But as she ran through Hyrox’s signature start tunnel, she felt calm and confident.

She was competing that day as an adaptive athlete. After surviving a car crash nearly 20 years earlier, she had limited movement in her left arm and struggled with balance. But she loved a challenge. And as she moved through the race, she was buoyed by cheering spectators.

“I was used to being told everything I couldn’t do,” Ms. Thompson, 39, said. Showing herself that she could do a Hyrox, she said, was “life-changing.”

Since Hyrox first began in Germany in 2017, the events have exploded in popularity. Races sell out in minutes, and in some cities, they have waiting lists of thousands. More than 1.5 million people in 30 countries have competed in at least one Hyrox race, their ages ranging from 16 to 85. Since last year, the New York City event has tripled in size, from 15,000 to about 50,000 entrants.

In a Hyrox race, participants alternate between running a kilometer and doing eight exercises including sled pulls and pushes, burpee broad jumps and a farmer’s carry. They can enter as solo competitors, or as part of a doubles team or a relay.

In its first few years, Hyrox tended to attract the fittest of the fit. But now people with a wider range of fitness levels and abilities are signing up. More than 15,000 gyms around the world have become official training facilities.

Dan Trink, a strength coach in New York City, owns The Fort gym, which is now an official Hyrox affiliate. The first year he competed in a Hyrox race, in 2022, “I walked in and, like, there were more abs in the room than noses,” he said. “Everybody who was in there was ripped.” By last year’s New York event, “it was a little bit of everybody,” he said.

Turning working out into a sport

In many ways, Hyrox is following the tradition of obstacle course races like Tough Mudder and Spartan, Ironman triathlons, CrossFit contests and marathons.

But Hyrox evangelists say the barrier to entry is lower than for many other events, in part because the core exercises — all functional movements — can be practiced with basic gym equipment and don’t require much of a time commitment.

“When Spartan races were all the rage, it’s like, you come out of that like muddy and sometimes bloody,” said Shay Kostabi, a longtime fitness instructor and co-founder of the industry consulting firm Fitcarma. By comparison, Hyrox “is contained, it’s clean, it’s safe,” while still being challenging enough to give finishers a sense of pride.

While Hyrox races are tests of endurance, their popularity has also most likely been fueled by a growing interest in strength training. “It fits that hunger,” Ms. Kostabi said, while also making it feel like less of a chore.

This was by design, said Moritz Furste, Hyrox’s co-founder and a three-time Olympic medalist in field hockey.

In 2017, when Mr. Furste and his co-founder, Christian Toetzke, first came up with the idea for Hyrox, they saw an opportunity to create a competition for everyday exercisers who had no interest in training for an event like a marathon, but who also wanted a challenging yet attainable goal.

They noticed that many people’s workouts involved a mix of cardio and strength training, rather than focusing on any one activity, so they designed it to be a hybrid of both.

They wanted to create “a playing field for those who went to the gym,” Mr. Furste said.

For decades, savvy coaches and entrepreneurs have looked for ways to turn gym-going into a sport, said Mark Dyreson, a professor of kinesiology who co-directs the Penn State Center for the Study of Sports in Society. In the late 1800s, Y.M.C.A. staff invented basketball to motivate members to stay active indoors in the winter months. Bodybuilding, powerlifting and weight lifting competitions have offered another avenue.

“Some people really love to just go to the gym and work out on the circuit, but for most people, historically, it’s fairly boring, right?” Dr. Dyreson said. “If you can turn something into a competition, into a game, you get a lot more interest.”

Helen Ogunjimi, 41, a personal trainer in Chicago, said signing up for Hyrox challenged her in a way that she missed. Ms. Ogunjimi had played basketball in college and on professional teams abroad, but as she got older, her workouts became less varied.

At first, when a friend encouraged her to sign up, she balked. “I was just like, Oh, this looks very, very hard,” she said, in part because she had avoided running since her basketball days. “I was kind of scared, you know, because I hadn’t moved my body like that in a long time.” At the same time, she thought to herself, with a little training, she could do it.

She competed in Hyrox Chicago last November, and plans to race in Japan this summer. She hopes to become one of the first Black women to qualify for the Hyrox World Championships, an invitation-only race for the top 15 male and female competitors in each division.

She has been surprised by how much she has enjoyed the return to running — in small doses. “I’m building my engine,” she said.

Competition and camaraderie

Hyrox’s rapid rise can, at least in part, be attributed to finishers posting on social media about their triumphs, making it aspirational for the masses. It helps that everyone looks like a fierce competitor in the official photos that Hyrox sends out, said Mr. Trink, the strength coach in New York City.

“It gives people an identity,” Ms. Kostabi, the fitness industry consultant, said. “There’s a tribe, there’s a category to belong to, and people just love that.”

It can also offer everyday athletes a chance to prove to themselves that they are physically capable, said Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University. Many gym-goers are drawn to the fact that Hyrox’s core exercises — pushing, pulling, carrying, running and more — are movements you use in everyday life. And unlike road races, Hyrox races don’t have a “back of the pack,” since new waves of participants are always starting.

The camaraderie of Hyrox can also be an antidote to our era of social isolation, Dr. McGonigal said.

When Ms. Thompson, the adaptive athlete, was warming up before the race began, another participant caught her eye and walked over. She saw Ms. Thompson struggling to tie her shoe because of shaky hands, and stepped in to tighten it for her. “Even in a competitive space, people are still looking out for each other,” Ms. Thompson said.

The support of spectators and fellow participants “made it impossible to quit,” she said. “It shifts your mind-set. It becomes less about what you’re lacking and more about what you can do.”

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