You may not have heard of Athx, but it could be the biggest fitness competition you’ve never heard of. It is built around three pillars: strength, endurance, and metabolic conditioning. It pushes competitors through 2.5 hours of gruelling tests meant to find every flaw in your engine.
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At first glance, it might look like another event for self-proclaimed hybrid athletes. In fact, Athx stands out in a few important ways with structured competitive design.
For one, the format includes structured rest periods, which lets athletes really push themselves to their absolute limits instead of just getting through a blur of fatigue. It starts with max lifts to test absolute strength, then moves on to peak aerobic capacity, and finally ends with a punishing closer that leaves no place to hide.
Athx started in 2023 with five events in the UK and has been growing steadily since then. In 2026, it will go to mainland Europe for the first time. I went to the opening event of the new season at ExCeL London to find out if Athx is about to become popular.
What Are the Workouts for Athx?
After a good warm-up, the competitors go into the strength zone first. The first six minutes are only for doing a one-rep max (1RM) in the strict overhead press. You can try as many times as you want with different weights, but you have to do a full lockout. After six minutes, you go right into another six-minute block of back squats, where you do three reps total. The last part of the strength test is the deadlift, which has an eight-minute time limit for five reps.
Competitors get a short 10-minute break to refuel before the endurance zone, which is 22 minutes of nonstop running and rowing. Depending on the division they are in, athletes switch between running and rowing every 500m, 750m, or 1km in continuous endurance intervals.
After this, there is another 30-minute break before the metcon. This last part has a time limit of 25 minutes, but you should try to finish it as quickly as you can. The event ends with a final round of ski-erg, dumbbell snatches, sandbag carries, box jump-overs, walking lunges, burpee broad jumps, and a final round of ski-erg in a high-intensity finishing sequence.
This is content that was brought in from Instagram. Their website might have the same information in a different format or more information available online.
How to Get Through Athx
Athx is a clear standard for all-around athleticism. People who do well in the strength part may have a harder time with endurance. On the other hand, athletes with a high aerobic capacity may not be able to lift heavy enough for five-rep max deadlifts and three-rep max squats. To do well, you need to find this perfect balance point, which is what makes the best stand out from the rest.
I went into a world I didn’t know that was full of pain. I was most worried about the strength zone going into the event, even though I knew I could choose any weights I wanted. I don’t do one-rep maxes on any exercise; instead, I tend to squat between 8 and 12 times to test my strength. I honestly can’t remember the last time I tried to do deadlifts in recent training cycles.
I had to be smart. You have a lot of time to warm up, but you don’t want to get too tired early. I still had time to try heavier weights than my 120kg squats and 130kg deadlifts, but I chose not to because I knew there was a lot of running, rowing, and a sharp metcon still to come. That, along with the fact that my last reps were done with a pure grimace effort, and any more weight would have probably hurt me.
This information comes from Instagram. Their website might have the same information in a different format or more information presented elsewhere.
Heavy lifts also make you tired in a way that nothing else does. You only have a few minutes to deal with that stress, recover, and get your body ready for a whole new kind of stress, like running and rowing. I was able to get my legs moving again, but it was hard to keep a steady pace throughout so I could finish strong. Every time I got back on the rower, I could see how I was doing compared to everyone else in my heat on a big screen right in front of me, which didn’t help. It’s definitely fun, and it brings out your competitive side fully.
After that, there was the metcon. I don’t know much about these kinds of workouts, and by the end, I wished I did because my quads hurt so much. My legs almost gave out on me during the box jump-overs section, and I almost fell. I think that happened because of mistakes I made during the longer, half-hour break between the endurance and the metcon. Sitting down and staying still let lactic acid build up, which made it much harder to get going again for intense, explosive efforts. If you can master that transition, you can make big improvements in your performance.
Should you give Athx a try?
Athx is still very new as an event. But that’s also why it seems like it could soon make waves in the mainstream, which is a good sign overall. There is a clear way that each part is put together, which makes for a high-energy setting where everyone is pushing their limits and giving it their all.
What Sets Athx Apart from Hyrox?
“Hyrox is mostly about aerobic conditioning with hard but ultimately “light” stations for experienced strength trainers. Athx, on the other hand, spreads its challenges over a longer period of time, with refuel and recovery zones,” says MH fitness director Andrew Tracey. This lets the event include some real heavy strength training along with endurance and higher-intensity conditioning work. This mix definitely makes Athx a better “hybrid” competition than Hyrox, but some people may like the slightly tighter and more specialised format of Hyrox better.
