HybridX Club · ATHX 2027
ATHX is the hybrid fitness competition backed by adidas — three judged zones in one session, ranked on placings rather than raw numbers, in more than twenty European cities for 2027. Here’s what actually happens on the day, and the one pacing call in the Endurance Zone that quietly decides who wins.
Scroll for the full breakdown — the pacing calculator further down needs no email either.
Get the one-page guide to ATHX
What it is, how the three zones work, how the scoring actually adds up, and the 2027 UK dates.
ATHX is a hybrid fitness competition. It started in the UK in 2023, it’s backed by adidas, and by 2027 it runs in more than twenty cities across Europe — five of them in the UK and Ireland.
You’re at the venue for about two and a half hours, completing three judged zones with recovery between them. You are not racing continuously from a gun to a finish line.
69
Minutes of actual working time. The rest of the two and a half hours at the venue is recovery and transition between zones.
If you’ve done a hybrid or functional fitness competition before, a lot of ATHX will be familiar. The shape of the day is different enough that it’s worth understanding properly before you enter one — which is what the rest of this page, and the guide below, are for.
| Zone | Time | What you do | How it’s scored |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | 15 min | A one-rep max shoulder to overhead, a two-rep max back squat, then a three-rep max deadlift. Warm-up time is inside the fifteen minutes. | Total weight lifted, in kilograms |
| Endurance | 24 min | A 3 km run, then maximum distance on the SkiErg for whatever time is left inside the cap. | Ski metres only |
| MetCon X | 25 min cap | Row, dumbbell ground to overhead, dumbbell bench press, sandbag squats, a 30 m sandbag carry, burpees over a bench, then row again. | Time taken to finish |
Each zone gives you a placing rather than a raw number. Your final score is the sum of the three placings, and the lowest total wins. Winning a zone outright is worth one point, whether you take it by four metres or forty — a bad zone tends to cost you more than a good one gains.
An athlete who wins two zones and finishes 40th in the third scores 42. One who goes 12th, 14th and 15th scores 41 — and beats them.
Two of the three zones you figure out by racing them. The third — Endurance — has an exact right answer, and almost nobody uses it.
In the Endurance Zone, only the ski distance scores. The 3 km run is a buy-in — however fast or slow you run it, the run itself is worth nothing.
Which means it isn’t two events. It’s one trade — every second spent running is a second not spent scoring. And unlike most pacing questions, this one has an exact answer.
Set your run pace and your ski pace. The model does the rest.
The zone is 24 minutes. The 3 km run is a buy-in, so whatever it does not use is ski time, and only the ski distance is scored.
Ski distance
2,625m
Ski time left
10:30
One second is worth
4.17m
| Run pace | Run time | Ski time | Ski distance | vs yours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3:45 | 11:15 | 12:45 | 3,187 m | +562 m |
| 4:00 | 12:00 | 12:00 | 3,000 m | +375 m |
| 4:15 | 12:45 | 11:15 | 2,812 m | +187 m |
| 4:30 — yours | 13:30 | 10:30 | 2,625 m | — |
| 4:45 | 14:15 | 9:45 | 2,437 m | -188 m |
| 5:00 | 15:00 | 9:00 | 2,250 m | -375 m |
| 5:15 | 15:45 | 8:15 | 2,062 m | -563 m |
Run 15 s/km faster and you can afford to ski 7.1% slower and still score the same — that is 2:08.6 /500m against your 2:00. Nobody arrives at the machine that much worse for 15 seconds a kilometre.
Why this matters more than it looks
187m
What fifteen seconds per kilometre is worth at a 2:00/500m ski pace. Three kilometres, forty-five seconds, and every one of them buys ski distance.
Run 15 s/km slower to arrive fresher and you’d need to ski 8% faster just to break even. Nobody achieves that. The standard advice to start easy is a scoring error.
