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Viral functional fitness competition ATHX has unveiled the full slate of workouts for its 2026 season and, smuggled in among some very serious tests of strength and endurance, is one particularly potent full-body challenge.
The competition’s strength event gives athletes 20 minutes to establish a one-rep-max strict press, a three-rep-max back squat and a five-rep-max deadlift. The endurance piece, meanwhile, is a 22-minute run-and-row effort, switching disciplines after every 750 metres.
Both should give you a fairly good idea of what sort of athlete ATHX is trying to uncover: strong, fast and capable of keeping their chin up even when the wheels start to fall off.
But it’s the new ‘Metcon X’ workout that offers the most comprehensive test of grit and gains.
Working from a SkiErg effort, through dumbbell ground-to-overheads, loaded carries, box jumps, lunges and burpee broad jumps, the workout tests almost every major muscle group while placing a serious demand on your engine and ability to keep moving under fatigue.
Your shoulders, back and arms will take a hammering from the ground-to-overheads. The sandbag carry will light up your grip, core and upper back, while the box jumps, weighted lunges and burpee broad jumps pile fatigue into your quads, glutes, hamstrings and calves.
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Oh, and it’s all going to jack up your heart rate and set your lungs on fire. It’s not simply a test of strength – with a 25-minute time cap, you’ll need enough raw power to keep the loaded movements moving, enough dynamism to remain explosive over the box and enough muscular endurance to avoid grinding to a halt before the final ski.
Here’s the full workout for individuals in the open category:
The ATHX Metcon X Workout
For time:
- 45-calorie SkiErg
- 30 alternating single-arm dumbbell ground-to-overheads (20kg)
- 30-metre sandbag carry (50kg)
- 30 box jump-overs (24-inch box)
- 30-metre walking lunges (2 x 20kg dumbbells)
- 30-metre burpee broad jump
- 45-calorie SkiErg
*25-min time cap
Your score is your total time to complete the workout. Whether you finish within the cap or not, you’ll receive a fairly brutal appraisal of where the gaps in your fitness currently lie.
If there’s one thing Kori Sampson knows, it’s how to optimise your body composition for performance. To tap into his knowledge as an elite athlete and coach, we asked him to create a 4-week plan to help you move faster, recover quicker and keep pushing when the fatigue sets in – all while improving your muscle-to-fat ratio.
Ready to build muscle, burn fat and come out the other side looking, feeling and performing better? Click here to get 14 days of free access to the plan via the Men’s Health app.
With almost 18 years in the health and fitness space as a personal trainer, nutritionist, breath coach and writer, Andrew has spent nearly half of his life exploring how to help people improve their bodies and minds.
As our fitness editor he prides himself on keeping Men’s Health at the forefront of reliable, relatable and credible fitness information, whether that’s through writing and testing thousands of workouts each year, taking deep dives into the science behind muscle building and fat loss or exploring the psychology of performance and recovery.
Whilst constantly updating his knowledge base with seminars and courses, Andrew is a lover of the practical as much as the theory and regularly puts his training to the test tackling everything from Crossfit and strongman competitions, to ultra marathons, to multiple 24 hour workout stints and (extremely unofficial) world record attempts.
You can find Andrew on Instagram at @theandrew.tracey, or simply hold up a sign for ‘free pizza’ and wait for him to appear.
