Sarah Wassner Flynn
Published August 12, 2026 06:00AM
Matt Russell spent 15 years proving he could outlast almost anyone
Over the course of his professional triathlon career, he raced more than 45 Ironmans, finished as high as sixth at the Ironman World Championship, broke eight hours multiple times, and built his livelihood around one simple idea: if you want to get faster, build a bigger aerobic engine
After retiring as a pro in 2023, he discovered Hyrox—the rapidly growing fitness competition combining eight 1K runs with eight functional stations like sled pushes, sled pulls, rowing, lunges, burpees, and wall balls. The new sport demanded movements he’d spent years largely ignoring
“I didn’t do much strength work at all,” says the Utah-based Russell, a former Division I cross-country and track runner at the University of New Hampshire. “I am a bigger guy by nature, and I was always concerned about being leaner, not stronger.”
Like many endurance athletes of his era, Russell had been taught that lifting weights was counterproductive. Muscle meant extra weight, and extra weight meant slower racing
“I realized how weak my glutes and hamstrings actually were. I could swim, bike, and run all day, but I really struggled with things like wall balls,” Russell says. It’s a fitting example: the final Hyrox station requires elite male athletes to complete 100 repetitions of throwing a 13-pound medicine ball to a 10-foot target from a deep squat—a movement few triathletes ever practice
As Hyrox surges in popularity—there are some 1.5 million global participants annually—more endurance athletes are realizing that strength and functional fitness do more than just boost performance. Together, they may be one of the most effective strategies for extending an athlete’s career
“It just makes you more durable,” says Amy Bevilacqua, a 52-year-old Hyrox age-group world record holder who transitioned to the sport after years of racing triathlon and road cycling. “It won’t hurt your performance in triathlon. It could really help.”
Building up, not breaking down
Physical therapist Dr. Josh Funk, founder and CEO of Rehab 2 Perform, a practice based in the Washington, D.C. area, often sees a similar pattern in the endurance athletes who come to his clinics
“Typically, triathletes have huge aerobic engines and underbuilt everything else,” says Funk. “These are people who trained conditioning for a decade and treated strength and their movement foundation as optional. Eventually something gives because the load outruns the capacity built to handle it.”
The overuse injuries he commonly sees include gluteal, Achilles, and patellar tendinopathy, tibial stress reactions (from running), low back and front-of-knee pain (from cycling), and shoulder issues (from swimming)
That’s where compound strength training, which recruits multiple muscle groups and joints at the same time, comes into play
“Endurance sport is one plane, lower loads with significant volume,” says Funk. “Every overuse injury comes down to demand versus tolerance. Strength work raises tolerance.”
That becomes even more important as athletes age
“The thing that fades with age is strength, and no amount of mileage protects it,” Funk says. “Past your mid-thirties, you lose muscle, bone, and fast-twitch fiber every year. Heavy compound lifting is the best tool we have to hold onto all three. It stiffens tendons, improves bone density, and preserves tissue capacity, turning your weekly training load into a small fraction of what your body can handle instead of pushing it to its absolute edge. That’s the difference between breaking down and racing for decades.”
How Hyrox is similar, but different from triathlon
Russell and Bevilacqua aren’t alone. A growing number of former professional triathletes have gravitated toward Hyrox, including 2014 Ironman world champion Sebastian Kienle, British Ironman standout Joe Skipper, Ironman champs Luke and Beth McKenzie, and multiple-time Ironman 70.3 podium finisher Lauren Barnett
“Hyrox is for everybody,” Kienle, 42, shared. “I’ve never been healthier in the last ten years.”
