Organize a functional fitness competition: the guide

Organizing a functional fitness competition is a real project: a format to set, registrations to sell, WODs to write, heats to plan and a day to run without a hitch. Good news: if you break the work into steps, nothing slips through. Here is the complete checklist, in order, to go from idea to the first heat on the floor.

Step 1: define your competition format

Everything starts here. Before you open anything, lay the foundations. Pick the discipline (functional fitness scored by WODs, or a timed hybrid race) and the location: on site or online. Then decide your divisions: solo, pairs, teams or mixed, and how many men and women per team. For each division, set the required levels (Scaled, Inter, RX, Master, Teens, Adaptive, Elite) and write your standards, the movement rules your judges will apply. The clearer your standards, the fewer disputes you will have on the floor.

A multi-round format? You can split your physical competition into qualifying rounds then finals, with named groups. The ranking is handled in two stages with no workarounds.

Step 2: connect Stripe Connect to get paid

No payment, no registration. Connect your Stripe Connect account directly from your organizer space. This is what lets you collect registrations into your own account, with no middleman holding your funds. Until Stripe is set up, publishing stays blocked: it is a safeguard, not a roadblock. Onboarding takes a few minutes, and your athletes will be able to pay by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or Bancontact.

Step 3: set your prices with a transparent payout

For each division, you set the ticket price. As you enter it, Throwdown shows the live payout breakdown: what the athlete pays, the Throwdown service fee, estimated Stripe fees and what you keep net. No surprise at payout time. Throwdown takes 3% + 1.50 € per registration, and that is all you pay. If you are running a private, free event, the Essential plan is 0% + 0 €. For a cause, the Charity plan is also 0% + 0 € with a donation certificate.

Comparing platforms? Here is how Throwdown stacks up against Competition Corner. All our plans are detailed on the pricing page.

Step 4: open registrations

You set your registration window, your seats per division and open the ticketing. Your athletes register as a team in a single flow: division selection, standards, one form per member, choice of goodies (t-shirts with sizes) and club or box name. When a division shows Sold out, a waiting list kicks in automatically: you collect the email and phone of interested athletes so you can notify them if a spot opens up. You can also add promo codes (percentage or fixed amount) and an invitation code for a private competition.

Need to register someone at the desk on the day? Manual registration creates the athlete's account and sends them their access by email. To go further on this, read our dedicated guide on registrations and ticketing.

Step 5: build your WODs and scoring

This is the heart of your competition. For each WOD, you define one or more scorings, with the score type (Time, Reps, Rounds, Points, Load in kg, Distance in m), a time cap, the ranking direction (highest or lowest wins), up to two tie-breaks and a coefficient to weight how much the event matters. You choose whether a WOD applies to all divisions or a subset. The automatic ranking engine does the rest: descending points, coefficients, tie-breaks, sub-categories, ties and partial WODs handled with no manual math.

To learn everything about how points are computed, see our guide to the automatic ranking. If your competition includes a timed sprint, chip timing feeds the times into the ranking automatically.

Step 6: prepare the heat planning

Once your registrants and WODs are in place, generate your planning. Automatic heat generation builds your heats by division, sorted by rank, in pyramid order, with a top-N cut if needed and a filter on athletes present at check-in. You assign one athlete and one judge per lane, and the timing chains automatically (briefing, warm-up, WOD). You then export the planning to Excel as a colored grid, ready for your staff on the floor. It is the most time-consuming task of a competition, and it is done in a few clicks. The details are in our heat planning and heats guide.

Step 7: the big day

On the day, everything comes down to organization. Here is the order of operations.

On the athlete side, the iOS and Android app gives them access to their planning, their heat and the live public ranking. You stay in control of everything from your space, with no spreadsheet drifting out of sync.