How far would you go to secure an impressive marathon time, or a Hyrox personal best? Maybe you’d turn down a boozy night out in favour of eight hours’ kip the night before? Or perhaps you’d swap sugary treats for protein shakes, and commit to a gruelling training plan in the run-up? It’s not uncommon for athletes to want to give it their all come race day – but few of us would go as far as the Australian Hyrox competitor Joanna Wietrzyk, who continued to take part in the hybrid fitness event a little over a week ago, despite having noticeably soiled herself.

Wietrzyk’s immediate response appeared to be one of defiance. “Go hard or go home … a win is a win,” she said in a now-deleted Instagram post, having been allowed to finish and win the event in Beijing. Hyrox organisers initially seemed to back her position, posting a statement (also now deleted) which said: “We ask our athletes to push themselves to the highest levels. At times, they will go beyond what even we thought was possible.”

But as images of faecal matter dripping down Wietrzyk’s legs – while she continued to use communal equipment – circulated online, few appeared to admire her commitment. Rather, some raised concerns that her bowel incontinence posed a health risk to other competitors.

Both parties quickly pivoted to apologies, with Wietrzyk admitting that she should have “stepped off the track” and that there was “more to life than racing”. Hyrox co-founder Moritz Fürste stated that “Hyrox made a mistake by not reacting immediately during the race”, before going on to confirm that, “there are new rules and procedures in place to prevent situations like this from happening again”.

But could the viral moment mark a turning point in what is considered aspirational or acceptable when it comes to fitness goals? Hybrid training, which combines cardio with strength exercises, has been growing in popularity over recent years, alongside associated competitions such as Hyrox, ATHX and the CrossFit Games. But among the fitness community, attitudes towards the benefits of an unrelentingly competitive mindset may be starting to shift.

“Recently I have noticed individuals showing more consideration for their wellbeing,” explains Harvey Smith, a sport and exercise psychologist whose work focuses on supporting athletes with the psychological demands of performance, training and competition. A number of his clients take part in endurance and hybrid events such as Hyrox, as well as other sports. “There is a growing awareness that chasing extreme performance markers does not always align with long-term physical or mental health, and more people are actively reflecting on that trade-off rather than assuming harder is always better,” he says.

Even so, he acknowledges that competitive culture can be slow to change, and extreme effort is still often celebrated, “so I would say we are in a transition rather than a complete shift”. He believes the incident in Beijing has opened up an important conversation about where the line sits between admirable resilience and a culture that pushes people to ignore their body’s signals at real cost.

“I think it should be obvious that doing Hyrox is not about health, it’s about competition,” says Daniel Lieberman, a paleoanthropologist at Harvard University and author of books including Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding. “While we have capacities to do extreme things, we never evolved to stand on one line and run as fast as possible to another line 26.2 miles away, or – even more bizarrely – to eight times over run a kilometre and then push sleds, carry weights, do burpees, and so on” – as athletes do as part of Hyrox competitions.

“We now have hundreds of studies which show that you don’t need a lot of physical activity to promote health,” Lieberman adds. “More can bring greater benefits but only up to a point, at which the benefits tail off and possibly reverse.” It is easy to see why even the most devoted gym-goer might question the merits of pushing themselves to the limit – especially if in doing so they have been plagued by injury.

For the sport and performance coach Matteo Massaini, there’s no one size fits all approach. “I think it’s really important for people to challenge themselves and strive to be better – and I think Hyrox has actually really helped with that,” he says. “But extreme competition can also be toxic.”

Massaini has taken part in Hyrox himself, as well as numerous running competitions, and stresses the importance of not prioritising personal achievements over the wellbeing of others – although he can see how it’s easy to get tunnel vision on race day. “The beautiful thing about humanity is that we’re all very different: not everyone needs to have the attitude of ‘go hard or go home’,” he says. “Some people have different goals.”

Likewise, Chloe White, co-owner of small group personal training facility Raw Inc Training, agrees that competitive events can provide “a positive, performance-based goal and shift the focus away from appearance towards what the body can achieve”. She has competed in Hyrox, ATHX, Turf Games and Butterfly Effect events, and has found there is now a “greater awareness of recovery, injury management and longevity, although a ‘more is better’ culture still exists within parts of the industry”.

Is it possible to achieve your fitness dreams without getting caught up in a competitive culture? Smith says that grounding your determination “in process, self-compassion, and realistic support structures” is the key to success – rather than simply fixating on a win or a PB. Meanwhile, he’s seen more coaches, event organisers, and athletes talking openly about sustainable performance and the risks of overtraining. “A more useful question for people to sit with is often: ‘How do you stay determined without the result controlling your sense of self-worth?’”