Online fitness competitions: how they work and how to do well

The organiser releases one workout at a time, often weekly over three to five weeks, sometimes all at once for a single weekend. Each workout has a window, commonly four or five days. You do it wherever you train, at your gym or at home if the kit allows, and submit your score before the window closes.

Scores need checking somehow. Most competitions ask for a video, some accept a score validated by a coach or judge at your gym, and bigger ones do both. The organiser reviews submissions, approves or queries them, and publishes the leaderboard by division. Some use the results to invite the top finishers to an in-person final.

Online competitions usually have scaled, RX and often masters or teen divisions. With nobody watching in person, it's tempting to stretch into RX on a workout where you're borderline. Don't. If you can't complete the listed movements to standard in the time cap, your video will show it, and either the score gets rejected or you finish so far down the RX board that the result means nothing. A strong placing in scaled tells you far more, and it gives you something real to improve on next year.

Check the age rules for masters divisions too. They're normally based on your age on a set date, and it's not always the competition weekend.

This is where most rejected scores come from, and it's entirely avoidable. Before you start:

• Get your whole body in frame for every movement, including the target on wall balls and the top of the box on box jumps. Turning the phone sideways usually helps.
• Show the clock, or a timer app, in shot for the whole workout. Don't cut the video.
• Show the weights at the start: the plates on the bar, the kettlebell's marking, the rower's damper setting if the standards specify one.
• Say your name and division to the camera before you start. Some competitions require it.

Then watch the first 30 seconds back before you commit to the full attempt. A propped phone that slides down a wall after two minutes is a painful way to lose a good score.

Unlimited attempts sound like an advantage, and they are if you use them carefully. Our rule of thumb: do the first attempt early in the window, ideally the first full day, at a properly hard but controlled effort. Look at where you lost time. If it's a pacing mistake or a no-rep you can fix, a retest two or three days later is often worth it. If you simply emptied the tank, a retest will probably score the same and leave you tired for the next week's workout.

Short workouts, under 7 minutes or so, are much more retestable than long ones. A 20-minute chipper twice in four days is a lot to ask of your legs.

Over a multi-week online competition, you're effectively training and competing at the same time. Keep your usual strength work, but drop the volume by around a third and avoid anything very heavy or very long in the two days before you plan to attempt a workout. The release day is a good time for an easy session; the day after your attempt, something light and aerobic.

If a workout includes a movement you're weak at, you've only got the window to sharpen it. Spend ten minutes a day on it in the days before your attempt rather than practising the whole workout repeatedly.

You don't have someone in the next lane to chase, which cuts both ways. It's easier to stay controlled early, but harder to push in the last few minutes. Plan your splits before you start (for example, "each round of the AMRAP under 1:40") and have a friend shout times at you if they're willing. Training with someone else doing the same workout helps more than you'd think.

If your athletes are spread across time zones, set the window in one stated time zone and give it at least a full weekend. Release at the same time each week so people can plan their training around it. Decide in advance what happens to late submissions (usually nothing gets accepted) and how athletes can appeal a rejected score. And keep the standards video short: a minute per movement showing a good rep and a no-rep does more than a page of text.

Online competitions on Fiz run through the event page in the app. You enter, the workouts appear as they're released, and you submit your score from the app with a link to your video. The organiser verifies it, and it shows on the leaderboard once they publish. The guides cover entering an event and submitting a score.

If you're the organiser, decide early how strict you'll be about video. Requiring it for every score is fairest but makes more work for you; many competitions require it only for the top of each division. Whatever you choose, publish the filming rules before the first workout drops, not after the first argument. Fiz for events covers how entry and verification work for organisers.