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Niels Didden

@neonisse

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Cat dad of @thebengalrascals 🐯

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@wodcelona the recap movie: What an incredible weekend we had! Doing the thing we love most with amazing friends and doing it in Barcelona in front of a crowd of fitness fans has to be a dream come true. I’m not the greatest video editor out there but I hope the absolute joy and incredible atmosphere comes across.
Shout out to: coach @coachmullerfitness for the prep, and probably our fittest female friends @melissahavik @mooxtje @liesvanderploeg for sharing the weekend, the joy and the stage with us. (And Inge for filming most of the content) taken in Barcelona by @neonisse

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18 days ago

EVENT 4 — HANDSTANDS, HEAVY STUFF & A LESSON IN READING THE RULEBOOK 🤸‍♂️💪

Day two started with surprisingly fresh bodies... despite three athletes who had slept somewhere between “not great” and “did I actually sleep at all?” Thanks to the heat, none of us had a brilliant night, although Bart definitely won the competition for least amount of sleep.

No excuses though. Time to play.

This was a workout we had genuinely been looking forward to. Sunshine, grass, handstand walks, farmer carries and D-ball carries. Finally, an event that felt a bit like recess for grown-ups.

Our strategy seemed simple: let Niels do most of the handstand walking while Bart and Barend handled as much of the heavy lifting as possible.

A brilliant plan...

...until we discovered, shortly before the start, that athletes had to rotate in a fixed order every time someone broke a movement.

Suddenly our perfect strategy wasn’t so perfect anymore.

Instead of choosing who did what, we had to think several movements ahead and make sure the rotation worked out. It didn’t. We stuck to our original plan a little too long, changed athletes more often than necessary and quietly watched valuable seconds disappear.

Could we have executed it better with a smarter plan?

Absolutely.

With a little less bad luck, a little more risk and a much better understanding of the rules, there was definitely more to gain here.

But honestly...

It was just a really fun workout.

Running around in the grass, walking on our hands and carrying ridiculously heavy objects isn’t exactly a bad way to spend a Saturday morning.

Sometimes you execute perfectly.

Sometimes you learn.

And sometimes you simply walk away with what Bart claims is the greatest photo ever taken of him. Isn’t that a win in itself? 😄 taken in Halle D'athlétisme Michel D'ornano, Mondeville by @neonisse

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3 months ago

EVENT 3 — THE WORM 🪱⏱️

Just one minute after Barend finished his part of Event 2, it was go time again. This time, we got to work as a team, joined by our favourite friend: the worm.

Burpees over the worm, worm cleans and shoulder-to-overheads. Joy.

Bart could definitely feel the relay, but still felt surprisingly strong. His focus was on finding a pace that worked for all three of us. We might have been able to move faster early on, but blowing up halfway through seemed like a poor tactical choice.

So we stayed patient. The burpees settled into a steady rhythm, while the worm cleans demanded far more time, coordination and communication than we had hoped. Once the worm reached our shoulders, however, the shoulder-to-overheads flew up smoothly.

Bart kept grinding at the same steady pace. Barend somehow found another reserve of energy despite having had virtually no recovery.

Niels, meanwhile, was feeling the heat in the hall far more than he would have liked. As the rounds went on, every burpee seemed twice as heavy as the previous one. Watching Bart and Barend quietly keep moving only added to the self-pity. See the videos for proof 😛

With one round remaining, Barend completely changed the atmosphere. He started shouting, raised the pace and dragged the team towards the finish.

We crossed the line with exactly one second remaining.

Barend went from barely reaching the start line to leading the final push. Bart was the calm engine throughout the workout. Niels left a small part of his soul somewhere underneath the worm.

Three events down.

Two burpees short in one.

One second to spare in the other.

We’ll take that. taken in Halle D'athlétisme Michel D'ornano, Mondeville by @neonisse

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3 months ago

EVENT 2 — THE RELAY 🏃‍♂️🔥

After surviving the beach run, it was time for the relay.

We had carefully divided the work based on our strengths. The plan looked great on paper.

Then the workout started.

Niels kicked things off with three minutes of controlled panic. Everything went according to plan—except for one small detail: he had forgotten to turn his grips around before the dumbbell snatches. Every rep became a game of “don’t drop a 30kg dumbbell on your own head.” His grip filled up faster than expected, so the final toes-to-bar had to be broken into two sets.

Next up was Bart.

All those months of gymnastics training had clearly paid off. His toes-to-bar felt better than ever, the snatches were smooth, and the burpees were all about staying calm and steady. There was one hiccup: Bart miscounted his toes-to-bar, missed what his French judge was telling him, and had to go back for one extra rep. No matter though, he didn’t mind coming back for more because this was a pretty fun workout!

Finally, Barend took over.

He had deliberately taken the biggest sets, but his pacing plan disappeared as soon as the other teams came flying past. There was only one thought left: hang on and go. The planned three sets of 45 toes-to-bar became two. The snatches got slightly messy when one grip refused to come off quickly enough, but the final 15 burpees somehow felt almost easy.

Then the clock ran out.

We finished two burpees short. Close enough to know we were competitive. Far enough away to be incredibly annoying.

