Christian Toetzke - HYROX & The Advent of "Fitness Racing"

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. I've worked with more business softwares than I can remember. The common theme is that they are overcomplicated, difficult to set up, far too many features to navigate, and most of all, expensive. But Pocket Suite is different. If you are a business professional or gym owner that needs clients to book time with you and want a seamless billing solution, then look no further. Pocket Suite has you covered. On average, fitness business professionals that sign up for this app see a 30% boost in income. That's because it's simple and has everything you need and nothing you don't. You can easily sell packages and subscriptions. Control your billing in one place, no need for Venmo, PayPal, or any other merchant solutions. Set up automations to cut down on admin time, like client renewal reminders, seamless client onboarding, contracts, in tape forms, etc. etc. Look, I know this because I used it myself. It took me less than 10 minutes to get set up and fire off my first client invoice. If you're looking for a time-saving, simple application that allows you to combine three softwares in one with a clean, professional look for clients and prospects, then you have to check out Pocket Suite. Go to pocketsuite.io. That's S-U-I-T-E. Check out the Apple App Store or Google Play to learn more and give it a free test run. You can also click on the link in the show notes for my special referral offer. That is PocketSweet.io. This episode of the Future of Fitness is presented to you by the Fit Tech Club, a business network run by the creators of the FitTech Summit, Europe's leading conference devoted to fitness and health technology. Look, friends, the fitness industry is changing faster than ever. The intersection of technology with fitness and health is growing bigger and more dynamic by the minute. Gyms are exploding figuratively, and their constituent parts are ending up at home, outdoors, on your wrist, or in entirely new places with brilliantly new concepts. Investors are pumping astronomical amounts of money into the market like we've never seen before. The FitTech Club believes that collaboration is the advantage to these times of change. That's why the club aims to bring thought leaders together to inspire them by making the right contacts at the right time and giving insights to the industry's most relevant and current trends. Here's what Melanie Lauer, CEO of Kettler and TriSports, says about the FitTech Club.

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Thank you very much, Eric.

I'm happy to be here. It's I'm happy to have you. I was doing the background on you. I mean, first of all, just through your experience alone, your wealth of knowledge, you know, uh, everything you've done within the triathlon world, the endurance world, and building those, um, you know, and I had to educate my really myself really on what is a considered a mass participation event and then you know what that means, and uh, which is great because every time I have to educate myself and do some background, it's always great for my personal development. But also seeing now what you guys are doing at HIROX and creating a new um, you know, real category within a larger category is very interesting. And then my background and CrossFit and seeing those events kind of take off. Um, it's really cool what you guys are doing. So I'm excited to highlight you here and get our uh audience more introduced into you and HIROX. So maybe a good place to start, Christian, if you don't mind, is just give us some of your background, you know, within sport, within fitness, within mass participation events, and what that all means, and then we can get specifically into what HIROCS is.

