Boxing / long distance runners
Which sport has the fittest athletes?
- Thread starter Paxi
- Start date
Womens vol-
Oh.
Oh.
Rowing
Dressage
The triathlon and Water Polo really impressed me this Olympics, those are some serious fit people. My pick of the lot.
The act of watching water polo alone makes me tired.
Answering the OP's question: I was active in quite a few different sports during my school days many years ago now and personally rugby union was the most physically taxing of them all. Squash was never a walk in the park, as did badminton, and don't underestimate any sport that requires you to stand around doing little under the hot tropical sun for long periods of time.
Boxing I reckon is a good shout.
Up until you've sparred, you don't realise how exhausting it is to just keep moving and keeping your hands up (let alone throwing a punch). Mentally it's also knackering, knowing that if your hand drops you're probably getting floored.
Up until you've sparred, you don't realise how exhausting it is to just keep moving and keeping your hands up (let alone throwing a punch). Mentally it's also knackering, knowing that if your hand drops you're probably getting floored.
By this logic, sprinting is the hardest since almost everybody will have to sprint at least once in their lives if they're healthy and have legs.
Yes, though sprinting is less focused on fitness they are undoubtedly in the best/most competitive sport.
The only question mark, knowing f all about competitive sprinting, is how much of it is just down to supreme genetics vs how much they have to train.
There’s a world of difference between running for a bus and actually learning how to sprint as an athletic discipline. It’s actually surprising how few people ever take part in any kind of formal athletic training.
Very very very true statement. The amount of technique involved in running correctly is impressive.
In my opinion…
- Endurance sports (triathlon, marathon, iron man, etc.)
- Water Polo
- Combat sports
- Endurance sports (triathlon, marathon, iron man, etc.)
- Water Polo
- Combat sports
erase marathon, add gymnastics and that list is pretty accurate imo
That’s fair. Gymnasts definitely deserve a spot on that list.
Oh, and climbing/bouldern! Those athletes are freaks. They're good at so much and since it's all about muscle to body weight ratio they have great physiques all around. Friend of mine boulders and he looks like a greek god.
Hurling.
You know if you're a good runner or not, though. No amount of training is going to make a slow runner fast.
you can definitely make a slow runner faster though. Obviously not to olympic level but any proper training will improve you.
What about underwater rugby? Water polo is exhausting but at least you're above water.
F1 drivers have to be far more fit than you'd think don't they?
Something to do with g-force or something
Something to do with g-force or something
Cross country skiers
Yeah, I think it’s very physically demanding. Most people would probably be exhausted after only a lap or two, and the pro F1 drivers do about 60-70. I don’t think it’s comparable to the toughest sports though.
Swimming or boxing
It’s somewhat subjective on how you value each of the different factors, stamina, strength, mental aspects, etc.
I think football takes extraordinary stamina due to the pure mileage the players run, far more then sports like basketball or American football for example. Still, cycling, maybe tennis also require extreme amounts of stamina. Football also requires a certain amount of physicality but clearly less then basketball where you are grinding down in the post or American football for obvious reasons. Mentally, I think solo sports with lengthy games like tennis are more demanding.
Personally I think football is a blend of all these aspects, is played at the most professional levels of any sport and are among the “fittest” athletes on the planet. They probably get beat in one aspect by some other sportsman, but I think they are among the most well rounded.
I think football takes extraordinary stamina due to the pure mileage the players run, far more then sports like basketball or American football for example. Still, cycling, maybe tennis also require extreme amounts of stamina. Football also requires a certain amount of physicality but clearly less then basketball where you are grinding down in the post or American football for obvious reasons. Mentally, I think solo sports with lengthy games like tennis are more demanding.
Personally I think football is a blend of all these aspects, is played at the most professional levels of any sport and are among the “fittest” athletes on the planet. They probably get beat in one aspect by some other sportsman, but I think they are among the most well rounded.
Water polo is right up there as it required technique combined with immerse swimming speed and endurance. Boxer are often cited as being the only sport that requires equivalent overall fitness. I'm sure you could make a case for a few other sports depending on how you measure it but water polo seems to top most charts for this sort of thing. In game you do repeated 20/25m sprints, then wrestle, then repeat again and again - up to 2.5km of sprints per game. In training top level water polo players will swim as far per week as a swimmer but then do many hours of technical training and scrimmaging as well.