And there was no time to dwell on it: Event 3 would start exactly one minute later.

Niels had the longest recovery, Bart had slightly more time than Barend, and Barend had just 60 seconds to get from his final burpees to the worm.

Event 3 was already waiting… by @neonisse

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3 months ago

Story time! Battle of Normandy event recaps incoming! 📖💪

EVENT 1 — ONE-MILE BEACH RUN 🏃‍♂️🏖️

Nothing settles the nerves before the first event like standing on a hot beach, tied together with a rope, surrounded by 39 teams ready to sprint a mile as if it’s 100 metres.

Preparation hadn’t been ideal, so Niels was extra nervous. Running through loose sand in the heat isn’t exactly his favourite movement either.

Bart and Barend were mainly looking forward to the swim afterwards. The sea was calling, but first we had to earn it.

The mass start was chaos. Sand everywhere, teams sprinting off, and somehow the rope worked better than expected.

For the first 400 metres, everything felt fine.

Niels felt surprisingly good and focused on the white flag at halfway. Barend also felt strong and thought we still had another gear. Then Bart’s heart rate entered a completely different competition.Every time a team passed, Bart tried to respond. Every time, his legs politely declined.

Finding the right team pace was harder than expected, especially when one athlete felt great, one felt good, and the third was making increasingly tragic noises behind them. At least those noises confirmed Bart was still attached.

With 200 metres to go, Barend wanted to sprint. Niels looked ahead and behind and decided it would achieve absolutely nothing. The team ahead was too far away and the teams behind were too far back. Bart was no longer contributing to the tactical discussion.

So there we were: Barend ready to attack, Niels performing a cost-benefit analysis, and Bart thinking only about jumping into the sea.

The sprint never happened.

We finished together and headed straight for the water.

Event 1 done. ✅ taken in Caen by @neonisse

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3 months ago

Battle of Normandy Throwdown 2026 recap event 4 with The Trifecta! #battleofnormandythrowdown taken in Halle D'athlétisme Michel D'ornano, Mondeville by @neonisse

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3 months ago

Battle of Normandy 2026 event 2&3 recap with The Trifecta! #battleofnormandythrowdown taken in Halle D'athlétisme Michel D'ornano, Mondeville by @neonisse

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3 months ago

Battle of Normandy 2026 recap event 1 with The Trifecta! #battleofnormandythrowdown taken in Caen, France by @neonisse

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3 months ago

Qualifiers for @wodcelona in the books! 🥳 taken in Rotterdam, Netherlands by @neonisse

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6 months ago

Laatste stukje winter van dit jaar ❤️ #skiing #sölden #superski #snow taken in Sölden, Austria by @neonisse

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7 months ago

Highlights? Too many.
Vibes? Immaculate.
Food? Unreal.
Sun? Always.
Andalusia, we will be back!

☀️✨🌴📸
#andalusia #andalucía #spain #malaga #granada #cordoba #jaen #almeria #roadtrip #travelspain #wanderlust #travelgram #sunshine #beautifuldestinations #polarsteps by @neonisse

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a year ago

Event Recap – “Sky High” ☀️🏔️🔥

And there it was — after a full weekend of hard work, I made the top 16 athletes moving into the final workout of the @marbellachampionship🙌. A brutal one: devil presses, 60 kg med-ball lunges and rope climbs. A true grind 😮‍💨.

Best part? I finally got to share the floor with my teammate, training buddy and bestie @bartthewizardfish🤜🤛. We’d been racing each other all weekend, but always in different heats — until now. Just one lane apart! That made the final feel more relaxed, more familiar — like our training sessions back home. Still… friendship aside, this was competition time ⚔️.

I knew Bart is a fast lunger and rope climber, so I pushed the pace early on the devil presses. I reached the lunges first, but Bart was already closing in 👀. My plan: go unbroken, or lose the lead. I barely held him off and jumped straight into the rope climbs while he paused briefly. Finished my first rep before him ✅ — a small breather, but man those rope climbs hit harder than expected 😵‍💫.

Back to the dumbbells, still slightly ahead. When Bart started his devil presses I had two reps on him, but then came another round of super-heavy lunges. That 60 kg ball felt twice as heavy 😤. Halfway through I had to drop it, heart rate through the roof. Tried to pick it up — it slipped right out of my hands 😫. Those five lost seconds cost me my lead.

Bart was doing Bart things — steady, relentless 🧱. The last lane we went neck and neck, both running on fumes. Legs shaking, lungs burning, balance fading. Somehow I finished the lunges without falling and jumped straight to the rope. I started seconds before Bart, but he was closing fast. One last push, one last climb 😤💪.

With 25 seconds left, I sprinted to the dumbbells for a final flurry of devil presses ⚡. Everything hurt. I focused on one spot on the floor until I heard: 👉 “3, 2, 1… TIME!” Collapsed. Looked left — Bart was wrecked too 😂. Remind me why we do this again? In the end I squeezed out one more rep, finishing 10th in the final and 8th overall 🎉.

An unforgettable finish to an epic weekend ❤️
Now it’s back to the drawing board — rebuild, recover and come back stronger 💪🔥. by @neonisse

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a year ago