The Deadly Dozen Is Coming for a Piece of the Hybrid Fitness Boom

Few things, if any, have changed the fitness industry as much as CrossFit.

It introduced the world to functional fitness and gave us a measurable, repeatable way to track progress. Because of this, we got competitive fitness.

With this have come new opportunities.

• Enter HYROX. It’s hard to imagine HYROX growing the way it has—or even existing—without the road CrossFit paved.

The biggest thing HYROX has arguably added to the fitness space is a more accessible form of functional fitness, opening the door to mass participation in hybrid fitness.

Case in point: 1.6 million people participated in a HYROX race in 2026, and more than two million are expected to race this year. By comparison, just over 250,000 people registered for the 2026 CrossFit Open.

Not surprisingly, HYROX’s success has led others to enter the space and create their own spin-off races, so to speak.

• Last week, for example, we featured the Hybrid Games, a mass-participation race with 10 stations: the eight HYROX stations plus two more. Participants must also run 600 meters before each station, plus a 200-meter sprint finish.

Now it’s time to meet a second brand with CrossFit and HYROX-ish vibes: The Deadly Dozen. 

What is the Deadly Dozen?

Founded in the UK in 2024 by longtime strength and conditioning coach Jason Curtis, the Deadly Dozen offers a range of races, including Deadly Row, Deadly Ski, Deadly Combine, Deadly Barbell, Deadly Fitness Test, Deadly Strong, Deadly Erg, and Deadly Ultra.

However, their flagship event is the one most similar to HYOX: the Deadly Dozen Track Race.

• The race features 12 functional fitness stations—called the 12 Labors—with a 400-meter run before each station. The stations include farmer’s carry, kettlebell deadlift, dumbbell lunge, dumbbell snatch, burpee broad jumps, goblet squats, weight plate front carry, dumbbell push press, bear crawl, weight plate clean and press, weight plate overhead carry, and dumbbell devil’s press. 

Like HYROX, there are solo, doubles and relay options to participate.

What sets the Deadly Dozen apart from other hybrid racing brands, however, is its business model. Curtis and his team run the UK events; they have also brought on event directors in other parts of the world who essentially “run their country,” Curtis explained.

This year, the UK team hosted 25 Deadly Track Races across the UK, while other countries hosted between three and 12 events. 

They also offer an affiliate model in which gyms pay $150 a month and host various Deadly events, like Deadly Strong, which doesn’t involve running, and Deadly Erg, where running is replaced with an erg.

The gyms keep 100 percent of their ticket sales and receive access to the Deadly app, which includes a worldwide leaderboard so participants can see how they stack up against others.

The model has proven to be a win-win for the gym; some can even pay for their entire year’s affiliation fee by hosting just one event, Curtis said.

Quick Growth

Curtis founded Deadly Dozen only two years ago without any start-up capital or sponsors.

• “I literally had no money. I bought the equipment for the first race with the tickets I sold,” said Curtis, who also owns a world-class training facility, the Deadly Dozen Institute in the UK.

The first year, he hosted just five races, all in the UK, and generated $344,000 in revenue.

A year later, the company grossed $1.8 million, a number that will be considerably higher again in 2026. 

Today, Deadly Dozen is in 35 countries—from the UK to Australia, Colombia, Kenya, the USA, Canada, the UAE, France, and Germany, to name a few—and has 160 Deadly Dozen affiliates worldwide. At their current growth rate, Curtis projects they’ll be in 100 countries in the next two years. 

The Big Picture

On paper, moving into the same market as an expanding giant like HYROX might seem like a risky, even slightly silly, move. 

But two years into the experiment, Curtis is already showing why he took the gamble. And he believes the Deadly Dozen is only getting started.

• “We’re not trying to replicate what HYROX is doing. We’re trying to do a different vertical within the same space. And I think, within the next two to three years, I do genuinely believe we can be one of the biggest ecosystems, not just within the fitness racing space, but fitness as a whole,” he said. 

For all of his ambition, though, Curtis is also quick to recognize that he wouldn’t even have this dream without CrossFit and HYROX first opening the door.

• “CrossFit revolutionized competitive fitness; HYROX made it mass participation. And now we’re combining the two,” he said.