- Chinese smart fitness brand Speediance has signed an exclusive multi-year partnership to become the Official Smart Fitness Equipment Partner of ATHX Games, covering 57 international events through December 2027.+
- The partnership is built around Gym Nano — a Speediance-engineered portable digital resistance engine delivering 220 lbs of precision resistance with real-time VBT data tracking.
- ATHX Games, the UK-founded hybrid fitness competition, has grown from 6 events and ~6,000 athletes in 2025 to 18 events across Europe and the U.S. in 2026, backed by a four-year adidas global partnership.
- The deal marks the largest push into competitive functional fitness by a Chinese smart fitness brand, signaling the convergence of consumer fitness technology and elite athletic preparation.
- Gym Nano will debut at ATHX Glasgow on June 20–21, 2026, with six units deployed across athlete warm-up zones and the Speediance exhibition booth.
June 16, 2026 — Speediance, the Shenzhen-headquartered smart fitness innovator, announced it has become the Official Smart Fitness Equipment Partner of ATHX Games, one of the world’s fastest-growing hybrid fitness competitions. Under the exclusive category agreement, Speediance will deploy its newly unveiled Gym Nano portable digital resistance engine across 57 ATHX international events spanning Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific through December 2027. The deal represents the most significant push into performance-driven competitive fitness by a Chinese smart fitness brand to date.
Gym Nano: China-Engineered Precision Meets Elite Performance
The centerpiece of the partnership is Gym Nano — a compact, motor-driven cable training system designed and engineered at Speediance’s Shenzhen R&D center. The device delivers 220 pounds (100 kilograms) of precise digital resistance through a 5.1-meter cable range, freeing athletes from the spatial and trajectory limitations of traditional cable machines. At ATHX Glasgow on June 20–21, six Gym Nano units will be deployed: three in the athlete warm-up zone and three at the Speediance exhibition booth alongside the brand’s flagship Gym Monster 2s.
What sets Gym Nano apart is its velocity-based training (VBT) closed-loop system. Each repetition is tracked in real time — speed, power output, and rate of force development (RFD) are captured, analyzed, and fed back to the athlete instantly. For competitors facing ATHX’s grueling 2.5-hour, six-zone format, this data layer transforms the pre-competition warm-up from guesswork into precision preparation.
From Glasgow to the World: 57 Events Across Three Continents
The partnership’s scale is immediately visible. ATHX Glasgow on June 20–21 serves as the debut, but the agreement spans 57 events through December 2027 — including 14 European stops across 10 countries and a newly launched U.S. circuit in 2026, plus planned Asia-Pacific expansion. By placing Gym Nano in the warm-up and recovery zones at every stop, Speediance will put its technology in front of thousands of athletes and spectators across the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United States, with more markets to follow.
The Rise of ATHX: Hybrid Fitness Finds Its Footing
ATHX Games was founded in 2023 in the United Kingdom and has rapidly emerged as a compelling third way in competitive fitness — bridging the constantly varied programming of CrossFit with the fixed-format endurance of HYROX. Its signature format is a 2.5-hour continuous competition across six zones: Warm-Up, Strength, Endurance, Refuel, Recovery, and MetCon X, with the season’s three workouts — a 1RM/3RM/5RM strength test, a run-and-row endurance challenge, and a metabolic conditioning gauntlet — remaining consistent across all events, allowing athletes to track measurable progress throughout the year.
ATHX’s trajectory has been steep. The 2025 season drew nearly 6,000 athletes across six events and attracted CrossFit Games veterans including Chandler Smith, Lucy McGonigle, and James Sprague, as well as HYROX Elite 15 contenders. In late 2025, adidas signed a four-year global partnership with ATHX, and 2026 has seen the competition expand to 18 events — 14 in Europe and 4 in the United States — capped by a World Final in Lisbon, Portugal, this November.
A Chinese Brand’s Global Ambition
Founded in 2020 by CEO Liu Tao — a former product manager at FITURE and XGIMI whose products generated over one billion RMB in cumulative sales — Speediance has charted an unconventional path. The company launched its first product on Kickstarter in late 2021, raising nearly $600,000 at an average unit price of $2,100, becoming the platform’s only digital strength-training product at the time. It has since completed a Pre-A funding round exceeding 10 million RMB led by FreesFund, built showroom presences in New York, Berlin, London, and Rome, and made its second consecutive CES appearance in January 2026, where Gym Nano and the Speediance Strap wearable were first unveiled.
The ATHX partnership signals a deliberate strategic pivot: from the home gym — where Speediance’s Gym Monster series has established it as a Tonal and Peloton competitor — into the high-stakes arena of competitive functional fitness. “ATHX provides the ideal environment to demonstrate how Gym Nano supports high-performance training,” said Liu Tao, Founder and CEO of Speediance. “This partnership allows us to showcase our technology in demanding performance settings while connecting directly with athletes who push the boundaries of what is possible.”
“Created in China” was the phrase FreesFund Vice President Shen Ying used when backing the company in 2025. The ATHX deal is the most tangible evidence yet that “Brand from China” is now the operative phrase.
What This Means for Smart Fitness
Speediance’s move mirrors a broader industry shift: smart fitness, long confined to living rooms and boutique studios, is now crossing into competitive athletics. Gym Nano’s VBT data layer — speed, power, RFD — is the same language spoken by elite strength and conditioning coaches. By embedding this capability into a portable, affordable unit that can travel with a competition circuit, Speediance is lowering the barrier between consumer fitness technology and professional athletic preparation. For ATHX, the partnership adds a data-driven dimension to the athlete experience that no other hybrid competition currently offers.
About Speediance
Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Shenzhen, China, Speediance is a smart fitness brand that integrates cutting-edge hardware, personalized AI coaching, dynamic content, and a supportive community to make fitness accessible and empowering. Its product portfolio includes the Gym Monster and Gym Monster 2s all-in-one smart home gyms, the VeloNix connected indoor bike, and the newly unveiled Gym Nano portable digital resistance engine. Speediance maintains showroom and retail presences in New York, Berlin, London, and Rome, and sells directly to consumers worldwide. For more information, visit www.speediance.com.
About ATHX Games
ATHX Games is a UK-born hybrid fitness competition founded in 2023, designed to bridge the gap between CrossFit-style strength training and HYROX-style endurance racing. Its signature 2.5-hour, six-zone format tests strength, endurance, and metabolic conditioning in a single day, with consistent workouts across an entire season. Backed by a four-year global partnership with adidas, ATHX expanded from 6 events and nearly 6,000 athletes in 2025 to 18 events across Europe and the United States in 2026. For more information, visit www.athxgames.com.
