Looking for input on how to set up a fitness competition between 10 friends.

[kskelly]

I’m looking for some experienced input please. A group of about ten friends and I are looking to do a fitness competition over the course of 3 months. What is the best way to make this competitive and fair for all involved. It’s all guys in our 30s. We were thinking body fat percentage lost as we can’t really do weight loss. It’s going to range from some ex college athletes that are in fairly good shape to few that are maybe 30 plus pounds overweight and only moderately athletic. Any help or examples of previous competitions you’ve been involved in would be great. Thanks in advance !

[TolerantLactose]

Strong first post.

[air2fakie]

Fight club. Bodyfat % lost is too hard to measure accurately.

[SuffolkPunch]

Honestly, whatever you do is going to be biased towards either the fattest, lightest, least athletic, most athletic - or there is going to be some problem with measuring or people sandbagging the "before" measurements.

As mentioned, measuring BF% is a crapshoot. And anyway, this is biased towards those who have more to lose.

We always tell people not to compare themselves to others and this is just an extension of that same argument.

[kskelly]

Strong first post.

Yeah, i’ve brainstormed and scoured the internet and cant find much direction lol

[kskelly]

Fight club. Bodyfat % lost is too hard to measure accurately.

Yeah, i got a BIA scale and have found that it is pretty inaccurate. We do have calipers we could use.

[paulinkansas]

You can do a decathalon type of competition.

Personally I like the modern pentathalon. It represents escaping from a prisoner of war camp. Fencing, that represents fighting a guard. Swimming, that's crossing a river or moat, Equestrian, that's making a getaway on a horse. Pistol shooting, no explanation needed. Cross country running, no explanation needed.

[sunsean]

These kinds of things can be fun and good motivation to stay active. But as a "competition" it is clearly flawed. You can't expect someone who already has a lot of muscle and low body fat to "compete" with someone who's never lifted weights and is overweight. They can both make progress, but there are so many variables that will make comparing "results" impossible.

For example if you see who can lose the most fat - well someone who is very overweight will likely win because it's easier for them to lose a lot of fat. Alternatively, if you gauge it by muscle/strength gains - someone who's never worked out would win because they would progress their lifts faster than someone who's already lifting heavy weights. If you score it by "best physique" well obviously whoever started with the best physique will most likely finish with the best physique...bottom line, it's not a level playing field.

[kskelly]

Honestly, whatever you do is going to be biased towards either the fattest, lightest, least athletic, most athletic - or there is going to be some problem with measuring or people sandbagging the "before" measurements.

As mentioned, measuring BF% is a crapshoot. And anyway, this is biased towards those who have more to lose.

We always tell people not to compare themselves to others and this is just an extension of that same argument.

Thanks for the response. Yeah, that’s why i’ve come to forums because most of what i come up with has bias one way or another or can be exploited. Yeah, I at first thought a BIA scale would do the trick, but found quickly that it’s pretty inaccurate. We do have some calipers that we could measure with.
And yes we are not doing weight loss because it favors so much for those who have more to lose. With body fat % lost I mean percentage of body fat lost and not total body fat lost. For example, if I am 15% and I made it down to 10% vs someone who is 30% that makes it down to 22% I would win because I lost 33% of my body fat compared to 27% for the other. Would you say that would resolve most of the bias? I understand the bigger people stand to lose a significant amount more of total body fat but do you think it’s not realistic for the lower body fat people to have the % change the bigger ones would have.

[WolfRose7]

fair and competitive don't go together. at all.

pick something and run with it, the best you can do is try and find something none of you do, or do 10 things that each of you are good at and score everyone on every thing

[ECGordyn]

Spartan race. Everyone can start training for it at the same time, and some obstacles can intentionally be favored for the different physiques and builds in your group. For example, a small guy would have an advantage at a net climb while a big guy would have an advantage in a cannon ball contest, or a zipline race, or human bumper cars or human bowling. Something like that.

Or design several different obstacles and the guys can choose which 5 to compete in

[paulinkansas]

If you guys are in to shotgun sports, we do a game called "Last Man Standing". Everyone throws a dollar into a pot. We get in a line and launch a clay pigeon going away at an angle. The first guy shoots at it. If he misses, the next guy shoots at it. If he hits it, the first guy is out. The 3rd guy can shoot at a fragment. If he hits it, guy 1 and 2 are out. If you are knocked out, you can buy back in one time. This continues until one person is left. They get the pot. Takes about 5-10 minutes to do a round with about 10 guys. I reload 1.25 oz of #8 going 1300 fps in a 12 gauge

[air2fakie]

If you don’t feel like fight club is a good survival of the fittest competition, then do one of those presidential fitness challenges we used to have in elementary school years ago (probably don’t exist in the same form now). They had strict rules for each event (pushups, sit-ups, broad jump, running, pullups, etc.) and ranked you in percentiles based on national averages. At the very least, you’d find out how fit you all are compared to a bunch of kids.

[OldFartTom]

Fat loss will be completely dominated by the most fat, so being slim and fit will be a huge disadvantage and unfair on those in good shape

Fight club sounds great, but with social distancing it may be hard to organise.

Really it needs to be possible by Zoom or other conferencing software. I suggest an eating contest of some sort. (Agree on the exact item beforehand so everyone can be prepared to bring the exact same thing)

[paulinkansas]

How about a tug of war competition. Split up 2 teams so that the total body weights are the same on both sides. Every person on the winning team gets a point. Split up 2 more teams with a different combination so that total body weights are the same. Every person on the winning team gets a point. You can have teams of 5, 4, 3 and 2. When you've run out of combinations, the person with the most points wins.

[jademonkey]

You could do different things that benefit opposite people.
1) bf% lost
2) strength
3) endurance
4) speed/power
Perhaps weight 2-4 so that half the score is based on improvement. The skinny coder won't have fat to lose, but might have a lot to gain in the other 3. The athlete won't have much fat to lose or much improvement, but can get top scored in power and endurance. The fat guy can gain a lot in strength and fat lost but might not get very far on endurance and speed.

[air2fakie]

I kind of don't see the point of a fitness competition that evens the odds between fit ex-athletes and unathletic people who are 30+ lbs overweight. Assuming quarantine ends at some point, why not just enter a fitness competition or sports league with people in similar physical condition as yourself, and meet up for some food or drinks with your overweight friends after?

[jademonkey]

I kind of don't see the point of a fitness competition that evens the odds between fit ex-athletes and unathletic people who are 30+ lbs overweight. Assuming quarantine ends at some point, why not just enter a fitness competition or sports league with people in similar physical condition as yourself, and meet up for some food or drinks with your overweight friends after?

I don't either, but I'm also not like most people. Lots of people like all sorts of things that seem weird to me! And it seems lots of people like handicapped competition and participation trophies. If it's a group of friends it's probably just for fun and to try and get a bit of motivation to get workouts in and get in better shape. Most people aren't obsessive like us lol.

[Nicksosure1]

This takes a bit of the competition aspect away from it, but what I did for the weight loss event I put together for work is I had everyone pick their OWN goal, ensured that it was a healthy rate of loss over the course of the event and healthy ending weight goal for that individual, and if they reached their goal they won a prize.

It evened the playing field a little bit for those who had less to lose but still wanted to participate. Again, it does take away the competition aspect a bit, which is probably more important in your situation.