What Gym Owners Get Wrong About HYROX

What makes the difference between like uh an affiliate who's making five figures a month on on their high rocks opportunities versus one that kind of like, you know, we bought a sled and a kettlebell and we're we're somewhat committed. What separates those two?

I don't you know when you do scuba diving, right? What they always say is you plan your dive and dive your plan, right? Hyrox is not a magic pill. You don't just hit you know submit on your highrock, you know, on signing up to be a highrox gym, and then you're gonna be showered with wealth and members and cash, right? You do need to go in with a plan.

Hey friends, welcome to the HyROX Authority series, which is brought to you by Sentor, the official equipment provider of HyROX. Now, here's why this series exists and why we did it. HyRox isn't just a race anymore, it's a full-blown movement, and it's one of the greatest coastal opportunities I have seen in this industry in a very long time. So, events, training programs, community, equipment. There's an entire ecosystem here that can be built on, and most of the industry hasn't quite caught up to it yet. So we sat down with the people who know it's best to break down exactly how gym owners and operators can grow into it and listen. I'm also a huge fan of Center's equipment. I trade on it weekly, and it's great ready. Please go check them out at center.com and it's T-E-N-T-R dot com. Onto the show. All right, here we go. Eric O'Neill. Great to see you, man. Thanks for joining me.

Good to see you. Really excited for this. Glad we're able to make it happen. You know, I think we've been in the same room in a lot of places, but we've never formally met. So this is gonna be quite the opportunity to do that and deep dive a lot of fun topics, man.

Well, this is how I make all my new friends. You know, I'm not very good socially going out and and doing it myself. So I have to like, I have to offer people interviews. That's just that's my little trick in life. Um seems to work out okay, you know, but uh, you know, I I'm genuinely very excited. I mean, your background number one, we'll get it we'll get into that over, you know, uh special operations, Nike, like a lot of really cool things that have led you to HyROX. You know, for for the point of what we're gonna be talking about today, I think is very um is very critical for for gym operators or fitness operators, you know, the opportunities within the affiliate network of HyROX, which has grown extensively. You know, there's first of all, how does one decide what's the education they need if they want to get involved, right? Then how would one uh you know market this thing? How is it done internally from programming to coaching education to any kind of technology to how do you finally like commercialize it and really start to generate some considerable revenue streams? Um, you know, it just doesn't, you can't just sign up and and have and it happens. Like there's still work to do, although you guys have greased the wheels pretty darn good from what I've seen. So let me ask you this because every time I talk to someone, this number is drastically, drastically grown. But as of today, can you tell us how many uh high rocks affiliates are out there?

So globally, it's about 17,000, which is just wild to think about here in uh North America. We're coming up on 5,000 here really, really soon. So yeah, it's grown like crazy. You know, when I joined the company, it was about 1,500, and in the last 13, 14 months, we've almost uh tripled that. So uh and and we're not slowing down. So yeah, very cool, very fun, and um a lot of happy gym owners, which is great too.

Good, good, man. Well, let's start with this, dude. What are what what is someone, you know? I was telling you, I I want to look at this from the perspective of Eric 2013, right? I was four or five years in a gym ownership and operating. I I had a stable base at that point. You know, why would I decide to make a change or take this in, you know, take high rocks into consideration? Like what do operators need to be looking at here?

Yeah, it's a great question. You know, first thing I would push back a little, but I don't think bringing higher ox into a gym is is a change per se. I would say it's more of a growth on top of what gym owners and operators are doing. And, you know, maybe we'll get into this a little bit more um later on, but the way HIROX has come into the gym market is I what I call um broadly rather than deeply, right? So we um aren't out to change your identity as a gym owner. We're not out to kind of revamp everything that you do and change the layout of your gym, etc. Um, we want to sit on top of what you've already built as an owner operator. And so um, you know, gym owners are thinking about this, you know. The answer is, you know, you're able to tap into a new audience, you're able to energize your existing audience in a new way. And and oh, by the way, you you you know, you don't have to change anything at the beginning. And maybe you will eventually want to add um some things and and tweak some things, but there's you know, that's like our barrier to entry is very low, and it allows us to work with all different kinds of gyms. You know, we're talking about CrossFit gyms, we're talking about boutique fitness, like F-45, Orange Theory, big box, HVLP, personal trainers that don't even have their own physical space and are meeting clients in, you know, garages and parking lots, etc. The goal is to get higher out to as many people as possible. We do that through gym owners, and so we we want to make the barrier to entry as low as possible. And as a result, we want to put tools in a gym owner's hands to be able to tap into the huge audience of higher aux athletes and then monetize that. And so that's kind of a long way of saying for almost you know, very little investment, um, you're able to kind of test out bringing higher arcs into your gym and seeing what kind of a community and an audience you can grow to both bring in in new members and and hopefully keep keep your existing members around just a little bit longer.

