New Jersey Gym Chain Sells Out 1,550-Athlete Fitness Race in Days

• Alpha Fit Club sold out its third annual Alpha Games in days, and the New Jersey strength and conditioning franchise will bring more than 1,550 athletes and 750 teams to American Dream mall on October 3.
• Unlike joining a HYROX or DEKA heat, every competitor racing that day trains at one of Alpha Fit Club’s own studios, a members-only format the founder says keeps the community together instead of sending people to another brand’s event.
• The race comes as Alpha Fit Club expands from 20 studios toward nearly 30 by the end of 2026, pushing beyond its home state into Florida, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New York.

A Gym Chain Builds Its Own Finish Line

Sam Tooley did not want his members training for someone else’s race day.

Tooley founded Alpha Fit Club in Westfield, New Jersey, in 2019, building a strength and conditioning franchise around small classes and one-on-one style coaching inside a group setting. As HYROX and similar fitness races pulled members out the door to chase a patch and a finish time somewhere else, Tooley built a competition of his own. On October 3, the brand’s third annual Alpha Games will fill the ice rink at American Dream in East Rutherford with more than 1,550 athletes and 750 teams, all of them Alpha Fit Club members racing shoulder to shoulder with people from their own studios.

The event sold out its member-only spots within 72 hours of opening.

What a Doubles Race Inside a Gym Chain Looks Like

Alpha Games translates the franchise’s signature strength and conditioning format into a doubles race spanning seven movements: a 1,000-meter ski erg, 60 dumbbell thrusters, 80 calories on an air bike, 50 medicine ball sit-ups, a 1,000-meter row, 60 burpees and a closing one-mile run on a curved treadmill. Teams compete in men’s, women’s and mixed divisions, with new waves launching every 15 minutes so the day builds rather than starts and stops.

The race will take over American Dream’s full-size ice rink, with two floors of balcony seating so spectators can watch the entire field at once. Around the competition floor, organizers are building out a DJ booth, a recovery lounge, a beer garden, a merchandise store and a vendor village, turning what began as a members-only workout showcase into a fitness festival open to the public for spectating.

The first two Alpha Games were held at the Westfield Armory, a 20,000-square-foot former military base in the brand’s hometown. Moving the event to American Dream, one of the largest retail and entertainment complexes on the East Coast, reflects how much the field has grown in three years.

Why a Gym Franchise Wanted Its Own Race Day

Tooley said the decision to build an in-house competition came from watching HYROX and other fitness races grow into something members increasingly wanted to train toward.

“Rather than competing in another brand’s event, Alpha Games is ours, built at scale, for a community that trains hard and shows up for each other every single day,” Tooley said.

For Tooley, the value is less about the clock and more about who is standing at the finish line. “Alpha Games is the one day a year where our entire community comes together to celebrate what they’ve been building,” he said. “With families cheering from the stands and kids watching their parents compete, it becomes less about the workout and more about the people beside you.”

That distinction sets Alpha Games apart from a franchise built on small class sizes rather than a nationwide leaderboard. Members train year-round inside their local studio, and Alpha Games gives them a single day to measure that work against training partners from every other location, without leaving the brand behind to do it.

A Franchise Expanding Past Its Home State

The growing race weekend arrives alongside a fast expansion for the business itself. Alpha Fit Club currently operates 20 studios and expects to approach 30 by the end of the year, after selling more than two dozen franchise territories over the past 12 months. New markets on the schedule include West Palm Beach, Florida; Fairfield, Connecticut; Philadelphia and Chalfont, Pennsylvania; and Larchmont, New York, carrying the brand outside New Jersey for the first time in its history.

Every one of those new studios is expected to send members to next year’s Alpha Games, a detail the franchise has built into its growth plan from the start. This year’s roster already includes members representing upcoming East Coast locations that have not yet opened their doors, meaning some competitors are training for a race before their own studio exists.

PLAE, recently named the brand’s exclusive performance partner, is designing the competition space at American Dream, and sponsors including Athletifreak, BodyArmor, Fleet Feet, Smartwater and Spear Physical Therapy are supporting the weekend.

What It Signals for Boutique Fitness

Alpha Fit Club is not alone in building a race day around its own membership rather than sending people to an outside competition. As HYROX-style racing has pulled gym members toward standardized formats and travel-worthy events, other boutique fitness brands have started staging intimate, members-only competitions of their own, betting that the same appetite for a finish line and a patch can be satisfied without ever leaving the brand’s ecosystem.

For members, that means a shot at a competition experience, complete with waves, a crowd and a clock, without needing to learn a new gym’s equipment or travel to an unfamiliar city. For a franchise trying to grow past two dozen locations in a single year, it also means every new studio opens with a built-in reason for its members to show up together on one Saturday in October, cheering for training partners they already know by name.

The math behind that bet is simple. A member who signs a membership contract in January and then spends the summer training for a specific date in October has a reason to keep showing up through the slow months, when gym attendance typically drops off. Selling out 1,550 spots in under three days suggests Alpha Fit Club has found real demand for that structure, not just a marketing pitch. Whether other boutique chains can replicate the same sellout with a newer, less established membership base is the open question the rest of the industry will be watching as the format spreads.