Fitness Racing may be beginning to enter a phase similar to what obstacle racing experienced during the 2013-2015 boom. New brands are appearing quickly, participation numbers are climbing, and brands are beginning to expand beyond their home regions. Some will stick. Some won’t.

One of the clearest examples of that growth right now is ATHX. Unlike many of the other brands, ATHX has taken a more modular approach to its race design by evolving and rotating elements within its zones each season. The races still center around three core areas: strength, endurance, and metcon, but each season introduces new challenges and variations within those sections. Back in 2023, ATHX was still largely a UK-based competition series operating a handful of events across England. That season, the company produced approximately 2,122 total participants across Birmingham, Liverpool, and Farnborough.

Three years later, ATHX has expanded into Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, and the United States.

In December 2025, ATHX also announced a multi-year partnership with Adidas as major sportswear brands continued increasing their involvement in fitness racing.

Through the first half of the 2026 season alone, ATHX has already held seven events and surpassed 10,000 participants, including more than 2,100 athletes at its Paris event. They still have nine events remaining this year, including their finals in Portugal.

ATHX has already announced 21 events across 13 countries for 2027, with races scheduled across much of Western Europe. The company’s full 2027 calendar can be viewed here.

One lingering question for ATHX remains expansion into the United States. As recently as this past fall, Hybrid Fitness Media was told events were planned for three American cities. So far, there has only been a smaller invitational-style event in Miami in March of this year, but nothing else is currently listed on the calendar for the remainder of 2026.

ATHX is still well behind HYROX in overall scale. HYROX grew from approximately 5,500 participants during the 2018/2019 season to more than 500,000 in 2024/2025, and is approaching one million finishers during the current season. That gap also highlights just how early the broader fitness racing market may still be in its overall growth cycle.

ATHX’s growth curve also compares interestingly with DEKA. Based on finisher data tracked by Hybrid Fitness Media, DEKA FIT events and DEKA Trifecta weekends grew from approximately 1,746 finishers in 2021 to roughly 24,740 in 2025 while expanding from primarily U.S.-based events into Europe, particularly Spain, along with smaller expansion into Asia-Pacific markets.

Compared to some of its larger competitors, DEKA has still left much of the UK relatively untouched with its larger fitness racing weekends. DEKA held just one UK event in 2025 and currently has three UK weekends on the calendar for 2026. For the remainder of the 2025/2026 DEKA season, there are still 13 DEKA FIT and DEKA Trifecta weekends scheduled globally through September 30, 2026, while the 2026/2027 season already has 11 weekends announced beginning in October 2026.

Deadly Dozen, which uses a more outdoor, track-and-strength-focused format with a smaller footprint than many indoor events, surpassed 11,500 finishers in 2025 while expanding into the United States, Mexico, Germany, Malta, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The company currently has 46 event weekends still scheduled for the remainder of 2026.

Rather than relying on large indoor expo halls, Deadly Dozen’s expansion has been built around outdoor athletics venues and regional scheduling density. That approach has allowed the company to rapidly increase its event footprint across multiple continents while revisiting successful venues multiple times within the same season, all while maintaining relatively smaller venue requirements compared to brands operating inside convention centers and major exhibition halls.

Whether ATHX can ultimately sustain this pace of expansion long-term remains to be seen. Obstacle racing experienced a similar growth surge during the mid-2010s before the market eventually consolidated.But midway through 2026, ATHX is positioning itself as one of the more aggressive expansion brands currently operating in fitness racing.