Would you say that's one of the biggest misconceptions that gym operators have is like you have it's all or nothing with higher ox. You either got to go all in or you gotta stay on the sidelines.

I you know, I hear it all the time. Hey Eric, I only have two ski ercs, or you know, hey Eric, but we don't have space to put wall ball targets, you know, our ceiling heights too low, or what have you. And the answer is that's okay. It's actually, I would say when you think of higher rocks, there's kind of nine workout elements to it. If you factor in the running and then the eight stations, it's rare to find a gym that has all nine, or at least that has all nine at scale. And so for sure, I think you'd hit you hit the nail on the head, right? A huge misconception is I need to buy a bunch of equipment and I need to put a huge turf space down if I want to get started bringing hierarchs into my gym. And the answer is you don't, right? You can start where you're at, and there's tons of ways to replicate movements, like a wall ball, for example, you know, and a and a good coach, a good personal trainer. That's what they get paid to do, right? And so um I have to talk to gym owners all the time, say, hey, hey, like you don't actually need all that stuff. And we're we're here to meet you where you're already at and explore how we can bring high rocks to life in your gym without diving off into the deep end on day one, right? We can ease our way into this slowly but surely.

You know, I want to take a step back because I think this is a really interesting. So you're you're the head of affiliates for high rocks for America's, right? Um you came from special operations background, Marsoc, right? You were uh a team leader. Um, you have your MBA, correct, from University of Chicago. You've you've worked for Nike on their tech side. Like you you have no shortage of opportunities, no doubt, with your background, but you chose HyROX. Um and I'm not questioning it. I think it's a great move, but I'm wondering like why, why would you choose HyROX with with all the varied opportunities you probably had throughout your career?

Um, first of all, that's very very kind of you. Um, and you know, it's it's it's fascinating. You know, I'm here in Chicago. This is where our office is for North America. We've got a team of about 40 people here. And the thing that unites us all is we just have really fallen in love with this kind of weird company that sends people running around in circles a bunch of times and doing um wall balls and things. And it kind of sounds silly, right? And you know, I've I when you tell people, yeah, I just quit my um really comfortable job, you know, at Nike to join this startup kind of thing called Hyrux, uh, people might wonder why. But as soon as you bring them in to see it, you know, they don't really question anymore. And so what what you know, what I'll tell you is when I was in the military, training with purpose, with you know, with a specific end goal in mind. And back in those days, it was all about being fit for my job, being fit because I needed to be able to pick my brother up and and move them somewhere if I had to, right? And so I had a luxury of having a really deep sense of purpose when I was training. And higher arcs brings that to people all over the world. You know, I left active duty and I had a period where I wasn't really training for anything specifically and staying in shape and kind of directionless with my training. So finding HIROX, you know, the same way that plenty of other people find HIROX, really like reignites that purpose in you. And there's a million benefits that come with discovering something like that. That, you know, let's forget about getting in good shape, you know, community, you know, a drive to wake up in the morning and do something difficult, right? And so higher arcs brings that to people all over the world, not just here in the Americas. And so, you know, this office where I'm at today is full of people that are really bought into that as kind of a vision and as a mission. And we're just so focused on bringing higher arcs and bringing that sense of purpose to athletes all over the world. And we do that, at least I do that, through our affiliate program, right? So it's about equipping gym owners to be able to do that and pocket some cash in the process.

Ah, right on, man. Um, it is true. You know, every time I've been training with purpose, uh I just there's that extra level. It's not even extra level, it's like a significant level of motivation um that goes into the consistency. Like, you know, I training for a gravel bike ride here in a week or so. And um, you know, when that alarm hits 515, if I wasn't training for it, I'd be like, uh, well, you know, I only slept five hours last night. Well, it doesn't matter, right? Got to get up and do it. And I'm always grateful I did every time. You know, there's never been once I went to the gym and was like, uh wish I didn't go, right? I regret going. That never happened. So anyway, let's get back on track here. So maybe walk me through what is like a a crawl walk run scenario for for for gyms, you know, as far as getting involved into the HyROX affiliate network.

