DEKA FIT Penalties

During DEKA FIT NorCal in Sacramento on May 4, 2024, there was some controversy in Zone 10 in both the men’s and women’s races. Nine days later, Yancy Culp announced a rather large rulebook update that would now include specific time penalties for all DEKA zones, in addition to missed lap and safety penalties.

Yancy hopped on the Hybrid Fitness Media podcast to discuss the changes.

DEKA FIT NorCal Disqualifications

A little backstory on how the new DEKA FIT penalties came about…

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As of May 4th, the rulebook was not clear on specific penalties for different infractions. Because of this, DEKA officials had to make tough calls on two different elite athletes who each committed different infractions.

• Jessica Caviglia dropped the RAM after her 20th burpee. At the time, the rulebook stated that dropping the RAM meant you didn’t finish your 20th rep. You had to go back and place the RAM back where you picked it up from to complete the zone. The only penalty in the rulebook at the time was for “not completing a zone,” and that called for a disqualification. Thus, Jessica was disqualified.
• Mark Polzin only did 19 RAM burpees, instead of the required 20. Again, the only rule on the books was that if you didn’t finish a station, you were disqualified. Since Mark didn’t know he only did 19 (he says his judge told him to cross the finish, thinking he did 20), he never went back to do his final rep. Therefore, he was also disqualified for not completing zone 10.

Both disqualifications were reversed shortly before the new rulebook came out.

• Jessica received a 0:05 penalty for dropping the RAM. A precedent was set at DEKA FIT Knoxville earlier in the year where Robert Killian did the same thing and was assessed a 0:05 penalty. DEKA decided to assess the same penalty to Jessica.
• Mark received a 0:20 penalty for missing a rep in zone 10. Since no previous precedent was set for missing a rep, Mark was assessed his penalty based on the new rulebook.

Watch Jessica drop the RAM after her 20th burpee:

DEKA FIT Penalty Chart

With the new DEKA FIT rulebook, a penalty chart was included to highlight the specific penalties for each zone, running penalties for missing laps, doing the zones out of order, and a few safety penalties.

We created our own version of the penalty chart, which you can view and download below.

Download a printable DEKA FIT penalty chart (PDF) →

Zone Penalties

As of May 13, 2024, the following DEKA FIT penalties are in place. The penalties are specific to each zone. Some penalties are assessed for each rep that is missed, while other zones will incur a single, one-time penalty, depending on the total amount of work completed.

For all zones except the farmer’s carry, if an athlete fails to complete at least 80% of the required work, they will be disqualified from the race, and their score will not be sent to the global leaderboard.

Minimum Work Requirement to Avoid Disqualification (DQ)

Each DEKA zone has its own requirement for the minimum amount of reps, meters, or calories that must be completed to avoid disqualification. The required work amounts to 80% of the total. See the table below.

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Zone Skipping or Zones Done Out of Order

There are two types of penalties that can occur if you skip a zone entirely, or do a zone out of order.

• If the athlete makes up the missed zone at a later point in the race, they receive a 1:00 penalty
• If the athlete DOESN’T make up the missed zone, they are disqualified from the race

Example A: An athlete completes zone 1, then 2, and then 4. They realize they made a mistake, so now they go back and complete zone 3. From there, they complete zones 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 in order. They would receive a 1:00 penalty.

You can be penalized twice if you make this mistake multiple times.

Example B: An athlete completes zone 1, then 2, and then 4. They realize they made a mistake, so now they go back and complete zone 3. Then zone 5, 6, 7, and 9. They go back and complete zone 8 next, followed by zone 10. They would receive two 1:00 penalties for a total of 2:00.

Running Penalties

Most DEKA FIT courses consist of two 250m laps. Sometimes athletes miscount their laps and only complete 1 lap before entering the next zone. Here is how DEKA FIT assesses penalties for missed laps during the run portion of the event.

There are two situations that can occur when missing a lap:

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• If the athlete makes up the missed lap before the race is over, they receive a 1:00 penalty. There is nothing in the rulebook about when the lap can or must be made up, so we’ll assume you can make it up at any point in the race.
• If the athlete DOESN’T make up the missed lap, they receive a 5:00 penalty. For 3-lap courses, the penalty is 3:00 instead of 5:00.

There is nothing in the rulebook about skipping an entire 500m run. This is hard to do, and might be considered intentional by race organizers. Even if it’s your first race, you still know you have to run before every zone.

I think one of two things could happen:

• You would be disqualified because the race organizers would consider that intentional cheating, or
• The rule above would be used. If you miss an entire 500m run, that equals two laps, which would mean a 10:00 penalty.

Safety Penalties

There are 3 safety penalties that DEKA will enforce. All violations incur a 0:30 penalty.

• Zone 1: Lunges: Dropping/Throwing RAM after final lunge, instead of placing it down
• Zone 6: Farmer’s Carry: Not returning the dumbbells to their starting location
• Zone 10: Burpees: Dropping/Throwing RAM after final burpee, instead of placing it down

* NOTE: The RAM does not have to be standing upright.

Penalty History

We started tracking notable penalties in elite races in 2024.

Some penalties might not match the current time penalty because they occurred before the rulebook was updated in May 2024.

DEKA FIT Penalties by Event

The following table shows the number of penalties and total penalized time for each DEKA FIT elite race, broken down by gender.

DEKA FIT Penalties by Athlete

The following table shows all the penalties that DEKA has assessed in elite races, starting in 2024.

DEKA FIT Disqualifications

As far as we know, no athlete has been completely disqualified from an elite DEKA FIT race at this point. If it happens, we’ll keep track of them here.

FAQ

What do you think of the DEKA FIT time penalties? Did DEKA get it right?

• Were they right to overturn Mark & Jessica’s disqualifications?
• Do the new time penalties fit the crime?
• Do you like the specific penalties for each zone?

Let us know what you think in the comments.