What Former CrossFit Athlete Brooke Wells Learned About Strength & Mindset When Retraining Her Body For HYROX

Brook Wells spent years building a body engineered to deadlift, clean, and snatch its way to the CrossFit Games. She was one of the youngest athletes to compete in the CrossFit Games when qualified at age 19 in 2015, and went on to participate in nine more games before her retirement from the sport in 2025.

But lifelong athletes like Wells can't sit still for long, and when HYROX exploded onto the fitness scene, she knew she had to give it a shot.

Wells grew up doing gymnastics, which required her to train four hours a day. When she switched to track in high school, the one-hour practices were a fraction of the workload by comparison. She missed the volume, so she asked her dad for a gym membership.

He said no, envisioning the gym as a sort-of social hangout for high schoolers. Instead, he told her to sign up for CrossFit if she actually wanted to get stronger. Wells was not excited about this, but she did it anyway. And something clicked for her at that first session.

"I was immediately hooked," she says. "I just think it was so empowering lifting weights and doing movements that I wouldn't normally do."

She'd started CrossFit to get faster on the track. Instead, she saw more potential in the sport itself and switched her focus entirely. Four years later, at 19, she qualified for the 2015 CrossFit Games. At the time, she was one of the youngest athletes to do so.

Wells competed as a CrossFit athlete for ten years, becoming a major figure in the community. Her adoring fans were sad to see her retire in 2025, but luckily, they didn't have to wait long to see Wells compete again. Just nine weeks after her official retirement from CrossFit, Wells competed in her first HYROX.

The biggest structural difference between Crossfit and HYROX comes down to pacing. The CrossFit Games involves 10 to 15 events across three days. Wells described it as a long, grueling weekend where every window between events is spent recovering for the next one.

HYROX strips that away. It's one continuous effort, roughly an hour long, alternating running segments with functional stations.

"I remember doing my first HYROX and I was like, 'Oh my gosh, we're done for the weekend. This is so weird,'" Wells said. She didn't have to hurry back to her hotel room to start eating a bunch of food and get in an ice bath like she was used to.

Wells is careful to note that one sport isn't easier than the other. CrossFit is built around short, high-intensity efforts. Think 10 to 20 minutes of hurting. HYROX requires the opposite instinct.

The difference between CrossFit and HYROX meant Wells had to seriously rethink her training schedule. The biggest shift was the increase in how much she was running. She used to lift five to six days a week, but now she goes to CrossFit just two or three days a week and runs three or four times a week.

She splits up her runs, doing one or two long, 70-minute runs to build endurance and practice pacing for the race. On other days, her running involves interval training.

Wells is serious about recovery, but she is quick to warn that her routine isn't a glamorous one.

"The best way to recover is just so basic. I'm sure people hate hearing it, but it's literally just nutrition and sleep," she says. Wells also loves the fancy stuff—sauna, stretching, foam rolling, occasional ice baths, red light therapy—but it all comes after those two pillars.

She is also very deliberate about the timing of her recovery activities. She spent months trying to figure out why she was crashing every afternoon, finally realizing it was because she was hitting the sauna right after her morning gym session. Now, she saves anything relaxing for when her work is done.

Wells also has morning and evening rituals that help her recover "My mornings are sacred," she says. She wakes up roughly two hours before training, makes coffee, and stays off her phone for at least 30 minutes. "You don't want to wake up and automatically feel behind for the day" she says.

In the evenings, she has magnesium to help her relax. She likes to mix it in a chocolate drink, making herself a sweet treat before bed.

The through line of Wells' whole routine is slowing things down. She doesn't like to feel rushed, and doesn't need anything in her personal life to cause anxiety. "You don't need to add any more stress in your life when you're in the gym so much," she says.

The everyday person may not think of the gym as stressful, but most people aren't reaching the intensity Wells does in the gym. So when it comes time for training and competition, she locks in. But it's Wells's grounded mindset that prevents emotion from taking over mid-event.

"It's okay to be sad for a second, but then you gotta move on," she says of a bad event. "What you can do is try to do better at the next one."

When she feels herself tiring, she has a personal mantra she repeats to herself: this is when it counts.

Wells is candid about how her muscular physique presented challenges, especially when she was younger.

"I remember in high school a lot of people were commenting on the fact that I was really interested in a sport that was all weightlifting," she says. Luckily, she had a twin sister who began doing CrossFit alongside her. The two of them leaned on each other and decided the outside noise didn't matter much.

The physical changes Wells experienced were gradual. And, early on, a lot of her nutrition was guesswork. She says learning the importance of protein and dialing in her macros helped her create a leaner, more muscular build over the years.

"There have of course been times where I'm trying on clothes in a dressing room and I wish I was a little bit smaller,'" she says. "But then I remember what my muscles can do for me. That's what I love about the way I look. It's all about what your body can do."

Reframing strength from appearance to function has become central to how Wells sees herself. Her body has become a way to highlight how hard she has worked.

If you are intimidated to start strength training, Wells understands. Even though she already had the physical strength, pivoting from CrossFit to HYROX marked the beginning of a new chapter for her. She says the best way to ease the nerves is drop the pressure to be good immediately.