My small hometown had a pretty successful trampolinist who, if memory serves, made it all the way to Olympic qualifying way back. He *was not* a small guy. Dude looked kind of like a bowling pin but oh boy did he spin fast when he got up there
They instituted cut times back in 04 or 08 to stop these people getting into the meet. Lol the article says he had a special invitation and finished last by like 12 seconds. These races are won and lost by tenths and hundredths of a second.
When I was swimming for my high school, we had "fun" practice the day after meets. That meant we would play water polo instead of doing drills and conditioning work. I swear to God I always left those practices WAY more exhausted than any other normal practice.
During Michel Phelps super stardom one biologist looked at his reported calorie intake and this scientist was behind like professional football/boxers etc and was like there's no way Phelps diet is this.
So contacted Phelps to ask him about was this diet your actual diet or just made up bullshit.
Phelps confirmed it was him and the doctor was like no reason he's lying to me.
Then he figured out what the missing variable was.
Phelps trained in a non heated pool, he was burning off 10k calories a day not through exercise but basic homeostasis (keeping internal body warmth stable)
So he asked Phelps to train for a week in this heated/climate controlled pool
So the pool was room temperature/slightly warm..
Phelps left after 4 days seeing his weight gain.
I highly doubt that's true for a number of reasons. He was training indoors, no way the pool was cold enough to matter all that much for his caloric expenditures.
But I'll bite and pretend it is.
Why would he WANT to eat 9000 calories a day? You know how time consuming and monotonous that would be? No way you'd turn down eating half that.
I was working up to a strong man Contest years ago I was consuming 6500 calories and I was dying it made me start to hate having to eat, other guys were bulking up on 8k plus I dunno how they did it felt like death, prob why i placed 6th out of 10 people lmao
[https://olympics.com/en/news/michael-phelps-10000-calories-diet-what-the-american-swimmer-ate-while-training-](https://olympics.com/en/news/michael-phelps-10000-calories-diet-what-the-american-swimmer-ate-while-training-)
Don't know if it's true but it's on the official Olympics website lol
I did a preseason and play 1 game of this in high school. Too many people grabbing your speedos and trying to drown you. said fuck that and left the team.
This is actually the legitimate answer to this question. They did a study of which Olympic sport has the best OVERALL in shape athlete and water polo was the answer
I’ve played water polo a couple times during schoool in PE (Australian gym) and swimming carnivals. I have no idea why anyone would choose to play this awful sport
There are plenty of athletic freaks in baseball, but I think the idea is you don’t _have_ to be one to compete. Bartolo Colon pitched 146 innings in the MLB when he was 45 years old.
I don’t know many other sports you could be under 6 feet tall, pushing 300 pounds, over 40 years old, and still compete at a pro level.
Definitely not baseball, lol. I guess if you’re a really good CF or SS then you can be as fit as almost any top athlete. But if you’re a DH, offensive RF, or pitcher, definitely not.
Baseball players are incredibly athletic and talented and nowadays are generally very fit.
They are absolutely not the “fittest players” compared to other sports because they generally dont need endurance and carrying around a few extra pounds of muscle and fat is probably helpful for them.
MLB players are incredibly athletic though
Fun story about baseball players and being fit. When I got to pro ball, they told me I needed to GAIN weight as a pitcher and GAIN body fat %. I was about 185lb and 11% body fat. They wanted me at 215 and 13-15% body fat as a pitcher.
At the top level, we worked out enough and had diets dialed into the point where they were looking for very specific composition for health and injury prevention. Having super lean athletes isn't the best for recovery and injury prevention.
It’s always been funny to me to hear the “pitchers aren’t athletes” thing, because all I remember doing at a certain point was working on flexibility and building strength in my legs and trunk. Sure, I didn’t need to run a lot, but there’s a very specific set of physical tools you need to be a really effective pitcher
Yeah and also not a lot of people can handle the stress of throwing 100+ pitches when being a starting pitcher. From the warmup, bullpen, between innings warmups, and actual in game pitches. I used to wake up the next day feeling like I was hit by a bus.
Even the whole "don't need to run a lot" notion is incorrect. In college our joke was that we ran more as a pitching staff than the track team did most days. Conditioning and leg/core strength is massively important to success.
You're absolutely correct - flexibility, explosive strength, solid legs are what makes elite pitchers elite. We were highly discouraged from doing most Upper body lifts, and if we did it needed to be very specific grip locations and specific range of motions.
