An honest FAQ
Can I fake it?
Yes. Easily, in about six different ways, and we'll walk you through all of them, including the ones we genuinely cannot catch.
Most sites would rather you didn't know. We'd rather you did, for two reasons. One: pretending to catch everything is itself a lie, and it only survives until the first person finds out. Two: once you see what cheating actually buys you here, the whole thing stops being tempting on its own.
Just cut the video
Hold for thirty seconds. Cut. Breathe. Cut back. Nobody can see the seam if you cut on a still frame.
Do we catch it? We only watch the top of each board and anything above the verification threshold. Below that, nobody is watching. So yes, this works.
What it gets you: You now own a number that describes a person who does not exist. You will remember the cut every single time you look at it.
Speed up the clock
Film a timer you control instead of one that controls you. A phone on the floor will say whatever you tell it to say.
Do we catch it? For YouTube links we check that your time isn't longer than the video. That's it. A slow timer inside a long video sails straight through.
What it gets you: Congratulations: you've beaten a piece of software. The floor is still there, and it still knows how long you were on it.
Half reps
Chest never touches. Chin never clears the bar. Elbows never lock. Nobody counts the millimetres.
Do we catch it? Nothing automatic catches range of motion. A human might, if your number is big enough to get watched.
What it gets you: Forty half push-ups is not forty push-ups. It's twenty push-ups and forty lies, and your chest knows the difference.
Someone else's video
The internet is full of people who can hold a plank longer than you. Download one, re-upload it, done.
Do we catch it? We block the same video URL twice on the same board. A re-uploaded copy is a different URL, so no, we don't catch it.
What it gets you: You'd be the only person on this site whose entry is about somebody else. Rank one, and not once did you get on the floor.
Sit just under the threshold
Every board has a number above which a human watches your clip. Stay one second below it and no human ever will.
Do we catch it? Correct. That's how thresholds work, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.
What it gets you: This is the funniest one. To dodge the check you have to deliberately cap your own result. You're cheating your way into being worse.
Make new accounts
One row per person per battle, and only your best counts. New account, fresh attempt, no history.
Do we catch it? Nothing stops you. Google accounts are free.
What it gets you: You'll have built a small crowd of imaginary athletes, all of them slightly better than you, none of them you.
So what are you actually winning?
Let's be precise about the prize, because it matters. There is no money. No trophy, no sponsorship, no qualification for anything. The number one spot on this board is worth exactly one thing: a row of pixels with your name on it, on a website run by one person, for fun.
Which means a faked entry doesn't take anything from anyone. Nobody loses a prize they were owed. The person on rank two sleeps fine.
You're not stealing. You're just the only person in the world who knows what really happened, and you have to keep being that person every time the page loads.
The board is the scoreboard, not the game
Here's the thing nobody says out loud about leaderboards like this one: the other names aren't your opponent. They're the reason you got on the floor today instead of tomorrow. That's their entire job, and it's a good one.
The actual contest is between you at minute two and you at minute three: the version of you that stops when it burns against the one that stays. That fight happens in a room with nobody in it. No amount of video editing has ever been performed inside that room.
Fake the entry and you win the scoreboard while losing the only match that was being played. It's the one form of cheating where the cheater is also the sole victim, which is either very sad or very funny depending on the day.
Still want to?
Go ahead, honestly. We're not going to catch most of it, and we're not going to come after you. But do the number properly first. Just once, alone, no camera. Then see what it actually is.
Our guess: the real one will feel better than the fake one, and it won't be close.
If you spot an entry that looks off, open it and report it. Three separate reports put it in front of a human. Not because a fake ruins the board, but because the board is more fun when the numbers are real.