Professionals find their competitive streak in group fitness challenges

Electronic dance music reverberates across the vast room as competitors run around the perimeter, faces rigid with determination and fatigue. Others push heavy sleds, lunge with sandbags across their shoulders and throw weighted balls. “Manchester, make some noise!” shouts an MC over the loudspeakers. Spectators cheer.

This is Hyrox, a fitness competition that drew 7,500 participants to an exhibition centre in the northern English city over a January weekend. The latest group exercise combining cardio and strength has become popular among professionals and a new generation of chief executives keen to promote a clean lifestyle and instil healthy competition among employees.

Looking on nervously is Mike, a 48-year-old airline pilot from Cheltenham, hoping to complete his first Hyrox course in under 70 minutes — 22 minutes faster than the average, and far quicker than the slowest of more than four hours. Despite Mike’s flying schedule, he is pleased to have kept up his training, completing a solid workout in Chennai a few days before. His friend, Chris, a company director, says it has helped him recalibrate his life. “I got into fitness again after focusing on my career.”

Another participant waiting for the doubles event is Michael Murray, chief executive of UK retail group Frasers and son-in-law of Mike Ashley, the company’s founder. After his first Hyrox in May last year, Murray now sees it as underpinning his business performance. “I was bored of just training and had . . . no real goals.” His trainer suggested Hyrox. “I like achievements . . . I like having a path to success.” He trains for one hour a day, usually at 6.30am. The morning of the competition he did “a nice little smooth run, [to] freshen my mind, so I can think”.

Such sporting commitment — Murray later completes the Manchester doubles event in 58.01 — marks a change from Ashley, his predecessor as Frasers CEO, who was better known for his drinking…