F45 Launches PEAK500: Everything You Need to Know About Their New Fitness Competition

F45 Training is already one of the most recognisable names in functional group fitness, with over 1,500 studios across 55 countries. But up until now, their competitive edge lived in their HYROX partnership as a naming-rights sponsor across 12 global HYROX events. That's changing.

PEAK500 is F45's first owned fitness competition, and it's built to sit inside their existing studio ecosystem. This isn't just a brand play. It's a direct move to own a slice of the hybrid fitness competition market, one that's been growing fast and showing no signs of slowing.

What Is F45 PEAK500?

PEAK500 is a 30-minute, standardised fitness competition held inside F45 studios. It's built around five timed stations, each five minutes long, with athletes recording their total reps or calories in the F45 Training App at the end of each effort. Results feed into a global leaderboard.

The format evolves F45's existing biannual Playoffs benchmark, but with a harder competitive edge. Standardised stations, global ranking, and a clear performance-oriented structure designed to give athletes a number to chase and improve.

The Five Stations

PEAK500 uses five exercises that will be immediately familiar to anyone in the hybrid fitness world:

The selection is deliberate. Bike, Ski, and Row ergs cover aerobic capacity and machine efficiency. Devil's Press and the combined shuttle/thruster round test power, strength endurance, and the ability to keep moving when everything hurts. It's a genuine test of hybrid fitness, not just cardio, not just lifting.

Red Bull as Global Partner

The headline partnership for PEAK500 is Red Bull as global partner. Red Bull has been strategically deepening its footprint in functional and hybrid fitness, backing HYROX events, functional fitness competitions, and athlete sponsorships across the space.

For F45, having Red Bull attached from launch gives PEAK500 credibility, media reach, and a clear signal to the market: this is a serious competition, not just an in-studio challenge. The combination of F45's studio network and Red Bull's event infrastructure could make PEAK500 a genuine calendar fixture quickly.

What the CEO Said

Dowd also made clear this is the beginning of a longer play: the aim is for PEAK500 to grow into larger fitness events both inside and outside the studio. The language mirrors what HYROX said in its early years, and given where HYROX is now, it's worth taking seriously.

How PEAK500 Fits the Bigger Picture

The launch of PEAK500 doesn't exist in isolation. The hybrid fitness competition market has exploded over the past two years, and F45 is making a calculated move to own more of that space rather than just powering other people's events.

The Hybrid Competition Boom

PEAK500 joins a rapidly expanding field. HYROX remains the dominant hybrid race format globally. ATHX, the UK-based Adidas-backed competition, just brought its first event to the US. Xenom, which bills itself as the Decathlon of Fitness, recently launched with a $15 million seed round and a debut event scheduled for June at the Dallas Cowboys' practice facility.

The difference with PEAK500 is the access model. HYROX, ATHX, and Xenom all require athletes to travel to standalone events. PEAK500 happens inside your local F45 studio, dramatically lowering the barrier to entry and meaning F45 can reach a much wider participant base.

When Is PEAK500?

The official global competition day for PEAK500 is Saturday 28 March 2025, when global leaderboard rankings go live. In the lead-up, PEAK500 workouts are available as optional sessions in F45 studios so coaches and members can practise and build their strategy before the ranked event.

What It Means for Hybrid Athletes

If you're a hybrid athlete who trains for HYROX or functional fitness events, PEAK500 is worth paying attention to. The fact that a brand with 1,500 studios is now running its own standardised competition means the validation loop for hybrid fitness training keeps growing.

More competitions mean more reasons to train consistently. More benchmarks mean more data on where you actually stand. And more Red Bull-backed events in the mainstream fitness calendar means the hybrid space continues to pull in athletes who previously wouldn't have considered it.

If you're already training for HYROX or a similar event, the erg stations in PEAK500, bike, ski, and row, should already be part of your programme. If they're not, that's something to address.