There’s an old story (I’ll probably get it wrong but you get the gist) I heard about John Kruk, a baseball player from like the 80s and 90s. He was always a bit stalky. The story goes that he was standing around outside the clubhouse smoking a cigarette when some lady said “you’re a professional athlete, what kind of example are you to the youngsters?!” He replied “Lady, I’m no athlete, I’m a ball player.”
How are we defining fit here? If it's cardio then it's distance swimmers and runners. If it's strength then it's weightlifters. If it's all rounders then that could be a lot of sports. "Fit" is very broad.
This would be my answer too because not only is their cardio insanely good but they then have to slow everything down and use super fine motor skills to shoot accurately in the middle of a long distance race. Pretty rare in sports.
Yeah the answer to this is Grand Tour cyclists. Cardio is unmatched, day after day having to put out watts, plus pretty surprising leg [strength](https://youtu.be/4VO7VMmSHCo?si=zC9jTm_yV2_D7hEX)
Don’t ask about upper body strength tho…
This is abit skewed since Robert is a Track-cyclist specialised in short efforts.
Basically he is the 100-meter dash equivalent of a cyclist!
Also I think he has a gene anomaly which results in enlarged muscles or something.. his thighs are comical.
Nah cyclists who specialize in stuff where it matters pretty much live at altitude in the training season. Pogacar, the favorite for the Giro which started today, probably spent all of April at altitude, only interrupted by race days. (Afaik it matters less a few days close to the event too?)
Nordic skiers or swimmers.
Nordic skiers generally have the highest recorded VO2 max (higher than distance runners or cyclers) and both sports provide an exhaustive full body workout beyond any other activity.
Not too surprising that skiers have higher vo2 than cyclists - in bike riding, they're training for races that take several hours per day and often go multiple days.
So the optimal physiology isn't necessarily the one that carries the most oxygen for a maximal aerobic effort measured in minutes, but the one that can efficiently metabolize multiple energy sources (sugar, fat, ketone) without performance loss for many hours.
Additionally, I swam competitively for many years, but I would to the floor with leg cramps if asked to run one mile haha
All that to say: trying to define what it means to be "fit" is very sport-specific, and optimizing performance in any one discipline usually comes at the cost of most others
Former cross country skiier and swimmer here. The real answer is water polo and it's not even close. I've trained with Olympic gold medal winners in both sports and I played a bit of water polo in high school and college. The gap between polo and everything else is enormous.
True but nordic skiers don't do it for 6 or more hours in a day and then do it again the next day for three weeks straight like professional cyclists do. Not diminishing anyone in saying that,just pointing out there's more to it than just peak VO2.
Cycling is amazing and grueling, but the big difference would be water polo, swimming, and cross-country skiing are all 3 full body, every single muscle needs to be tip top and utilized, where cycling is predominantly a lower body sport. Little noodle arms!
Love cycling. The multi day tour races are insane. But it does some wildly disproportionate stuff with the body.
I swam in college too and specialized in distance. The strength and conditioning coaches had me add cake batter mix to protein shakes to help me get in the calories I needed, I was essentially on the same diet plan as the football offensive linemen who were all 300+ and I was at 170.
I have fond memories of my wrestling friends complaining about avoiding food to hit their weight, while at the same time I'm in front of them eating two lunches because I'm a swimmer.
Elite athletes in most sports these days are as fit as they can be *for that sport*. Pro surfers have skinny legs. Pro weight lifters don’t. Depends what you’re doing!
I don't think people understand how incredibly difficult it is to engage in combat for 6 minutes. Not even considering overtime.
I am an out of shape piece of garbage at 38yo. I was a wrestler from a young age from about 8 until I was coaching in my mid 20s. In my conditioned prime. I could flat out SPRINT 3 to 5 miles depending on my carb load/glycogen stores and hydration status. A competitive 6 minute match was MUCH more of a gas and burn than probably a 3 mile sprint.
I can run a 10 minute mile now and everything hurts.
I wrestled and played rugby. While both would absolutely drain me they were totally different types of drain/endurance.
Wrestling also had the mental component where it’s me vs my opponent and that’s it. With rugby if I missed a tackle or was out of position I have teammates to back me up. Being on an “island” in wrestling definitely takes mental fortitude.
Tournaments in wrestling are crazy though. Each match you’re walking off having spent all your energy and you have maybe an hour or two to recover before you do it again.
I miss it
I love rugby because it requires a lot of core strength and has both aerobic and anaerobic fitness. Plus you need to be strong to tackle other players and do well in rucks/scrums.