There's no one size fits all, right? So I just want to start there. You know, 17,000 gyms across the world, that's 17,000 different ways that HyROX is showing up in a gym space. You've got all the variables out there, you've got size of the gym, the equipment, the layout, the kind of training philosophy behind the staff, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So um, when it comes to taking that first step, really the first question that you need to answer is what am I trying to accomplish? Um, like how is higher fitting into what I'm already doing? And so we work with gym loaders all the time on trying to figure that question out. But for a lot of them, it's hey, this is my chance to kick start a personal training program in my gym. We don't have that yet. And we want to add that as a feature, and hire rox will be our way to kind of our entry point into that world. For some, it's hey, our group training, you know, is not well attended. HIROX is a great new format that's really popular, that's gonna get a ton of buzz when I put it on social media and hopefully drive some people into in through the doors. And so the first question that any gym owner needs to answer is like, why am I thinking of bringing HIROX in and how am I gonna leverage that to kind of add on to my business and grow my business? From there, we can start talking about do you need more equipment? Do you not need more equipment? Um, do you need to bring a HIROX coach in-house, or can you kind of grow one organically from from the coaches that you already have? And all that to say, if you want to start training clients for HIRARCs in an empty garage, we can do that, right? You can do that. And if you want to start training coaches or excuse me, start training hierarchs in a CrossFit gym, we can do that without making any changes. Same for an LA Fitness. And so really the the better question is once I've made the decision, how is it come to the life going to come to life from a programming perspective? How are we going to market this? And then once I've got my community starting to grow and we've kind of started to get that flywheel turning and more and more people kind of getting excited about this HIROCS thing. Now, how do we evolve your gym space and your layout and maybe your equipment set to meet that increased demand? But I'm not kidding when I say like there is no barrier to entry. And we're really excited and proud about that. And but it allows us to bring HIROGs to more people than we otherwise would.

It sounds um it sounds very consultative. It sounds like you give like I'm gonna, I'm sure you're probably there's a good chance you could get tired, or maybe not, of the comparisons of CrossFit, right? Like it's just it's it's too hard. If you've been around the industry, it's too hard not to do it because we saw this, you saw something similar played out for a very long time. I think you know, CrossFit got what up to like 16,000, 17,000 affiliates globally and kind of shrunk down to who knows where they are now. I don't think we have that data available. I'm guessing like 10, but don't quote me on that. And, you know, as as when I joined CrossFit, um, I got my certifications, but from the affiliate support angle, there was almost nothing. You had to go to a third party, right? I had to go hire, you know, Andy Patronic at CFLA because he was one of the only gym consultants out there, and now there's a bunch of them, right? Um, so I guess like how how do you guys work along? Like, if I'm thinking about doing this, I have some ideas. Is there people that I can go to within your organization? Be like, hey, give me some ideas or tell me how I could roll this out, or how have other people done it?

It's a great question. And, you know, I'll I'll just caveat by saying we, you know, we're on an amazing growth trajectory with Higrux, right? And and like we're at nearly 5,000 gyms here in North America. We're at about 700 down in South America. You know, those are the two markets I know best. Wow. We sign eight gyms up every day, 365 days of the year. Christmas, Saturdays, Sundays, eight gyms a year. We average every day. And so a lot of those gyms are signing up without a single touch point from us. Like they've just decided we want to bring higher in-house. They've answered a lot of the questions that we just talked about, and they're just gonna go and execute their plan. And so, yeah, there's some consultation and there's some help involved, but I, you know, there's plenty of gym owners that are very smart, they've they've been in the industry for a long time and they know how to capitalize on something like this. For gyms that are have some more questions that aren't maybe as sure. My team and I we're happy to kind of explore some of those with gym owners. And we try and make our onboarding process as clear and as user-friendly as possible. There's a limit to how much customer service we can offer, 17,000 gyms around the world. So we're trying, you know, we really work hard to give people the tools to be able to do this on their own. Um, but some some some people need little need a little more help than others, um, and some don't. So yeah, it's a little bit of mix. Sometimes, you know, I feel like I'm a therapist, um, problem solver in my day-to-day. Yeah. Uh, and and and sometimes, you know, I jump on calls with gym owners and they're like, hey, um, you know, a bunch of my members are knocking on my door. They they they insist that we affiliate with higher ox. And so those are really easy conversations for me as well. So you you you get it, you get a wide variety. And that's the that's the fun part to be to be perfectly honest with you. It's part of what brought me to HIROX is getting to work in this industry with people that are at the tip of the spear, right, to borrow a military term and helping them capitalize on this thing called HIROX.

