible opportunity to meet the huge unmet demand from people training in boxes, garages and gyms around the world, who have been waiting for a complete, standardized test of their fitness – and to build XENOM into the defining global platform for the pursuit of total performance,” Barlow said in the press release.