Yeah, yeah, sure. So you said it, it's I'm in this business for unfortunately too long of a time. But uh so I actually started as a young person, 1995. I actually created an idea. At that time, it was more or less the beginning where the city marathons got more and more popular and bigger and bigger. Uh and mass participation is everyone will understand it when you say it's a New York City marathon, that's a mass participation event. So where you combine professional athletes with weekend warriors, everyone, everybody's uh that do the same thing on the same course, but uh it takes them a little bit longer than the guys winning the race on the front. Uh which is an amazing was a new thing at that time, which I really believe it's an an amazing thing in sport, and not every sport can do that, but technically it's impossible to do it. But that you get the stage as a total average person but where you can compete and you can challenge yourself and you feel a little bit like a pro athlete, and you I mean if you run New York City marathon, I did it four or five times, and you have two million people lining the streets, it's a pretty amazing experience. Though you run five hours or whatever, like nothing that really matters from the sportive aspect. So I looked at this and thought, why is no one doing this on bikes, on on road bikes or race bikes? Because everyone can ride a bike like everyone can run. I thought it was even more cool because if you close all the roads and I'm coming from Hamburg in Germany, it's a two million people city, so massive always heavy traffic, and you never can ride your bike on these roads of Hamburg without cars. So that would be pretty cool to uh to do such an event like the marathon, but you can even ride your bike, which is even more impossible to do on normal days. And so I created my first concept which I called Psyche Classics, and it was a fur I c or m the working title was Marathon and Wheels. And which was basically a marathon, city marathon concept for for road racing bikes, and got off really well and then got turned around very quickly into a very, very successful event. Uh the event is still existing twenty-five years later. Or almost twenty-six, twenty-seven years. Uh and now every year we have like thirty thousand people riding participating, and it's and the elite race is one of the top ten uh in worldwide elite cycling events. So that's how I got into the business, uh, without any plan or whatever, but then uh we started to develop more and more products in cycling, similar products, and these now everyone is doing this all over the world. You have cycling mass participation cycling events in London, in major cities, in Cape Town, and so they they took the same concept and made this very successful. What it's very important also for our story when we jump over to fitness is that when I started this event, no one was riding the a road race bike for sport chief aspects. So only a couple hundred people that really did were training for a professional sport, actually. So no and nowadays every every Sunday you have like massive pelotons going out on the roads and riding out of the city to train, especially for these kind of events. It's the same in in America and the US, it's a massive cycling market where big groups go out. So from a market that wasn't really existing, uh or suddenly you change people from just riding their bike to the mall or something, suddenly they you you turn them into athletes to cyclists uh that suddenly take it pretty serious. So it's not about winning something, but they buy ten thousand dollar carbon race bikes, right? Super expensive and they care about their gear and nutrition and everything else. So that was very interesting for me to see how this was growing so fast that people say I want to do this race, and suddenly they act like kind of professional athletes. So you change the way how people train and do that. Uh before it doesn't matter, now it matters because you want to be in a certain shape on a certain day. It's the same what we've seen in Marathon. I got then into Triathon events all over the world, uh, and we started to expand. So I did in the end, I also created running events, so the classical mass participation business. And I started to yeah, we grow the business and I sold my company to a more international bigger group that uh yeah invested and heavily into this area, and then we we I was able to create these kind of events almost everywhere in the world. And so you learn a lot how this works. And yeah, and then some point maybe five, six years ago, maybe 2015-16, I started more and more to look at fitness, which uh I do fitness by myself, uh really passionate about it. Um and you see this massive amount of people doing this, millions and millions of people. I think it's by far the biggest sport in the world. And but there are no events. Uh you cannot never ever compete on on a bigger stage. Uh I mean I would say even not in CrossFit because you have to be really, really elite-ish, uh, like really, really good. You have you need to belong to this one percent of people that really go to CrossFit event. It's an elite concept, it's not a mass participation approach. There's nothing wrong with it, it's great. I'm just saying it's not a mass participation approach. I agree. Uh, where you have thousands and thousands of people doing that, and it it doesn't matter what ability. From the fittest people on earth to very, very average fit people. And it strike me a lot that no one has done it before. I started more to think about it, and you see, okay, that's logistically quite complicated, much more than just running. Uh so I did a lot of research, we did a lot of testing and and everything else, and then yeah, then we created that concept. And that's why we're here today. We want to start this new mass participation fitness event. Uh and we want to change the world of fitness a little bit like we did in cycling or in trialon or like math on events sit for running.

Yeah, yeah, I I'm I like it. I really do. The so many times I'm sure you've heard this too, Christians. You know, between friends or even just clients I've had when I was, you know, coaching people in a sports or fitness um way, was everyone wanted something to train for. Right. Well, like if I have if I have something on the calendar, I'll I'll I'll train, right? I'll do it, I'll stay committed because I know I'm gonna have to step onto that starting line. And whether the difference between whether I enjoy it or hate it is gonna be whether or not I actually prepared myself for it. And um, you know, I I'm curious. So the the term that seems new to me, which you guys are bringing to, which HyRox represents, is fitness racing. Um, and that would fall as, I guess, a subcategory under mass participation events. Am I first of all, am I is that correct in my in the way I'm describing that?

Absolutely. Uh mass participation events are like this whole kind of style of events. So from for running math ons trials long cycling events. And we are creating this now in fitness. And yeah, we're calling it fitness racing for good reasons.

And and what does that mean exactly? Like when you when you describe what fitness racing is as a category, what what do you how do you say that?