That's great, man. Yeah, you know, uh, as I hopefully things will change with CrossFit in the new regime under Bruce Edwards. But the uh, you know, the only times I heard from HQ at CrossFit was like two or three times when they sent me uh their legal department a letter for Cece desist on some action that I was doing. And that was yeah, that was awkward and uncomfortable. Well, so walk me through. So if I'm interested in becoming an affiliate, like I call you guys or I submit a form, just maybe give me an idea of how that process unfolds. Um, you know, obviously there's some dues involved, you know, support. Like, what do I get?

Yeah, so if if look, if if Eric, well, we were still using Eric back in 2014, right? So Eric back in 2014 wouldn't be able to sign up for Higher'cause because we were founded in 2017. So I've got bad news for Eric in 2014.

Bummer.

But um, maybe you can invent the sport and uh your life would be a little bit different now. Um it's really, you know, it's it's pretty simple. Um, if if you if Eric in 2021 will say is like, you know what, we're gonna bring HireHox in-house, and I've got my plan, my coaches are excited, I got my some of my members fired up about this. You're able to just go online, higherarch.com, and you're able to sign yourself up. It's relatively simple. It's $130 a month. There's a ton of benefits that come with that, and you're off to the races, right? There's onboarding materials. We have a playbook, a five-week playbook. Hey, how do you get this thing started from day zero all the way through the five-week mark? And we have a team that's able to answer questions and help you get started too, if you'd like. Um, if you're not so sure, you know, get in touch with with my team, right? We've we've got our our sales process pretty dialed in. And so if you're unsure if you need some questions answered, we'll jump on a call with you guys. And this is, I guess, where you say like the consultative services come in a little bit more. Help think through the pros, the cons, the opportunities and the risks and all that stuff. Um, and you know, you asked specifically about the the affiliate benefits, and I guess I'd I'd be a terrible, I'd be terrible at my job if I didn't at least mention what they are on this on this podcast. But the number one thing is programming. We want to you know we want to be as turnkey as possible, and that includes offering official HIROX programming to our gyms. So there's no need to go out and and grab that from a third party. Um, you know, there's no need for your coaches to spend hours kind of designing workouts in the dark. They're able to plug and play, you know, 750 plus workouts from us. And there's a lot of other programming and stuff. I won't go into too much detail and kind of take up all the time talking about our periodized training plans and our in-gym challenges, etc. But it's all there. The second thing is marketing, right? Like the IP usage, the branding, the ability to market yourself as a HIROX gym is clear as a huge value. And all the time, you know, we talk to gym owners, and you know, this is an opportunity to bring in new members who are excited about higherx, who are looking for a great place to train. I also always have to remind them market this to your current members too, right? This is a retention play as well. So that's programming, that's marketing. The ability, the rights and our the encouragement to run your own higherx events in gym as a monetization tool. Maybe you have maybe you've done some of this in your past life as well. But we have gyms that are doing everything from free, you know, small HIROX um events that are just there to kind of um be a community builder to gyms that are charging 200 plus dollars, having running you know, a couple hundred people through a full HIROC simulation and reinvesting some of that um revenue into the experience and making it really feel premium and special and keeping the fire of HIROCs alive while we're not in town with a race and things like that. So that's a really exciting opportunity for our gyms as well. And then, you know, the fourth big pillar that I'll mention is our coaching education and certification. We've got a variety of certification programs. We're constantly thinking of new ways to kind of add to our portfolio. And so educating and prepping and equipping coaches to be successful in delivering high rocks is obviously very important. And so there are tools uh available through our affiliate program for that as well.

That's awesome. Uh I mean that there's there's a lot going on. So I know you guys have like in the affiliate path, you have a couple different things. You have the HTC, the HyROX training center, the HTC X, kind of lighter versions. Help me understand like what are the differences between these things.

Yeah, it's funny. I was in the military, which was hugely You know, a lot of acronyms. Oh, if you guys have your acronyms. Yeah, love acronyms, right? So I maybe that's why I came to HIROX as my next chapter, right? Is because we love acronyms too. They all start with H. So you're spot on. HTC is our run-of-the-mill um affiliate tier. HIROX Training Club. That's what we have 17,000 of around the world. And there is no set model or framework for that, right? As we kind of talked to already a bunch. The next tier up is what we call HTCX. And HTCX is for those gyms that are, you know, really convinced in the power of HIROCs and want to take things to the next level. And what we've done is kind of designed, you know, in concert with our partners at center, a standardized HIROX kind of training zone layout with all of the race day equipment, all the workouts that you would experience in a race, and you know, kind of equipped gyms with a toolkit for how do you bring that into your space as the ultimate place to train for HIROX. And then kind of how do we elevate those gyms and reward those gyms for putting that investment into their physical space? So that is our HTCX tier of affiliation. So it's HTC, which 99% of our affiliates are, and then we have HTCX. And we do have digital partners, right? Like Peloton and OneFit and some Runna and some others, but at our core, right? And what's most important to me is how do we equip these brick and mortar gems to be as successful as possible with HyROX. So HTC, HTCX. And I won't go into some of the other acronyms because we'll be here all day. But yeah, that's really like the basics of it.