On paper, Hyrox and triathlon look nothing alike. One relies on long-duration, steady-state output; the other demands pushing and pulling heavy sleds, explosive movements, and high-intensity functional strength. One unfolds outdoors over varying terrain and weather; the other takes place inside climate-controlled convention centers, with booming music and throngs of spectators
But to Russell, who estimates that Hyrox is roughly 65% endurance and 35% strength, the appeal is obvious. A strong aerobic base, he says, translates immediately to certain events aside from the running portions. At Hyrox Ottawa, he recorded the fastest SkiErg split and the second-fastest rowing split with very little training on either
“Generally, Hyrox is a running event with transitions, which we’re used to,” he explains. “The feeling of going from something like weighted walking lunges to running is very similar to that jelly leg feeling you get running off the bike.”
For someone who spent decades on the roads logging miles and in the pool following a black line, learning new skills in the gym as a 40-something was extra motivating
“When I retired from triathlon in 2023, I didn’t see myself competing at another World Championships,” he shared, “But now I’ve found this new outlet where I can still set PRs, and I can still be competitive and at the top of the game at 43. That’s been fun and surprising.”
Strength improves movement
Embracing Hyrox doesn’t mean triathletes have to abandon the pool, bike, or track, however. Instead, it can be a way to inject needed variety into an offseason, or just a reason to do more compound strength sessions in the gym
Bevilacqua, a mom of five who has been competing in Hyrox since 2017, still races 5Ks and half-marathons. “The bulk of my training is still engine-building,” she says. “Then I sprinkle in the station work.”
Last year, when her youngest daughter was hospitalized near their home in Connecticut for a lengthy stay, and she didn’t have access to a gym, Bevilacqua ran nearly every day for weeks to cope. Years earlier, that sudden jump in volume would have broken her down. This time, she stayed healthy
“I even wound up hopping into a half-marathon and I ran not too far off my PR without specifically training for it,” she shares. “I attribute that directly to all of the functional strength work I’ve done for so long.”
From a physical therapy perspective, Funk agrees. That heavy, functional loading can improve or sustain performance, especially as we age
“Strength improves movement—especially running economy—so you hold the same pace at a lower cost, which matters more the older you get and the deeper everyone around you fades in the back half,” he says. “The Masters athletes still racing well at 55 aren’t the ones who ran the most. They’re the ones who never stopped lifting.”
A stronger athlete
Russell recently qualified for the Hyrox World Championships and has plans to race in Salt Lake City in September. But after years of grinding through 30-plus-hour training weeks as a professional triathlete, his perspective has shifted
“I’ve been in sports my whole life, but until recently, I didn’t even know how to do a proper squat,” he shares. “I was concerned about being leaner, not stronger, but I’ve put on 15 pounds of muscle, and I’m still pretty fast.”
Bevilacqua believes that’s the biggest takeaway for triathletes, whether they’re chasing podiums or simply hoping to stay healthy enough to keep racing for decades
“You don’t have to give up biking, running, or swimming,” she says. “You can just dial them back a little and add strength.”
It’s a lesson she learned firsthand. After tearing both proximal hamstrings late in her triathlon career, she thought her competitive days were behind her. Now she’s aiming, as she puts it, to set “all the world records” in each of her age groups as she gets older
“I didn’t have to stop being an endurance athlete,” she says. “I just became a stronger one.”
Hyrox for triathletes: Dotry this at home
The best way to break into Hyrox? Many gyms now offer “hybrid” classes that feature a mix of functional strength and conditioning moves. (Think: circuits of burpees followed by squats, or weighted lunges with short sprints.)
If you want to mix in some moves on your own, Dr. Funk recommends the following exercises specifically for triathletes (find :
Sled pushes:“You build real lower-body power with almost no eccentric load, so you get stronger without trashing your legs for the week’s run.”
Weighted lunges:“They drag your left-right asymmetries into the open, which cyclical sport lets you hide for years.”
Farmer’s Carry:“They teach your trunk to hold position under load and fatigue.”
Rowing:“It lights up a posterior chain most triathletes have let go quiet and builds the movement foundation that lets the engine keep running.”
Amy BelvilacquaHyroxMatt RussellStrength
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