Well, uh the difference is, and first of all, we did it that people understand this is not a cross-it event.

Okay.

Uh because when you say a fitness competition or a fitness event, usually people think uh it's another crossfit event. And we are definitely actually not a cross-fit event. We are a hybrid, we call it a hybrid event where we mix running and and functional fitness workouts. So it's an endurance fitness event, it's long, it's it has a lot to do with you. You need you need to like running, or you need to say, at least I'm challenged my challenge myself to run much more than in in cross-it events. Uh and that's why we and it's a race where you start at one point and you end uh when you cross the finish line, and in between you do all these workouts, so it's it's a also and it's one you know exactly what you have to do, like when you enter a marathon race. It's actually pretty tough, it's pretty cooling. Uh you it will hurt, the pain is important. Uh it's nothing you do every Saturday. So it's you want also this challenge, right? You want to be even feel happy just finishing it. But it's it's based on time. So you you actually race for the best time. Uh and yeah, that's why we we created this world, and and and we think it's it will stay now for a new category of events, uh, and there will be probably m similar events popping up that try that will also be fitness races and try a little bit the same narrative, same approach. But uh yeah, we think it fits really well what we are doing.

And if just um just breeze over and you don't have to get in detail, but what what does the event look like? Like what what are the qualities of each particular race? Um, how long does it take for you know just an average person? Uh what does that look like?

Yeah, they are it's a combination of running and workouts. So you always run one kilometer followed by a certain workout.

Okay.

Uh and you do this eight times. So when you finish, you have completed eight K of running and eight workouts. Uh the average time finish time is roughly one hour and forty minutes. So it's it's definitely longer and it's nothing you you you just do. Uh though there's there are no time caps. So we have people that finished in three hours, uh three and a half hours, and of course we have a world record which is fifty-seven minutes and uh thirty-five seconds, which is totally incredible and and unbelievable uh to do it that fast. But uh in between are then thousands of people that can do that. You can walk the the 8K if you if you don't like to run, uh that's totally up to you. Uh so of course in the end everyone tries to finish in the best time, and then it's pretty addictive because once you did this, you get all the breakdowns of all the run laps and of all the workouts, and then you see where you have lost time, and and then you think, oh maybe next time when I do this again, I can I can be 10 minutes faster or five minutes faster. Yeah, and that is the interesting part of it, yeah. And but that's how it works. And uh do you want to talk about all the eight workouts or well?

Yeah, no, I I think uh in just looking at your website from people listening. So it's you know, he mentioned it's got a 1k run, and those are in between um, I think eight different stations: ski erg, sled push, sled pull, burpee broad jumps, rowing, farmers carry, sandbag lunges, wall, wall balls. Oh my god, a hundred. Uh yeah, this is that that's uh, you know, it's it I immediately got it. As soon as I saw it, I'm like, I get it. I understand what they're doing here. Like it's not, you know, you don't have the gymnastics and the Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting that you would have in CrossFit, which takes skill and time and just not safe for the average Joe to just jump in and do. But it has a lot of those, that functional fitness, that grind and that, you know, I can tell just by training for this, you're gonna get in killer shape. Like you're gonna like the way you look and feel, right? Uh and uh, you know, some of the things too that have always as I caught on to CrossFit earlier and I got to go some of the early CrossFit games and um back when it was at the ranch and Aramis, for anyone who knows what I'm talking about, they'll get it. For everyone else, don't worry about it. Um but uh you know, I got to see that and I, you know, held my own events. I was able to participate as a coach in some of the regional events and the bigger ones, and there was always this great community. But ultimately, you know, when I would hold my old events, uh my gym as competitions or charity events, it was always I had to kind of I had to bring that stuff down, right? You couldn't put in a lot of technical movements if you want everyone to be able to participate. Um, but you it's I imagine you still get the the feel. This it reminds me of a story when I was uh I was on an airplane somewhere and OCR was just starting to get going, right? I can't remember who was, you know, there's tough mutter and there was Spartan. There was two different big ones back then. Yeah.

And I remember sitting uh the original race was one in London. I think it was on for quite a while. That's where they saw the idea, and then it was a military obstacle race, however, yeah.

