According to his own statement, Toetzke didn’t so much invent a game as reverse-engineer it for the client he wanted – starting with any committed gym-goer – and work backwards from the movements. He spaced it out so that a busy adult could prepare for it amidst the responsibilities of modern life. “I wanted it to be so that if you trained for an hour three times a week, you could get it done,” he says. “Every gym class in the world is an hour.”
Running, rowing, sledding, lunges, wall balls, carries – nothing on the floor demands a coach, a skill you can fail to learn, or have spent a childhood specializing in. This is in contrast to CrossFit, the sport Heroics is most compared to and least resembled, where the complex gymnastics skills put off most gym-goers. “If you want to muscle-up, it’s impossible,” says Toetzke. “You need to train for years.” He calls Hyrox “the apple of fitness” – premium, frictionless, instantly recognizable. A game for people who go to the gym.
It helps that Hyrox only rewards the qualities that are the best. Explosive power and top speed begin to fade in our 30s, but aerobic fitness remains highly trained for decades, while speed, discipline, and tolerance for discomfort improve with experience. Marathons and triathlons reward many of the same qualities—and have been getting weaker over the years—but they also demand things a busy 40-something might not have: flexible joints, a swimmer’s stroke, or the open calendar required for long races and months of weekend training blocks. Herox doesn’t ask for any of this. Racing rewards the body, many of these men already spend their mornings making the body strong and capable and also reminding them how to endure suffering on command.
The scale of ambition matches. The New York race this spring attracted 50,000 athletes over 10 days — the same number who completed the New York City Marathon six months earlier. Toetzke is openly lobbying for the inclusion of hybrid racing in the 2032 Olympics. While social media is speculating about which age group stars are juicing, he told me about Operation Flawless, the sport’s new drug-testing program for sponsored athletes. The black background, the monochrome logo, the judges working the field with their red cards: it’s the staging of a game meant to become permanent.
Lengling and I chatted again outside the arena after the race. His face was red, he was walking awkwardly, and I was a little surprised that he didn’t seem happy. He seemed to me to be the kind of man who thrives on pushing his body to its limits. But he finished in 1:04:25 – nearly three minutes less than his personal best. Good for 28th place in its division, but not the performance it had dreamed of. It was an exciting thing to see little Lincoln on his wife’s phone screen during the 1,000-meter race, but part of his disappointment was tied to the penalty – the first of his HighRoc career. During the burpee broad jump, a judge gave her a red card; He thinks his legs may have wobbled, but is still not sure. “It’s 15 seconds,” he says, shrugging. “I didn’t think I was going to win anyway, so it is what it is. But it messes with you a little bit.”