Not even close. You don't need to expend energy getting yourself out of the water constantly and you wear fins for propulsion. The main skill is breath holding. And it hardly a real sport - more of a fun pastime.
And many sports require that you are very specifically fit for that sport so it isn't necessarily fair to compare.
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Football is way down the pole for fitness because it's been proven that you don't have to be an athletic freak to be world class.
Probably cycling
Don’t know why people are writing off the marathon, people literally have died of exhaustion doing marathons and ambulance’s are on stand by at the finish line all the time…
Nowadays you do actually, one way or another
Downhill skiers supposed to be pretty fit and I would imagine rowers would be up there as well.
Faster definitely not necessarily a sprinter.
Would VO2 Max also determine who has the greater fitness?
Doing some research on this and X-country skiers and cyclists seem to come out on top
I've always thought boxing must take a surreal level of fitness, not just of the body but of the mind too.
Sport is hard enough as it is, let alone when somebody is literally trying to knock you out. Imagine trying to go to sleep the night before you step into the ring with Iron Mike? And then how much energy must you exhaust just trying to survive those initial 30 seconds or so? I can imagine the physical aspects of most sports, but boxing I can't even get my head around.
Sport is hard enough as it is, let alone when somebody is literally trying to knock you out. Imagine trying to go to sleep the night before you step into the ring with Iron Mike? And then how much energy must you exhaust just trying to survive those initial 30 seconds or so? I can imagine the physical aspects of most sports, but boxing I can't even get my head around.
Out of the sports I've tried, submission wrestling by far the most taxing, especially when your sparring someone good. I've done Boxing, BJJ, Thai and football.
Water Polo has to be the one though, I get tired just watching it.
Water Polo has to be the one though, I get tired just watching it.
It's not on the same fitness level as swimming though. I used to swim a lot, i was in a club and competed county/region level but we had national swimmers and water polo players in there too. The water polo lot were super competitive but when it came to covering distance they were always at the back. The rougher swimming technique probably doesn't help.
At the pro level overall all-round fitness is higher for water polo no matter how incredibly fit swimmers are for swimming. That isn't a criticism of swimmers, just that their sport requires a very specific fitness.
My son plays water polo at an elite level and his mate is a former swimming world record holder and Olympian. My son could probably make freestyle National Swimming Finals (nowhere near Olympics) despite being 6ft 5in and 18 1/2 stone yet his mate who is a truly elite swimmer ended up vomiting half way through a low level game of water polo he tried to play a couple of years ago.
Obviously the margins are slim between sports at the elite level but some sports like Water Polo and Boxing etc do repeatedly rank highest for overall fitness.
I might be (am) biased but I have know many swimming and water polo olympians and I doubt any of them would disagree.
If you watched Cheer, you'd probably go with cheerleading as a sport
(Otherwise elite cycling)
(Otherwise elite cycling)
In terms of pure cardiovascular performance, probably cyclists or cross-country skiers. Overall strength and fitness could be swimmers or rowers.
I agree that boxers usually have incredible stamina but do people really consider someone like Tyson Fury as a fit athlete? I certainly don't but maybe my criteria are just different in that case.
It's triathlon or long distance running for me but that's because that what I'd describe as "fit" or an athlete. Gymnastics people e.g. are freaks of nature and have an out of this world technique but I wouldn't describe them as fittest athletes either or anywhere near that. "Fitness" = stamina + endurance for me. Some cyclists would come close too in terms of fitness (incredible taxing on your body + most of them like a Tom Pidcock for example are elite runners as well).
If you factor in strength, some other sports might also make the list like water polo which is often mentioned as well.
It's triathlon or long distance running for me but that's because that what I'd describe as "fit" or an athlete. Gymnastics people e.g. are freaks of nature and have an out of this world technique but I wouldn't describe them as fittest athletes either or anywhere near that. "Fitness" = stamina + endurance for me. Some cyclists would come close too in terms of fitness (incredible taxing on your body + most of them like a Tom Pidcock for example are elite runners as well).
If you factor in strength, some other sports might also make the list like water polo which is often mentioned as well.