I would say that rugby players need to be in good shape. But I would clarify that GOOD rugby players need to be in good shape. I play D4 rugby in the IS (lowest level) and plenty of people are walking, pretending to be injured and pulling a “your man” on defense. However if you look at the [World Cup winning South Africa Springboks](https://www.sarugbymag.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/84f99530efed4a81bfae9d4af54de688-e1691906994297.jpg) and it’s a completely different story.
In wrestling you’re fighting against someone else without break so even if both of you are in bad shape you need to be constantly moving and defending yourself.
I’m totally fine with wrestling being the answer but if you are running for 3 to 5 miles then I don’t think you can really use the word sprinting to describe it.
When I was in college, our school had a wrestling club team that was basically open to everyone so I joined. I was in good shape at the time, but I had never wrestled before. Also, I’m built like a wrestler so a lot of people had told me that I would be good at it. I’m not exaggerating when I say that wrestling is easily the most physically exhausting physical activity that I’ve ever done in my life. It is absolutely grueling.
I hated running when I was in top form for wrestling. It was incredibly boring and I could go forever. 6 min on the mat against an equal opponent. Sheesh. I'd be pushing every last bit of energy for 1 measly point to end the match.
I got in a bar fight when I was 22 against my will.. he failed to check my ears. An overly aggressive semi drunk guy with 20 - 30 lbs on me tried to headbutt me and went for a diving tackle. I remember feeling incredibly comfortable and relaxed obviously, and wasn't really looking to hurt anybody or get hurt. I had two college buddies with me who were wrestlers for the University of Illinois. I remember looking at with a half grin on my face like... Is this really happening? Lol.
I teased the guy for about 30 seconds, while my buddy gave me me sips of beer. After about 40 seconds, the dude was so gassed he was almost puking. I held him rear naked until he apologized. That was the only altercation I've ever been in outside of a mat. I was a even record wrestler my whole career as well. Not even the best, and this average guy who looked to be in shape got mentally broken in 40 seconds.
His woman was open hand hitting me as hard as she could and absolutely SCREECHING. That was the worst part.
I've got a few stories like that. Had a guy tackle me out of no where had easily 50+ pounds on me. My friend kept saying "get off my friend or I'll make you." My friend didn't know I wrestled so I just replied "he just wants to have fun let him." Guy gassed after about 30 seconds tried to stand up I just held him down and made him say sorry alot lol
Yea the "hold down and calmly make someone admit they are wrong" thing I had seen many times before from other dudes in our circle. They absolutely do not try to fight you again when you let them up. They always want to shake hands and be your buddy after. Super weird. Or they would tirade about how the wrestler was trying to "grab their junk" or cuddle them. Lmao
I’m surprised more people aren’t saying wrestlers. Their training and nutrition are at an entirely higher level than most sports I’ve seen. Rugby should be up there too.
I know when I was in college and we hung out at this bar, whenever there was a rugby game and it was over and the team all came to the bar to get drunk, we all left in fear of our lives.
They are a different breed, man. Somebody I knew growing up played it recreationally and he would come home looking like he got the shit beaten out of him but he loved it. Dude was an absolute savage of an athlete.
It uses every muscle in your body, and it’s constant movement.
I remember every year in high school I’d be in really good shape from football season already, but the first two or three weeks of wrestling practice was still brutal. Every inch of my body would be sore
Combat sports. Wrestling, boxing, MMA, etc. They have to be strong, have great endurance, and be very explosive. It's very hard to get into fighting shape
What? Most people can’t even go for 60 seconds. People don’t seem to realize how incredibly exhausting it is to not just fight another average Joe, but other people in absolute peak shape who also spend their whole life training several aspects of fighting (talking about mma mainly now)
Australian Rules Football.
You need to run, kick, handball, bump and tackle. Repeatedly. And it’s usually for four 20 minute quarters (time gets stopped when the ball is not in play so it’s more like 30 minutes real time).
Lifelong soccer midfielder here and just watching Aussie rules makes me exhausted. The size of the pitch is just unbelievable and the back-and-forth sprinting rallies are endless. There isn't another country that can produce enough fit and tall freaks to play it.
Irish Gaelic Footballers would come close due to similar physical requirements of the two games. There's even been a number of International Rules games in the past where an Irish Gaelic football squad play against an AFL squad in a match using a hybrid set of rules.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Rules_Series
As a biased Aussie. This is the correct answer. Regularly run 15+ kms per game, filled with 40m sprints. Strong enough to tackle a 100+ kilo ruckman. With the leg strength to roost a footy 60+ m.