Yeah, and I was sitting there and everyone makes a joke like, you know, how do you know if someone does CrossFit? Oh, don't worry, they'll tell you about it, right? And uh and I was just sitting on this flight and I was listening to these people talk about this tough mutter event that they were going to, and they were so passionate about. They were talking about how many they've done that year and uh you know, all the gear that they're buying for it, and you know, just this particular race and what they were gonna do after. I was like, oh my God, this is like this is like a CrossFit, but for for people, for more people. But I've seen this before, right? It's this passionate community. And that seems to be what drives so much of it. So, how how is the community of High Rocks, how are you guys helping support it? Like, what tell us about that aspect of it? Because that's a huge component of these these things.

Luckily, we see the same miracle happening that our community is growing like almost every day. People are getting into high rocks. They are getting very passionate about it. You immediately have these three kinds of target groups. So the one like already die hard fans that come to six, seven, eight events a season and like share training plans. And basically, and even on elite level, we get a bigger group of athletes now that actually do nothing else and train to train for HIROX and become one of the best athletes in the world. We have more like these people that go to the gyms but also are wearing the Hyrux shirt in pride when they are in the gym because it separates them a little bit from the normal gym goers because they do the specific training and people know all these guys are going to these events and they do that. Yeah, so we we try to of course foster the community as much as we can. We uh using our social media channels, we have from Instagram, Facebook, YouTube uh very much to to feed the community, to give them reason to communicate, to interact, to talk about the best training uh programs. Uh everyone talks about the big thing about the sleds and how heavy the sleds are and the surface and what what are the best shoes to wear on on race day, etc. I think the good thing is it's super super inclusive, you said it. Uh and I mean there's a lot of science behind why these workouts why is that long, why you know why 100 wallboards and not 50, etc. So it was it it was the idea that you have it's it's it has to be a challenge which is really long enough, etc. That you don't do this like every day, like I said, it's it's a big achievement to just finish. So like running a math on. Yeah, you don't run 42 kilometers every Saturday just because uh let's let's do a longer run. So uh it's something special, right? You train for that and you do it. Uh on the other hand, it's exactly the time and distance where it's absolutely enough if you train one hour shifts when you are preparing yourself for the race. So you don't need to do like for a marathon running, you don't need to do the three-hour runs. Because that's start this is a moment when it's starting to get unhealthy a little bit uh for the average person. It's kinda kind of boring to run to do these 30 kilometer runs to get prepared for a marathon.

I agree.

So we wanted to find the perfect balance of time and distance, and and how much do I need to train for that? What are the training shifts I have to put in to do that? So uh we and this is all based on all my experience with creating trials on events from Iron Man down to sprint distance, where you try to do the same thing. Um, and at the same time, the workouts are natural movements. If you said it, you don't need extreme skills to do it. So the idea was even like if you are crazy enough and someone tells you, Look, come to me to the Cyrux event next Saturday, and you have never done this before in your life, you will be able to finish it. Might not be very funny, uh, and you have probably a lot of pain and it takes you a lot of time, but it's not that you can't push a sled because it's it's impossible to move it. Uh so everyone can do that, right? We have these kind of pictures that everyone can push a car, or everyone is you where you're bringing your groceries home with two bags, which is like farmers carry, etc. So natural things uh that doesn't mean they are easy. Uh and especially when you do this in in speed and and fast, it's it's getting very difficult, and it's it's a lot of training to do that. But and the distance, the idea was that to create somehow the most healthiest way of training, which means it has to be very well rounded, nothing, no movement too extreme, too much. Uh so what's the perfect mix of that where you train everything in your body? Uh and you as you said, you get killer fit to do that. Uh very lean, uh, very with really, really good endurance and a very good mix of fitness. Uh which uh is yeah, it's it's that's what when you do this, it doesn't mean these are the I mean, I I don't like this discussion who's the fittest person on earth because it's just based on definition.

Yes.

So it we already are so specialized that uh our best athletes that are winning the Hyrulex events, uh they will, but they will not win the Triazon event or the Environment event, and they will definitely not win the CrossFit games, and vice versa. Right. So no CrossFit athlete will win the HIROX event without preparing for this for really a long time because it's a totally different kind of training, right?