Hey friends, real quick, let's talk about Senter, the official equipment provider of HyROX and the sponsor of this experience. Nine years owning GMs taught me the hard part isn't buying equipment. It's buying equipment your members actually show up for. That's what makes this different. HyRox training gives your floor a purpose, and the rates on the calendar keeps people coming back. Center builds equipment the Ford runs on, and they work directly with operators to bring it into your space the right way. If you want to capture this movement in your gym, start at center.com. That is T-E-N-T-R dot com back to the gym. And uh center, so the equipment the official equipment partner. Um you know, I looked at this like I compare it to what Rogue was to CrossFit back in the day. You know, like if you walk in to and I went cheap on equipment a couple times and I ended up regretting it, and then I just ended up going and spending more on rogue later. So I probably end up spending twice as much as I I had to because I I try to go cheap up front. And I think center is is nailed down the very specific type of equipment that these need. I also I feel like it speaks uh it flies a signal to consumers as well. Like if they're into it, they see it, they feel like there's a commitment to it. So how does that partnership work with Center and um because I know they're also consultative with a lot of gym and health club owners. So yeah, walk us through how that's how that works with you guys.

You know, I maybe I'll kind of give you a long answer to that, right? But I go back and I think about Eric, in this case, me, Eric, when I first heard about HIROX back in 2023, was it right? And you know, you hear about this thing for the first time. Great, I want to go out and I and train for it. I just bought my first ticket to my first race. And so I went on the HIROX Gym Finder as a civilian, right? Not as a member of Team HIROX yet. And I looked for, hey, where's the nearest HIROX gym to me? And what I was really focused on was I need somewhere that has turf and sleds because I can't train that really anywhere else. And so I was able to find a great local affiliate here in Chicago that had turf and sled, and I use that to train for my first race. Well, great. Eric goes out, gets a decent time, you know, really I get the high rocks bug. Hey, I want to go and race again. So at this point, you know, now not only am I looking for a gym that has sled and turf and some other stuff, you know, like with the wall balls and kettlebells, but I want to find a gym that has the race ready equipment, right? The same stuff that I'm gonna be touching at High ROC Chicago, for example. I want to be training for that on that equipment specifically because it's got a certain feel and it's been designed specifically for the needs of high rocks. And so center is a great partner. You know, not only do they equip all of our races with the equipment and it gets battle tested through, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of people on a race weekend, touching and feeling and really like abusing the equipment all on a weekend, but they do a great job of working with gyms on how to bring their equipment in-house. And it is, like you said, it's it is a differentiator in the market and it is a signal that if you are serious about HIROCs and if you are really committed to getting a great time and maximizing your potential, you should find a gym that's got the race day equipment. And so, you know, there's there is no cookie-cutter version of a HIRAX gym, but certainly the ones that I've invested into center sleds and center turf and center wall balls, there is a clear flag planted there that this is a house of hierarchs. This is a place where you can come and and get truly race ready. Now, I'll always say, and I said it already, you can train for hierarchs in an empty garage and you can show up on race day and get a half decent time. But if you're serious about um getting race ready and getting, you know, maximizing your time on race day, typically we would recommend going and find someone that has all the equipment that's you know, all the the station work, etc. So um, you know, that they're a great partner. Um and it's a way for gym owners to stand out in that crowd of 17,000 for sure, no doubt.

It's uh it's an interesting point. And I think anyone who's done racing, right, like you want to minimize the variables as much as possible between training and like you don't want to go to a sled. And I know this is one of the things with center, like they have specific nurling and markers, right? Like you want to go to the sled that you know well, know exactly where your hands go, right? And then go. Because that's three, five, 10, 30 seconds, right? That could really make a differential for you. Like, you know, I was mentioning the the bike race that I trained for. It's it's here, it's right here in Whitefish. So, you know, I I can go out my door and I know every turn on that course, right? And that's such a huge advantage. Like if I went to another course, I wouldn't, I wouldn't know that. Now it's different setting, but I think it's it really can't be overstated how critical those little differences are, like the way the wall ball feels, the weighting of it, the material on your fingers, like all that stuff is is very, very incredible.

