Water Polo is brutal, at least physically.
Which sport has the fittest athletes?
- Thread starter Paxi
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Cross country skiers or the Bi Athlon, but i'll go for X country skiers.
They used to do a yearly competition back in I think the 90s where they’d put people from different sports against each other to see who was the best athlete. Does anyone remember what it was called? I’m trying to find it but it just keeps bringing up olympics shit.
It's far from obvious. I've done 3 tris and 2 were Olympic distance. I wouldn't say it was. Besides it's a hybrid of 3 different sports which makes it hard to call.
We could then invent a whole new sport where we combine disciplines to test mental and physical endurance.
How about an ultra marathon/swim across the channel and then cycle to Katmandu
Superstars?
Fitness pretty much just means "suitable to a task", we've just started applying it only to physical attributes. So I'd say it's impossible to say whether peak C.Ronaldo is fitter than peak Nadal or peak Bolt or peak LeBron or peak Kipchoge or peak Phelps or peak Armstrong. They all trained to be suitable to their own sport and climbed to the absolute peak of fitness.
Some train for sprints, some for marathons, some for playing 82+ basketball matches in a season. All of them are special and neither could do what the others do as well as them.
Some train for sprints, some for marathons, some for playing 82+ basketball matches in a season. All of them are special and neither could do what the others do as well as them.
Any sort of endurance athletes or multi disicipline athletes. (Triathlons/Decathlons etc.).
F1 drivers/Indy Car drivers because you have to factor in extras like G-forces and such. Id give F1 drivers the nod there though.
F1 drivers/Indy Car drivers because you have to factor in extras like G-forces and such. Id give F1 drivers the nod there though.
Surely it's marathon runners/that kind of thing by definition.
True but when the game is on they can't feck about like Messi and Ronaldo strolling through phases. Also they often play 3/4/5 hour matches which isn't feasible without arse sitting.
Pretty clearly cyclists if you are talking pure fitness, they always hold the records in the various fitness measurements. Nothing else is comparable to what they go through on a Grand Tour and they do that 3x per year plus all the other races in between. The bike allows them to focus on pure fitness and removes the muscular and impact limitations that slow runners down.
Cross country skiers are in with a shout too, but i think training at altitude might skew their figures a bit.
Cross country skiers are in with a shout too, but i think training at altitude might skew their figures a bit.
Never understood Pole vaulting before, but after watching that, I think i get it now.
The drugs help
I guess a lot depends on the surface. I refuse to believe that elite cardio is required to smash down a load of aces or service return winners at Wimbledon.
Even on clay courts the amount of time they get to rest when they change ends sets them apart from football. Having breaks like that makes such a difference to the overall physical toll.
Surely it's about intensity?
Footballers run on average 8-10km a match, but with very short bursts of intense movement folllowed by a lot of jogging and walking.
Also the ball is out of play a lot in football which leads to a longer rest period than usual.
I would say 400/800m hurdle runners have a harder task than majority of footballers, yet they are only going 400m or 800m! The intensity of running 400m/800m at that speed is tantamount to torture, and puts immense strain on the body, hence these runners tend to be extremely fit.
Squash
That looks to be the one I was thinking of cheers.
Would be great to have something like that again, but I guess sport stars are too rich now a days to care about stuff like that.
A lot more knockouts in the heavier divisions and a lot less in the lower weight classes. The average ko rate is around 50% and most of those happen in the later rounds. A boxer trains to go the distance every time and their training regimen involves and combination of endurance, skill,stamina and power. It's also one of the most mentally challenging sports there is. If we go by your question long distance runners would have the biggest advantage I reckon.
That's why I think the training is the important thing to judge, not the sport itself. Boxing is a hybrid sports, power, endurance, skill, hence the training is, but that makes it a jack of all trades, master of none.
Long distance running is only focused on stamina and it actually completes that quote in full "Jack of all trades, master of none, better than master of one"
In neolithic times i reckon the most important thing is survival based on finding water, shelter and food. Stamina and covering large distances is imo the most important skill set considering those factors.