Yeah, so yeah. There's some CrossFit athletes who may have just listened to that and they're gonna be like, Yeah, we'll see Christian. We'll uh we'll see. No, I know.

I'd love them to come out. Uh yeah, yeah, we've got to be. It's it's specialized, it's different, it's it's very different. They will be very good, don't get me wrong, but they will be five, six minutes out of the best guys. Yeah, 100%. Uh you are too heavy, you don't run enough volume, you can't even run that fast because you are simply to have too many, too much muscles, right? It's yeah, uh, they need oxygen and you need to carry them around for one hour. That's a different thing. So, however, we love every CrossFit athlete to come out and test it. It's I think it's good for every to do something different, to do this from time to time. It will help your endurance, and that will help also your performance in CrossFit events. Totally agree. So we have CJ Martin coming out to the probably to our last two hour championships in Las Vegas, and he will be a keynote speaker. So he will talk about how to train for high rocks and uh also how why this is so good also when you are a CrossFit athlete. So it would be very interesting to listen to that.

Yeah, I would love to listen to. I I I like CG. I've uh you know, I've been following him for a very long time, and he was a good uh a great uh example of how to be a good gym operator back in the day. You know, one of the things I want to um focus on for a few minutes too is that you know, with every um whenever I've seen uh you know events build, communities build around it, there's always this secondary market of business opportunities between, you know, what what's the right gear? I mean, just the guys I had from RPM training, um, they built a better jump rope, right? And that was it. And that rode on this this CrossFit wave, and they're a very successful company. Um, you know, there's the coaching, right? The remote or in-person coaching for there's the training programs that people write, there's technology that goes into you know people's training and performance. So, how have you started to see this secondary business market evolve around what you guys have created? And uh, you know, who are you seeing emerge and what's maybe surprised you about that? People age at different speeds, and the date on your license may not represent your inner biological age at all. If you're looking for ways to extend your health span and slow down the aging process, the keys to health and longevity run in your blood. That's why Insight Tracker provides you with a personalized plan to boost your metabolism, reduce stress, improve sleep, and optimize your health for the long haul. Created by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics, Insight Tracker analyzes your blood, DNA, and fitness tracking data to identify where you're optimized, and more importantly, where you're not. You'll get a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition, and supplementation for your body. Add interage 2.0 to any plan for definitive calculation of your true biological age to see how you're aging from the inside out. I was proud to find out I'm a few years younger than I thought I was. For a limited time, you can get 20% off the entire inside tracker store. Just go to insight tracker.com forward slash future to check it out, learn more, and get your own. It's insight tracker.com forward slash future. On to the show.