You know, 100%. I I'm a big runner, you know, and I put in, you know, if I put six months into a marathon training block and then I'm gonna go fly somewhere for, you know, a marathon, you better, you know, you're damn right. I'm gonna pay $350 for um high-end marathon shoes because, you know, that is a variable that I can control, and that is gonna help me maximize how happy I am once I cross that finish line. It's the exact same thing with higher ops, right? Yeah, you've paid for the ticket. Maybe you need to travel to the city you're going to, maybe you need to get a hotel, your family's coming out, everyone's really excited, you've trained for this for months. You want to do whatever you can to maximize that sense of accomplishment you get when you cross the finish line. And so one of the variables you can control is I want to go to a gym that has the official center turf and sled so that when I'm pushing and pulling that thing as part of my training routine, I know exactly how it's gonna feel on race day. I um, you know, we do affiliate walkthroughs. You know, we go down to Higher Rocks Dallas, for example, and we invite a lot of the local affiliates to come check it out, get a backstage tour, VIP stuff. It's really fun. It's a great way to connect to our affiliate community for them to meet each other, compare notes, etc. Guaranteed, every time the question I've been getting over the last year, less and less now, but was hey, can we test out the sled turf combination? Because my gym doesn't have that. And I'm like, yeah, go ahead. Um, and so everyone walks out onto the cur on the course and they have a great time filming each other, pushing and pulling the sled on the official turf, on the official sled. And um, there's a great way uh to make sure that your athletes don't have to ask that question when they come to the affiliate walkthrough. It's to have that stuff in your gym, right? So uh it's something that people are thinking about.

Yeah. Well, if you've ever done sled work, you know that there's a huge difference. Everything is about the friction, right? And the materials and what the floor is made of. If you do it outside on concrete, very different than inside on turf, right? And having that feel, um, because it can be shocking. You know, if you just come off of a run, I would imagine um your legs are a little fatigued. I don't know, I don't know what station it is. I've never done one yet. But the uh, you know, when you hit that and it it feels either more slippery, less friction, or feels like more. That can be very shocking, shocking to the system in that moment in time, right? Because it's not, it's not, it wasn't part of the plan, dude. Like it wasn't supposed to feel like this.

You know, you never wanted to, you know, maybe this is going a little too far, but you never wanted to be like to land in a in a landing zone somewhere overseas and then be like, oh crap, like these new boots that I just bought, turns out the lace is just ripped. And you know, now my my right shoe's coming up, right? Same thing. You don't really want to come into that second station sled push and and figure out for the first time, crap, like I'm I'm not sure I can move this, or this is gonna be a lot more work than I really anticipated, right? There uh I I don't know about you, um, but I like to control what I can control, right? And leave as little to chance as possible, especially when it comes to my fitness. And so, you know, you know, gym owners do not need the center equipment to deliver great hierarchs training, but it does add um like it's that cherry on top. It really adds like a certain something that one athletes are looking for, but two, it adds the training value for sure, no doubt.

Um shifting to probably what the biggest question is if gym owners are listening, is like, okay, dude, how do I make money on this? Right? Fundamentally, this is the the lifeblood of any business, is it's got to be profitable. Uh and I'm sure you're you're probably limited by your own imagination, right? Of how you could do this, but maybe give us some ideas of like what are some of the major ways or the more com most common ways that um operators are are monetizing, commercializing. Yeah.