01
The Strength zone opens with a one-rep max shoulder to overhead, then a two-rep back squat and a three-rep deadlift — with your warm-up inside the same fifteen-minute clock. Most hybrid racing never asks for a true 1RM. This does, and it comes early.
02
MetCon X closes the day: row, dumbbell ground to overhead, dumbbell bench press, sandbag squats, a 30 m sandbag carry, burpees over a bench, then row again — capped at twenty-five minutes. Unlike Strength or Endurance, it’s scored purely on time taken to finish.
03
Every zone is scored in absolute terms. Nothing is divided by your bodyweight, and the only place mass costs you is a run that doesn’t score.
Half the book explains the event. Half is the plan — every day carrying the session, what to eat around it, what to drink, how to recover from it, and one thing worth knowing.
154 pages
7 × 10 in · 12-week plan · 84 daily pages · Lite, ATHX and Pro loadings
156 pages · cycle-integrated block structure
7 × 10 in · 12-week plan · 84 daily pages · Lite, ATHX and Pro loadings
Timing
12
Weeks in the build. If you’re targeting London — the earliest UK date, 23–24 January — a twelve-week block starts in early November.
Plus more than twenty other cities across Europe in 2027, including Paris, Madrid, Milan, Berlin, Amsterdam.
ATHX is a hybrid fitness competition that started in the UK in 2023 and is backed by adidas. Athletes complete three judged zones — Strength, Endurance and MetCon X — in a single session, and are ranked on the sum of their three placings rather than one combined number. In 2027 it runs in more than twenty cities across Europe, five of them in the UK and Ireland.
If you've competed in a hybrid or functional fitness event before, a lot of ATHX will be familiar — strength, running and mixed conditioning under one score. The shape of the day is different enough to be worth learning properly: you complete three separate zones with recovery between them rather than racing continuously from a gun to a finish line, and only one of the three zones is scored purely on time.
You're at the venue for about two and a half hours. Total working time across all three zones is around sixty-nine minutes — the rest is recovery and transition between zones.
Strength (15 minutes): a one-rep max shoulder to overhead, a two-rep max back squat, then a three-rep max deadlift, with your warm-up inside the clock. Endurance (24 minutes): a 3 km run, then maximum distance on the SkiErg for whatever time is left. MetCon X (25-minute cap): a row, dumbbell and sandbag circuit finishing back on the rower, scored on time to finish.
Each zone gives you a placing, not a raw number. Your final score is the sum of your three placings, and the lowest total wins. Winning a zone outright is worth one point whether you take it by four metres or forty — an athlete who wins two zones and finishes 40th in the third scores 42, while one who goes 12th, 14th and 15th scores 41 and beats them. A bad zone tends to cost you more than a good one gains.
No. Only the SkiErg distance is scored. The 3 km run is a buy-in — the faster you cover it, the more of the 24-minute cap is left for skiing, but the run itself earns no points.
No. Every zone is scored in absolute terms — kilos lifted, metres skied, a fixed circuit completed — with nothing divided by bodyweight. The only place extra mass costs you is the run in the Endurance Zone, which doesn't score at all.
ATHX is backed by adidas. HybridX Club is an independent training resource and is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, ATHX Games.
Five events: London on 23–24 January, Glasgow on 5–6 June, Dublin on 12–13 June, Birmingham on 20–22 August, and Liverpool on 9–10 October. ATHX also runs in more than twenty other cities across Europe in 2027, including Paris, Madrid, Milan, Berlin and Amsterdam.
It suits you if you already lift and want that to count for something, or if running has been holding your times back elsewhere. It's probably not the best first event if you've never attempted a heavy triple — the Strength zone opens with a genuine one-rep max, early, before you're fully warmed up. Divisions are Lite, ATHX and Pro, as an individual or in pairs, and pairs is generally the easier way into a first one.
Take the one-page guide. It covers the format, the scoring, and the 2027 UK dates, and it will tell you in about three minutes whether ATHX is worth your winter.
Get the one-page guide to ATHX
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