Yeah, very good that you bring this up. So this is a very, very important part of what we are doing because you have to understand one thing. We love every CrossFit involved athlete member that come out to our events. But in the first place, we have not created high-rocks for the CrossFit community because it's a great product, they have great programming, they have great events, they have the CrossFit open, they they do things in their box, whatever, they have rankings, they have they created the sport of fitness, right? Which is one of the most incredible ideas and movements. Basically, we did this for the millions and millions of people that are not doing cross fit. And there are many of them, uh but still competitive. They go to functional fitness gyms, they work out hardcore, they train from I mean, I have so many examples from individual gyms like Tonehouse in New York City to even to Barry Spotcamp or whatever, where it's like pretty brutal training. You have to run quite a lot and you do workouts in between. But uh for these people, they you go there three times a week, maybe to Barry Spootcamp. Uh and then you do you yeah, you can continue this for the next 20 years. Do you really do this? Maybe at some point you miss something. So just just being fit, okay, will work, it's good. But adding something that, oh, now I have an event, I can train for that will uh I think will change also the mindset of these people. I think in the moment, many of these people don't care that much about the right gear and about the right training program and the right nutrition because it it doesn't matter that much. As long as you survive the training session, it's fine, right? No one, there's nothing to win. I think we're changing this thing, this mindset in a dramatic way. So we and we see this. And the moment you sign up for high roads, you get passionate, exactly like the CrossFit community when they are preparing for the CrossFit Open. So suddenly you care very much about your shoes and uh the right training and the right nutrition. And probably for Barry's bootcamp, they will now they do maybe two sessions a week, uh right, two classes a week. Probably I'm 100% sure you do three or four at least the last two months before the event, which is direct additional business for these gyms, right? And uh we so that's why we think we will have especially this category of gyms, which let's say are below a cross-fit box, but that doesn't mean it's a ranking, it's just that's how we see the crossfit market. So on the top you have this very extreme cross-fit uh version or training, uh, and then you get it gets broader and broader, right? And a little bit less competitive. Uh but you get always immediately you see more running gets kicked in because what that's what most of the people do is running. Uh and then everyone is mixing it in a different way. F-45, uh Orange Theory Fitness, whatever, right? Or classical membership gyms like Equinox or LA Fitness, whatever they all have classes where they train people to do that. Uh, but we believe this there will be a direct impact for their gym business. And all the other brands, and I was talking to the RPM guys, and we are in discussions about how and they see this also that how much bigger this other market is next to the CrossFit market. Yeah, they have probably three, four times the amount of people that maybe then buy your jumping rope when it suddenly matters to have the good the right jumping rope, or why the right shoes, or the right they have wonderful equipment, right? Their dumbbells and their wallboards are beautiful. And we are opening, I think, a market uh that is so much bigger for such an equipment company, even especially when people are using this equipment at our events, and that's what we see. People immediately want to buy this equipment for their home gym, or they are pushing their gym to buy exactly the same equipment because you want to train with the same equipment you're using at the event. So there is a big market. We hope we we are developing this secondary market, which this is what we want to do. We want everyone to win in this game. Participants, other companies involved. And that's a great thing. We are not a competition to anyone in the business. We are great for every training app, we are good for every gym, we're even good for every CrossFit box. We have a lot of CrossFit boxes now affiliating with us because they're adding another version of training which helps them to win new members. Uh and they come with a whole box to an event, which is also great, right? Where everyone is participating, which they rarely do otherwise. So, yeah, so yeah, big, big, very important uh everything like from shoes to nutrition to equipment, uh, to two apps, to training apps, digital solutions. There's quite a lot what you can add to our product, and we hope it will and unfold in a bigger way in the next two years. Yeah.

Oh, I'm sure it will. Um, I have no doubt it will. I mean, it's it's the uh you know, it's the gold rush analogy of like, you know, the during the gold rush, the people who didn't make all the money weren't the ones mining for gold, it was the ones who were selling the the picks and the axes and the shovels, right? Um and that's I mean we saw that in CrossFit, like brands like RPM that we mentioned, uh Noble Shoes, right? Like all of them, like they just are uh Rogue. Rogue.

I think the whole success of Rogue is based on the growth of CrossFit. And they're a huge company now. What you see is the same thing. They started to use rogue in the first cross-it events, as you say, at the ranch very early.

Yeah, yeah.

And then every box said, no, I need rogue equipment. So you could probably buy other equipment, but if you want to be a legit cross-it box, you should have rogue equipment and assault an assault bike and uh content two rowers. This is yeah, that's what you gotta have.

Yeah, you gotta have it.

We wanna do this especially for all these thousands of other gyms where in the moment it doesn't really matter what kind of equipment they have.

Yeah.

But we hope that we change that and then everyone wants to have a certain runner in their gym because that's the runner we are using at our event, for instance.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you guys there there will be uh as you guys grow and we come out of the pandemic, which we'll talk about in a second. You know, I I know that must have been um uh tough, but I I would also imagine actually just jump to it. So, you know, last year, today is uh this is February 2022, the date of recording. Um, but I could see just due to where you guys, I know it's tough, like you guys couldn't do as many in-person events as you as you wanted. I mean, far less. Um, but also a lot of the other, I mean, all the other math participation events um and events couldn't either, which may have, I don't know, did you see it as a kind of a small advantage to like, okay, well, everyone's kind of frozen in time, right? We're not our overhead isn't as big yet. Is this an opportunity for us to kind of gain some market share during a downtime as it's inevitably going to open back up?