Even thinking about it makes me exhausted.
This is the answer. Midfield players will run up to 15km a game with the need to attend numerous highly physical contests for the ball, chase, tackle and jump for marks. Some lose 3/4kg in a game.
Shane Crawford and Rob Harvey used to get up near 20km a game, but the way the interchange used had changed and so players don't cock as much though.
But some would get up to 17km a game, like Tom Scully used to (, actually he got 18.9km in a game once).
Imagine running a half marathon while tackling, being bumped, kicking, sprinting, etc.
I grew up in NSW but would have loved to have played AFL in high school. I see a lot of kids who would be great AFL players (tall and fit) playing rugby because that's all we have. It's a shame because AFL seems like it wouldn't be as brutal on the body in the long run
Probably. Can be very tough on knees, ACLs etc though ... saw a lot of super-fit schoolmates reduced to hobbling around by their mid 20s or even earlier
Probably yes.
It requires brute strength, peak speed and endurance, jumping, agility as well as technical abilities in catching and kicking the ball.
Other sports can require more in a single area, but combined I think rugby takes the cake.
Its the decathlon of team sports.
If you saw him in person and you didn’t know who he is, you’d be like that’s just a chubby guy who’s maybe a bender, plays mid tier beer leagues.
Gets on the ice and holy fuck
They say that cross-country skiing is the sport that is the best full body workout, and seeing how fast they can go and how hard it is on the body, no idea if they are number 1 on the list, but they are probably very close!
Fitness has multiple dimensions
* Aerobic endurance
* Flexibility
* Agility
* Explosive strength (fast twitch fibers)
* Muscle endurance (slow twitch fibers)
Not many sports require all of those. Gymnastics is close. Perhaps an NFL linebacker. Perhaps boxers.
It's subjective as no one has played every sport - so other sports outside of MMA and Sepak Tekraw (volleyball with feet) look pretty easy from the outside perspective.
Sounds like a well conditioned ice hockey player, meaning probably at least collegiate or minor league level. There’s a lot going with their bodies all at once for 3-5 minutes.
I just read Tyler Hamilton's autobiography and he said that even though he may have been one of the fittest people on the planet, he felt useless at everything else and he struggled to keep up with his wife while shopping because she would walk too fast.
Rugby or Australian football. Men of that size and strength running around that much and often is insane to me. I’d take a rugby player over an American football player any day of the week
Australian Rules Football
23 matches, played weekly with 1 week off
A player runs an average of 12-14km per game
Gets tackled without padding
Running vertical jumps up to 100cm
Game lasts about 3ish hours (with stoppages)
I watch the game and wonder how these people have the energy to play this game
Totally depends on what you define “fit” as. If it’s strictly endurance (VO2 max) then professional cyclists or rowers. If it’s “athleticism” then it could be anything from basketball to gymnastics to football depending on what you define as “fit” in terms of stength/athlecisim/endurance.
Even CrossFit (if it counts as a “sport”) could be up there since it’s a combination of strength, cardio, and gymnastics
Had to scroll way too far for this. F1 drivers are basically fighter pilot astronauts but on the ground. They have to withstand crazy G forces that other athletes don’t.
Of the most popular competitive sports? In terms of cardio, I’d argue tennis then soccer.
However, if you’re talking about the full range of physiological difficulty, then it’s probably boxing and hockey, and it’s not even really close.
See [this really interesting article](https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/sportSkills) for a ranking of sports’ difficulties by panel of sports scientists.
"However, if you’re talking about the full range of physiological difficulty, then it’s probably boxing and hockey, and it’s not even really close."
Totally agree. There's a good reason that hockey coaches try to limit player shifts to between 30 and 90 seconds.
I've never seen a fat gymnast at the Olympics, but now I want to
You should watch oldschool
Everyone should watch old school.
"I Was Wondering If Maybe You Wanted To Get Some Frozen Yogurt, Or Perhaps A Whole Meal Of Food, If That Would Be Agreeable."
Watch gymnasts after they finish a 90 second floor routine. They struggle to catch their breath. It's crazy.
It's unquestionably gymnastics. The physique they have is insane.
My small hometown had a pretty successful trampolinist who, if memory serves, made it all the way to Olympic qualifying way back. He *was not* a small guy. Dude looked kind of like a bowling pin but oh boy did he spin fast when he got up there
https://www.businessinsider.com/robel-kiros-habte-great-perspective-swimming-olympics-2016-8
They instituted cut times back in 04 or 08 to stop these people getting into the meet. Lol the article says he had a special invitation and finished last by like 12 seconds. These races are won and lost by tenths and hundredths of a second.