I'll give you an example, right? If I if if I own a gym um here in Chicago and I affiliate with HIROX, here's what I would do, right? Hirex is Chicago is in February. Uh it's gonna be February 2027. We just announced that yesterday, actually. I would back off 13 weeks from what higherx Chicago is, right? And I would say, we are gonna have a high rock simulation to kick off our quote unquote high rock season. And we are going to gather up all the people in my gym who um have high rocks tickets or are interested in higher, and we're gonna do a big celebration of high rocks in our gym, and it's gonna be a great way to bring the community together, and we're gonna charge $50 pop for this. And off the backs of that event, I'm gonna um create a high ROX training bundle. And so everyone from my gym, you know, 10, 20, 30 people, they're gonna get um access to all my HIROX classes three times a week, and they're gonna get access to some nutrition help, right? And and some um recovery um, you know, stuff. And I'm gonna create um special merch that's you know Eric's gym um HIROX training, and it's only gonna be for those that are in my higher arch prep bundle. And we're going to build the community, and then we're all gonna go to celebrate and cheer each other on in February for the race and create this huge amount of FOMO that everybody else who did not kind of join this hierarchs community, this hierarchs group, has this overwhelming desire to be part of it for the next year. And so 13 weeks, I've already recouped my the entire fee of my affiliation on that first day by charging $50 a head for the event. And then I'm able to upcharge for nutrition, for personal training, for the apparel and the merchandise that I'm creating, et cetera. And that's only a 13-week block, right? Going to be continuing to offer HIROX classes throughout the year. Because one, it's a great training methodology, but the season doesn't stop when HigRock Chicago's over. And what's so great about what we bring to gyms and why we call our affiliate program HIROX365 is that you know, we come to Chicago, we're gonna run our race, it'll be five days this year, and then we won't be back for another year. The flame of HIROX lives on in Chicago exclusively through our affiliate gyms. And that is the power that they're able to tap into. And they are gonna be running events and they're gonna be running classes, and they're gonna be prepping their members for races beyond Chicago 365 days of the year. So anytime you bring something new into your gym, and you know you know this, it's an opportunity to pull the revenue lever or the retention lever, right? And so whether it's you're creating a HIROX membership tier, you're hosting events and charging for that, or you're using HIROX to upsell personal training and nutrition plans, merchandise and apparel. These are all ways to kind of piggyback off of HIROX and our HIROX 365 plan to add to the bottom line, which is ultimately what we are focused on. Like we exist to empower gyms. Uh, we're not here because it's fun, we're not here because we think that doing wall balls is like the greatest thing ever, although it is. We're here to make sure that gyms are successful, right? And 5,000 and count it.

Um well, I can attest. Like, you know, back in the day, we uh we would run an endurance club. So we would pick a couple races in the Santa Barbara area, which is where the gym was, and we would have a 12-week training program. I always did it, and it was great. It was a huge cash infusion because we get anywhere between 10 and 15 people to join it. They would we would meet at you know 6 a.m. um twice a week, do a long run on the weekends, and and these people didn't stop their memberships either. This was additional to the actual membership, and those people like and they would come back, right? Because the the camaraderie of something like that, that what that builds. Um, I mean, you know better than anyone, like doing hard things together with other people builds a bond that um can is almost impossible to imagine in any other setting. It's just it just really affirms that up. You know, what what makes the difference between like uh an affiliate who's making five figures a month on their high rocks opportunities versus one that kind of like, you know, we bought a sled and you know, a kettlebell and you know, we're we're yeah, somewhat committed. Like what separates those two?

You know, when you do scuba diving, right? What they always say is, you know, plan your dive and dive your plan, right? HIROX is not a magic pill. You know, you don't just hit um, you know, submit on your HIROX, um, you know, on signing up to be a HIROX gym, and then you're gonna be showered with wealth and members and cash, right? You do need to go in with a plan. And we're here to help. And there's thousands of gyms um around the world that can serve as examples and best practices, etc. But you really do need a plan, and that's something that we always try and and and work with gyms on and emphasize, right? And the other thing I'll say is it takes time to build a hierarchs community, right? You can't just put hierarchs on your website and expect 100 people to show up. It has happened, but that shouldn't be the expectation, right? And like the most power the the gyms that have have those like five-figure, six-figure um off of hierarchs, or that have decided to go all in hierarchies. We are gonna be all higher arcs everything gym. It's taken them you know, months, years sometimes to grow that community. But once you do, you know, you get you know, you you've got a scratch and claw, maybe get those first 20, 30 people. Um and then you're gonna, you know, then then you you you gotta go get a hundred to be part of your HIROX kind of ecosystem. And then, you know, you can grow that even more. And and that's when you've got something that's really powerful and something that's really enduring and lasting. And it and you you've gotta just trust the process. And I can attest that it, you know, it will come. You know, you just start off where you're at with the membership that you have, with the space that you have, and if you invest into higher rocks, higher rocks will kind of invest into you, right? And you that community will come. And uh, so those are really the two things I would say. Have a plan and trust that the community will come if you've got a good plan. And it won't necessarily be, you know, on the very first day, but plenty of gyms. Man, I'll tell you, Eric, the number of gyms that are showing up to our races, and they brought 100 members, 150, 200 plus, 250 plus members to the race, it's astonishing. And that every year, the number of gyms that are hitting those those kind of numbers is just growing and growing and growing. And so that is a huge testament to what they've built and the opportunity that's out there that all other gyms can replicate as well and grow grow themselves.