Well, it was easier for us to survive this because our overheads are still very small. So compared to other large operations, it was much, much, much more difficult for them. Basically, we couldn't do events really for a minimum one and a half years, right? In some areas, almost two years. And then we did a couple of ones and then it came up again, and we had to stop it again, and and it was not easy. I think it hurt us in the end more than established brands because we were just starting, right? We are a very, very young product. We had really almost we were at the beginning of this hockey stick. Uh we could see it 2019, 2020, and then it was a hard stop. Just when we started to get more awareness and everything, and uh so it I think it was easier for uh heavier or more difficult for us to maintain the brand awareness when you are just at the beginning, then you are already established event. And like Iron Man, everyone knows Iron Man, everyone knows when the pandemic is over, the Iron Man events will restart. Uh we were just creating our community, right? Uh so that's why we did a lot of stuff to stay that the people could see us somehow and hear about us, though we couldn't put on events, so we tried virtual stuff and um we put on world championships, Corona World Championships, which were basically a studio production because we had we weren't allowed to have more than 20 people in the same room. But we did it, it was very costly. But we said we need to tell the people that we are still there and we are continuing to to work on the program and on our brand. And and then we luckily we could here and there start putting on events. Um and we were actually picking up uh on a higher level than before the pandemic, uh which is amazing. So we it was not that we dropped and we had to start again from really like the bottom. So uh but I see the difference in markets where I don't know what the mindset was always different. Like UK is the best example. They lifted all rules uh since I don't know the exact date, but 15th of Jan or something. They always had a more this freedom day is coming approach, almost even the last three, four months, and UK is exploding. It's year one, right? We do our first season, and uh Manchester at the end of January was already a massive event, and now London is selling out with 4,000 people, uh which is the maximum we can host on one day, which is absolutely amazing. So we see when we go back to normal times uh that immediately then the people are coming uh and embracing the concept. So uh yeah, now it's just it give us a couple of more months, but like I said, we continue now to put on events, we try almost not to move or yeah, not to move any more events. Uh so New York City is coming up on the 5th of March, uh which is running well, and then we have uh especially Dallas and Las Vegas coming up, and then the world championships in uh uh LA, sorry, and then the world championships in Las Vegas. So yeah, we're looking forward to the time after the pandemic in all the markets, uh, and then we are very convinced that yeah, we will we will see more success and more people joining in.

Yeah, I I I think you will. I mean, I I just see what I've seen over the last 15 years of you know, events like this, and people are always looking to challenge themselves, especially, you know, I I think there's a lot of things that we've seen as, and this is from a high-level philosophy standpoint, is as life has gotten easier, right, for for humans, um, at least in you know, the the first world countries, like we need something that's hard, like something that's really challenging and makes us like remember that we're we're human, right? And I think cross I saw that in CrossFit early. I'm like, okay, this is this reminded me when I was training, you know, hard for a team. And uh otherwise, like we just kind of we get soft, man. And but people love it. And when once they go through that, they get that endorphin rush and they they do something challenging, they overcome it, they want more and more and more. And that's why I think this is such and and just what you guys have done to position it as so many people can participate in this. Um yeah, and I've already seen some of the partners you guys have lined up. So I I think I I'm very optimistic about where you guys are going.

No, no, no. We are we see the proof already, right? Yeah, like I said, London now. Uh so we see the proof that it works. Uh and like I said, also it's it's it's also different, for instance, to most of the OCR races in a way that this is really from the first from the winner overall to the last person, it's an 100% legit competition. Everyone gets individual timed races, you have your timing shift, we have a lot of checkpoints that we know exactly if you cheat or you do everything right. So if you run a lap short, you get a five-minute penalty. Uh, and that's important. Uh, it's it's everyone has a very, very legit time, and you can compare the time, and you can compare also the time of a finisher in Berlin with a finisher in New York City and and a finisher in London. Um, and that's why we have this qualifying races and qualifying system for the world championships. I think it's very, very fair, but it gives it's it keeps people in the system. Uh that because in the end you want it to improve your time, right? And and then you have all the age groups, and sometimes it's It's motivating you very much if you switch to the higher age group because suddenly you are the youngest in the age group and not the oldest anymore. Um of the age group before that. So all the elements uh I think uh are helping to create that and that was not for the majority of the people not at all existing in fitness. Like it was really, really like very very elitish. Uh though it's a it's a brutal challenge also for for the fittest people on the on the planet, right? It's uh if you want to do this sub one hour, it's it's a brutal extremely prepared. Yeah, and you have to train for this for a long time to be that good. Uh and but that's a great thing. It's it's includes it's so inclusive that everyone is doing it. So sometimes you can call it also is the marathon of fitness, would be also a nice description of what we are doing.

