Hyrox explained ahead of Johannesburg debut next month

With big brands endorsing high performance athletes, a number of fitness gyms signing up for affiliations and lining up for the indoor competition on 1 March at Expo Centre, the Hyrox wave is now spreading like wildfire.  

The first competition on African soil was staged in Cape Town in September last year and it is Joburg’s turn next month.

Speaking to SABC Sport this week, Stone put the frenzy into context.  

"I got introduced to Hyrox three years ago. I started seeing a couple of videos that were popping up online and it looked like something that was very interesting and didn't look as hard as what we look at when we see CrossFit,” Stone said.

“So, one of those thoughts where I was like, it's a challenge, it's something that I think I'll see myself trying and it will be easy for me to translate it to the normal person instead of me saying I'm doing a sport that just looks difficult.

“It was a sport that, I was like, if someone watches me and I have to explain it to them, it will be easy for them to understand it and easy for them to actually try it and jump on to it."

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The 34-year-old adds that the functional workouts immediately won him over.

"I've always looked at running as one of the most long and boring things but then once I started incorporating it into Hirox, it became a little bit more fun. So, all the other movements are basic movements that we do day to day,” he added.

“So, from our lunges, I normally do lunges in my workouts, burpees or jumps in my workouts. I use the ski, I use the rower but then the intensity of it is what actually made it more fun.

So, instead of me jumping in the rowing machine and rowing for two minutes with no goal, now I have to aim for a 345 and hit a 1000 kilometres which is something that's not easy to do but with learning the proper technique and being able to know what to do and when to breathe and how to move, you'll be able to build up to that process."