Why has Les Mills teamed up with Hyrox?

This is something I'm personally really excited about. The partnership first began when Liz Terry [editor of HCM] introduced me to Christian Toetzke [Hyrox founder] at the first FIBO Hyrox event in 2022. He's a former elite-level decathlete and I’ve got a track and field background, so we hit it off straight away.

Les Mills has always been involved with sports at our gyms in New Zealand, going right back to the jogging boom, then triathlon and also competitive aerobics. The communities built around fitness sports bring thousands of members to clubs – they form tight-knit groups, stay a long time and get great results. We've still got thousands of triathlon members in our gyms who joined in the late 70s and early 80s. 

Hyrox is going to be the biggest of them all, bringing millions of members to the industry. The Hyrox team is doing a great job at scaling events throughout the world very quickly and getting big numbers. The recent Chicago event had 75,000 competitors and London had 45,000, so already more than many of the world's biggest marathons.

It’s becoming a mass-participation sport and presents a tremendous opportunity for the industry, so I strongly advise clubs to grab the chance to engage.

Added to this, I believe circuit training and strength training classes will be two of the biggest of this decade. Circuit training has always been one of our most popular, going back to the early 80s, with Super Circuit which evolved to Body Circuit. In 2018, my son and his team started developing Les Mills Ceremony as a modern functional training circuit and it has since become our biggest class.

What does the Hyrox partnership involve?

We're offering gyms a combined licence for Hyrox and Les Mills Ceremony.

We've created two new classes – Ceremony Hyrox and Ceremony Hyrox Max, which is specific to the competition, like a mini Hyrox event. The classes offer two options – one uses functional equipment and is ideal for the gym floor. The other version can be done in the studio, using available group fitness equipment.

Every quarter there will be four new releases of both Ceremony Hyrox and Ceremony Hyrox Max from Les Mills and Hyrox

Our training has been tested to get optimum results and deliver motivation, enjoyment and mix of music with movement. We spend three months crafting classes and every quarter, there will be four new releases for both of these Hyrox workouts.

Tell us about the new Les Mills docuseries, Rise: Search for the Ultimate Trainers

This is part of the campaign we launched at FIBO called, “the most important machine in your club has a heartbeat.” We believe that if you want to have a successful club, you need to focus on your instructors.

The hundreds of thousands of instructors around the world are so important to our industry. They create health and community and magic for millions of people every day.

Group fitness participants come more often, stay longer, bring more friends and pay more and a single great instructor brings and retains hundreds of members to a club – a team of them can be transformational. Yet not enough energy is put into recruiting rockstar instructors.

We believe they're probably already there in your club – the sports fanatics, the influencers, the dancers, the actors. You've just got to put in the time to look for them. We can teach operators how to find them, how to recruit them and how to look after them. So that’s the challenge we're putting to the industry and the docuseries is part of our passion to tell that story.

What does the series involve?

It follows the lives of eight wonderful group exercise professionals, who've been recruited from our 100,000 instructors globally. These instructors are at the top of their game, have loyal followings and they’re all vying for a sought-after place on the Les Mills global filming team.

We've filmed the series over a period of two years with production company, Tomorrowland. It follows the instructors around the world to big Les Mills Live events and also to their home cities and to their gyms and talks to them and their families.

These instructors are at the top of their game, have thousands of people in a class and they’re all vying for a sought-after place on the Les Mills global filming team

The show culminates in New Zealand, where the final shortlist of trainers must earn their place filming the Les Mills workouts that are enjoyed by 7 million people every week across 23,000 gyms around the world.

It shows what it takes to earn your place at the top of fitness and also to keep it, as thousands chase your tail. You see the pride they have for their work, along with the pressure and the doubt.

Alongside the main docuseries, we're releasing a weekly vodcast called Rise Reactions, which is hosted by Les Mills presenter Bas Hollander, with guests from the show. This gives fans and instructors deeper insight into each episode and the performances. 

● Les Mills Rise is available now on the Les Mills YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/@lesmills