You know, and and not to draw one more last parallel to to cross-order comparison was like the only opportunities I had to bring my whole community was like a local event, right? Like something regional where it was like, and I would put them on too. Like we would run them. We'd also we love charity events, those were always great. But if you want to bring like a large group of people to to compete in CrossFit sanction event from HQ, you couldn't because you had to physically qualify for the events, right? That's where hierarchies difference. Like anyone could participate, right? It doesn't matter what their fitness level is. I mean, you want them to be fit, of course, like you want them to be safe and have a good time. But like that, that's the difference is like you can, if you have 200 members in your gym, all of them, you know, what 98% of them can probably compete in this event versus like you had to be really, really good at CrossFit if you wanted to go compete. And then everyone would just show up as fans. They weren't, you know, actual participants. And that that that's a very to me like the access and availability of high rocks versus some of the other models that have happened historically. Like, not everyone can run a marathon, dude. Like you, you just you you can. A friend of mine ran one off the couch a couple weeks ago and he regretted it. Um, you know, like you can do it. Yeah, uh, but like that's I think the accessibility of it all is like it can't be um, you know, it it's it's really easy to understate that and it can't be because it's it's hugely valuable to to communities.

We we walk a kind of a strange tight rope at HIROX, right? We we don't want to shy away from the idea that HIROX is challenging because there is inherent benefit to doing challenging things. But on the other hand, we we want to make it clear that anybody can do it. You know, hitting a sub-60-minute HIROX is an incredibly challenging thing, and that's achievable by a very small number of people. Finishing a HIROX in under three hours, if you're early on in your fitness journey, can be an extremely challenging thing. And both of those subsets of people can get the benefits out of training for hierarchs and competing in hierarchs, and both of them can cross the finish line extremely proud of what they've accomplished. We have tons of celebrities and influencers and things that come to our races. I think that's wonderful. I don't have social media, I barely know who some of these people are sometimes. What really gets me excited is meeting like the nurses who, hey, this was my excuse to get up at 4:30 in the morning before my shift and like hold myself accountable. Or, hey, like Higherx New York City was my chance to spend some quality time with my brother. We live on different coasts and we don't get to see each other this often, but we were able to train kind of separately but together, and then we met here at Hig Rux New York and had just a great time. You know, who cares about our time? We just had a great time together, right? So the accessibility piece is so critical to what makes HIROX great, but also why it makes it such a great thing to bring into your gym. And yeah, it's a it is a challenge, and that's kind of by design as well, right? And so the the events that gym owners are running, couple two thoughts. One is for a lot of people, that is their entry point into higher rocks, right? Hey, I'm not ready to go out, or I don't feel necessarily ready to go out and compete on on the big stage. So I'm gonna do this higher event in my local gym, and that's gonna be my way to test the waters. And for other people, the higher simulation is hey, I crushed higher ups in New York City and I'm ready for round two. Like next week, what do I do? Oh, this local gym in New York City is offering a HIROX event. Like, yes, let's do it, and everything in between. So, you know, the events is a super powerful, sometimes underrated way to monetize, but also just activate the community.

Awesome, man. Well, Eric, this has been uh highly educational. I think we got what we wanted here. We want to just really paint a full picture for gym owners who are on the fence or considering moving, or maybe they they already do a little bit of high rocks, but they want to figure out how to really take it all the way and change their business. So uh it's been an absolute pleasure. If you want people to go anywhere, obviously the website, they can check out affiliates. Is there any way they can follow you or get in touch with you? Or how would you like to present that?

Yeah, so it, you know, if you're curious about high rocks, about higher rocks365, which again is our affiliate program, higrox.com, higrox365.com are both great resources. Follow me on on LinkedIn, I guess. I uh I don't have social media, so you're out of luck there. Um, you know, otherwise, um, feel free to email me um as well. I'm at eric.oneil at highrocks.com. Love talking to both current affiliates on what we're doing well, what we're not doing well. We are a learning organization and always happy to talk to gym owners also who are on the fence and and unsure and just need that extra little bit of encouragement.

That's awesome, man. I'm really glad you do that. And for everyone's reference, it's O'Neill with one L because I screwed that up earlier this morning.

Yeah, 10.

We'll we'll get it right. Eric, thank you so much for joining me, man. It's been an absolute pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, Eric O'Neill.

Cheers, thanks.