I always thought basketball was extremely taxing with just five players per team when you consider the intensity of the matches and the schedule they play, especially the NBA finals schedule which seemed to be a game roughly every other day.
Getting food though? Unlikely you'd know which nuts and berries won't kill you, so you're gonna have to hunt, and without a tribe (I'm assuming the athlete has been transported back in time) endurance hunting won't work
Cricket and darts.
Boxing, swimming, squash, rugby, triathlon, rowing
Any of the above, although rowers always seem totally exhausted/shattered after racing, every sinew and muscle, a genuine lung busting sport.
Any of the above, although rowers always seem totally exhausted/shattered after racing, every sinew and muscle, a genuine lung busting sport.
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Its a different sort of fit to a footballer for example. I ran a marathon a few years back and thought the football would be a doddle after it but the stop start nature of football and all the sprinting had me knackered much quicker than I expected.
Similarly I went from running 20 mile a week or so average to playing 7 a side a few weeks back and I was completely fecked after about half an hour
Pro cycling looks brutal and the top athletes have to have incredible endurance in the long tour events.
Brian Budd (football) and Brian Jacks (Judo) won multiple superstars.
Neil Adams didn’t win but you can see one of his superstars events on youtube, and even at 62 today still has an incredible level of fitness.
That's where I think cycling differs in the major events. Someone like Cavendish will do 3 weeks of mountains at full pelt for hundreds of kilometres a day, but then be expected to finish it off in the lead with a sprint finish. The main attribute is stamina, but they also have to be the fastest sprinters and good at flat and mountain conditions to stay in the race.
Fit to survive for months under any kind of circumstances? That would probably mean good cardio, a good healthy amount of body fat, and muscle mass.
So I'd back prime Fedor or Daniel Cormier type of guys to do well in that case.
Alexandr Karelin would be my pick. Insane amount of fitness that man had. Although he was probably up to his gills on juice.
I met Adams’ coach and he told me
That Jacks and Adams both fecked themselves physically to win Superstars. Jacks in particular
If it’s fit to survive then the fitness the Foreign Legion guys have is insane. Saw an interview with a a guy who was 60 who did the Marathon Des Sables as a bet because someone told him it was the ultimate. He pissed it at 60
Boxing isn't a catch all. The lower weight groups have amazing fitness levels at the top end.
Runners and boxers are not good comparisons for me. Different needs, for want of a better word. What I mean is running doesn't have the same expenditure of energy that a missed punch has, for example. As someone said above running a marathon and playing football are different skill sets. Boxing would be the same.
I wonder how some of the faster footballers would fare in say the 100m at a race event
Runners and boxers are not good comparisons for me. Different needs, for want of a better word. What I mean is running doesn't have the same expenditure of energy that a missed punch has, for example. As someone said above running a marathon and playing football are different skill sets. Boxing would be the same.
I wonder how some of the faster footballers would fare in say the 100m at a race event
I've played both and tennis is more gruelling than footy.
Really? I’ve played both too and would be way more tired after 90 minutes of football than I would after two hours of tennis.
You probably played against some shite that kept hitting the ball straight at you not forcing you to sprint and reach for the ball every point. Dependingon how the game goes, tennis can destroy you far more than a team sport where you can break anytime you want.
Who you play against can definitely influence.
That said I've played tennis and footy and found footy more taxing. Overall though a decent squash player is where I felt the most unfit
To be fair it's a difficult comparison. I would say playing footy as a wide player is equivalent to tennis for exertion. Lots of running for both. Playing up front or as a CB is easier (I never tracked back as striker
) as you can have breaks in between exertions..The most damage I've sustained in sport is through bowling in cricket.
As a fast bowler the knees and shoulders are fecked
As a fast bowler the knees and shoulders are fecked
Oh yeah. Squash is a bit scary.