I like it. Yeah, I like that description. So um I won't I want to respect your time. Um yeah, but I do want to ask you another question because I always it's one of my favorites. So I asked this in the in the spirit of collaboration and you know, people listening. But what what what are some of the the biggest needs you have right now as a business? You know, from you know, I don't know, maybe it's staffing, maybe it's partnerships, maybe it's whatever. But what do you need right now, Christian?

Well, the most important part what we need is in the end, really communication. Uh, because we do something that was not existing, no one was expecting an offer that when you tell people now, you know what, you can sign up for a fitness event uh next Saturday, everyone said, uh, this is nothing for me. I can't do it. Because everyone thinks this is in the first place, they think it's a CrossFit event. Now we tell them, no, no, everyone can do it, you can finish it. Then they don't believe you that they can finish it. They're reading the rundown of the event and think, I can never do this. And then you show them pictures of people that have completed it. And I mean really not people like super super jacked and everything, so people of all body sizes and of all abilities and of all ages. And that's what we our biggest mean is means is that people see this and understand this, uh, and that they can do it. They can go out and then can do a fitness event, which is tough, but they can do it. Uh, all the rest will follow that because that will mean more participants, and then it's I know I'm long enough in the business, and you sign the sponsorship deals, and you do you know, all the other stuff is following. That's then like a domino effect. So but we don't have the millions and millions to sign to pay for a commercial at the Super Bowl, it would be easy. Uh whole nation is seeing it, but it will probably be a little bit out of our budget. Uh so we are depending very much on postcasts like you have here and uh on gym owners, on coaches to pick up this idea and say, This is great, this is definitely fostering my business. I can I can convince more clients to do more private coaching sessions with me. I convince them to sign up for this event. So we need to spread the word. Uh and we are a little bit depending on this organic uh growth, right? And uh organic spread. We because we don't can't we can't put millions and millions into commercials or uh whatever ad pages or paying major celebrities to do it and talk about it. Uh that's the most thing we need. We know it will come, it's just a matter of time, and uh we could continue to grow the story with more markets and more events and new markets, and we will do the next steps in the next two years, I think, uh, to almost cover the world with high rocks events. But uh yeah, that's the most important part is that also our community talks to other people about it, how great it is, and that they should try it out. Um but if this comes in, we will we will succeed for sure.

Awesome. Well, Christian, I I really appreciate your time. And uh I like I said numerous times in this interview, I I love what you're doing. I think it's a cool event. Uh there's a good chance I'll be at the one in LA in May um with uh you know Shane Farmer from Dark Horse and and his crew and um be excited to well I'm excited to watch him do it. I don't think I'm excited to watch me do it, but uh someone like that would be really fun.

I would be in LA and I would definitely watch you doing it.

Yeah, there's not a whole lot of running. It's it's snowing here in Montana, so I don't know how much running I'll get in in the next few months, but I'll be skiing a lot. But anyway, Christian, thank you so much for coming on. Um, where do you want people to go online if people want to get in touch with you or your team? Um obviously highrocks is h-rox.com. People can check out that. But where else would you like people to go online?

Yeah, well, hit us up on Instagram uh and send us a message if this is easier for you for people to do. Uh or or the website is still the best location to go for, and then you can send us there. You find emails there to send us emails or directly at inf info at highrocks.com uh and then we will respond immediately if you have any questions or whatever you want to know, uh reach out to us.

Fantastic. Well, Christian, thank you so much for joining me. Uh, I know you're a busy guy and it's late in the evening there. And uh yeah, it's been great. I look forward to catching up with you in about a year or so and see how these things are uh how fast they're growing. It's not gonna be if they're growing, it's probably how fast they're growing.

Thank you, Eric, for having me, and it was a pleasure.

Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, Christian Tulsky.

Thank you.

Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minute. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and we want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the futureoffitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.