OpenContest blog

Everyone is first somewhere

The OpenContest team — Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Every take on OpenContest is ranked on many boards at the same time: your gym, your city, your country and the world, each split by age group, sex and weight class, and each looked at over all time, this year, this month and this week. One video, dozens of rankings. That is why an ordinary result can still put you at the top of a board, and why the contests are worth entering if you will never hold a world record.

The problem with one big leaderboard

A single world leaderboard tells almost everyone the same thing: you are not on it. If the top of the strict pull up board is a professional athlete, a person doing their first eight reps has no reason to film them. The board exists, but it is not for them.

Most people stop at that point, and the contest ends up being a contest between a handful of people who were always going to win.

How one take lands on many boards

When you submit a take, you choose which boards it is ranked on, and it goes onto all of them at once. There are three layers.

Where you are

Every contest has boards for the world, your country, your city, your gym and your friends. Your city and gym come from your profile, and you can tag your gym on each take. A result that is nowhere on the world board can be near the top of a gym board, because the people you are ranked against are the people you train next to.

Who you are

Boards are split into brackets by age group, sex and weight class. Your date of birth sets your age group, and body weight is optional: you only add it if you want weight classes. A 45-year-old is ranked against other people in their age group as well as against everyone. A lighter lifter is ranked against people of a similar weight.

When

Each board can be viewed over all time, this year, this month and this week. A board that resets every week gives someone a fresh chance to lead it every week.

Put those together and a single take sits in many places at once: the world board, your country’s men’s or women’s board for your age, your city’s board for this month, your gym’s board for this week, and so on.

What this looks like in practice

Say you run a 5K in a time that is respectable but nothing special. On the world board you are far down the list. On your city’s board for your age group this month, you might be in the top ten. On your gym’s board this week, you might be first, because you were the only one who ran it.

That is the point of the line we keep coming back to: everyone is first somewhere. It is not a participation medal. It is an honest ranking against a smaller, more relevant group, with the size and scope of the group shown on the board.

Your row is always on screen

On every board, your own row is pinned and highlighted, with the gap to the next place. Instead of scrolling past hundreds of names to find yourself, you see where you are and what it would take to move: “2 reps to 8th”. A gap of two reps is something you can train for. A gap of forty is not.

The record holder sits at the top of each board with their take, so you can watch exactly what the best result on that board looked like.

Why it is still fair

More boards would be meaningless if the results on them were loose. They are not. Every take is checked the same way whichever board it lands on: an automatic check on every take, flags from anyone who thinks a take is wrong, and a referee review for every take in a top 10 and every new record. A first place on your gym’s weekly board gets the same referee as a first place on the world board.

The videos on ranked boards stay public, so anyone can watch the take behind any result. There is more on that in how referees check takes.

Why that makes contests worth entering

For most people, the reason to film a take is not to beat the best in the world. It is to beat the person who trains on the bar next to you, to hold the record at your gym for a month, or to see your own number go up. Many boards make those goals visible.

They also make the next step obvious. Your profile shows your best result in each contest with its current rank on every board, and how it has changed over time. When someone beats your record, you get told, and you can go and take it back.

If you are not sure where to start, how to do your first pull up gets you to a first rep, and how to film a take that counts makes sure that rep is ranked.

How referees check takes

The OpenContest team — Wed, 11 Nov 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Takes on OpenContest are checked on a ladder that gets stricter the higher a take ranks. Every take gets an automatic check. Anyone can flag a take they think is wrong. A referee reviews every take in a top 10 and every new record. And if you disagree with a ruling, a different referee hears your appeal. The videos behind ranked results stay public, so anyone can check them.

Why a ladder and not one check

Not every take needs the same scrutiny. A first attempt at the strict pull up contest that lands mid-table on a city board does not need a referee counting frame by frame. A take that sets a city record does. The ladder puts the most careful checking where it matters most: at the top of the boards, where people care about the result and where a wrong result would push someone else down.

Step 1: the automatic check

Every take is checked as soon as it is submitted. The automatic check looks at three things:

Is the take unbroken? Official contests need one continuous take filmed in the app, with no cuts and no edits.
What is the result? Reps are counted, or the time or hold is measured.
Does the form hold up? Reps that break the rules are flagged, for example a pull up where the chin is not over the bar.

While this runs, the take shows as Checking. If it passes, it shows as Counted: it is ranked on the boards but has not been reviewed by a person.

Much of this happens while you are still filming. The live counter and form check in the app flag reps that do not count as you do them, so most problems are caught before you ever press submit.

Step 2: flags from anyone

Anyone can flag a take they think is wrong. A flagged take shows as Needs a look until it has been checked.

Flags are useful because people who know a contest well spot things: a hip that never reached depth, a foot that touched the box. But flags can also be used to get at someone, so anonymous flags against friends are limited. People cannot use the flag button to attack each other.

Step 3: a referee for the top 10 and records

When a take lands in a top 10, on any board, or sets a new record, a referee reviews it. Referees work in a console on the web with tools built for this:

the video with frame stepping, so they can stop on the exact moment a rep is in question;
a recount of every rep, or a check of the time;
approve, which marks the take as Verified;
reject with a reason and a timestamp, so you can see exactly what was ruled out and where;
ask for a re-film when the video cannot settle the question, for example when part of the body is out of frame.

When you submit a take, the thank-you screen tells you when to expect the result, and you get a notification when it is in.

For gym contests, staff at the gym can act as referees on their own gym’s contests.

Step 4: appeals

If a take or a rep is not counted, you see the reason and the timestamp where it happened. You can try again, or you can appeal.

To appeal, explain why you think the ruling is wrong and point to the moment in the video that shows it. A different referee from the one who made the first decision reviews it. Their decision is final. A second pair of eyes catches honest mistakes without turning every result into a long argument.

Strikes and bans

Most takes that are not counted are honest mistakes: a rep that was short, a phone that slipped. Those carry no penalty beyond the result.

Repeat cheating is different. It earns strikes, and an account that keeps cheating is banned. When an account is banned, its takes are removed from the boards, so the people who were pushed down by them move back up.

Why ranked videos stay public

The videos on ranked boards stay public, so anyone can watch the take behind any result. This is the part of the system that holds the rest together.

A result without proof is a claim. A result with a public video is something anyone can check: the record holder’s take is shown at the top of every board, and you can watch every rep of the take ranked one place above you. Public videos also keep the referees honest, because their decisions are visible to everyone who watches.

How to make the checks easy

The best way through the ladder is a take that leaves nothing to argue about: phone propped up at the angle the contest asks for, whole body and equipment in frame, good light, and a recording that starts before the first rep and ends after the last. How to film a take that counts covers all of it, with the right angle for contests like the deadlift.

And if you want to know why being checked at every level is worth it, everyone is first somewhere explains how a single take is ranked on many boards at once.