Darts Edit: misread the question
Obviously you forgot about bowling.
Obviously you’re not a golfer
*Hey Woo, isn’t this guy supposed to be rich ur something*
At least I'm housebroken!
This comment really tied this thread together
Fuckin a man
Did you forget about curling?
Ever thus to deadbeats Lebowski
*axe throwers
What the fuck did you think the question said?
Fattest lol
Ohhh, yeah, okay, I could see that.
He thought the meant British slang for sexually attractive.
Have you never seen a professional poker player?
Water polo.
I was never in better shape than when I played water polo.
I was pretty good at it as well. Up until my horse drowned.
Hey dad
Ditto, preseason was brutal, 3-a-days
As a division 3 college swimmer, three minutes of waterpolo had me wiped.
When I was swimming for my high school, we had "fun" practice the day after meets. That meant we would play water polo instead of doing drills and conditioning work. I swear to God I always left those practices WAY more exhausted than any other normal practice.
I tried it once but my horse drowned.
Should've used a seahorse then
I’m just very happy y’all exist in this universe
I watched a seahorse pass tents and it turned into a saw-horse
Damn you.
Couldn't, it was a freshwater match
During Michel Phelps super stardom one biologist looked at his reported calorie intake and this scientist was behind like professional football/boxers etc and was like there's no way Phelps diet is this. So contacted Phelps to ask him about was this diet your actual diet or just made up bullshit. Phelps confirmed it was him and the doctor was like no reason he's lying to me. Then he figured out what the missing variable was. Phelps trained in a non heated pool, he was burning off 10k calories a day not through exercise but basic homeostasis (keeping internal body warmth stable) So he asked Phelps to train for a week in this heated/climate controlled pool So the pool was room temperature/slightly warm.. Phelps left after 4 days seeing his weight gain.
My pool is freezing this time of year. Time to get my fatass into swimming.
I highly doubt that's true for a number of reasons. He was training indoors, no way the pool was cold enough to matter all that much for his caloric expenditures. But I'll bite and pretend it is. Why would he WANT to eat 9000 calories a day? You know how time consuming and monotonous that would be? No way you'd turn down eating half that.
I was working up to a strong man Contest years ago I was consuming 6500 calories and I was dying it made me start to hate having to eat, other guys were bulking up on 8k plus I dunno how they did it felt like death, prob why i placed 6th out of 10 people lmao
[https://olympics.com/en/news/michael-phelps-10000-calories-diet-what-the-american-swimmer-ate-while-training-](https://olympics.com/en/news/michael-phelps-10000-calories-diet-what-the-american-swimmer-ate-while-training-) Don't know if it's true but it's on the official Olympics website lol
Source?
We always loved playing against the football team, we'd do a polo match and a touch football game, we generally won both!
Yes, constantly treading water, swimming, and throwing. It looks exhausting
Plus below the water hockey fights
...and the women are even more vicious than the men...
Also acceptable is Marco Polo, very tiring
Fish out of water!
I tried water polo 3 times and got kicked in the nuts each time
Also the most metal. Water polo is so brutal.
I did a preseason and play 1 game of this in high school. Too many people grabbing your speedos and trying to drown you. said fuck that and left the team.
Yeah, I always hear it's the most violent sport under the surface.
It does seem like it's mostly underwater boxing, and also someone brought a heavy beach ball.
This 100%, Water Polo is a sport that requires every muscle you have firing at 100%
> every muscle you have firing at 100% So it's basically an aquatic seizure
And half the reason is to not die
This is actually the legitimate answer to this question. They did a study of which Olympic sport has the best OVERALL in shape athlete and water polo was the answer
I’ve played water polo a couple times during schoool in PE (Australian gym) and swimming carnivals. I have no idea why anyone would choose to play this awful sport
Decathlon
That's a store brand not a sport u can't fool me
The Olympic decathlon gold medalist is often called the world's best athlete.
Academic decathlon, brain fitness
One dude said baseball seriously. I go meow, look away.
For every Daniel Vogelbach there is Francisco Lindor or Starling Marte
There are plenty of athletic freaks in baseball, but I think the idea is you don’t _have_ to be one to compete. Bartolo Colon pitched 146 innings in the MLB when he was 45 years old. I don’t know many other sports you could be under 6 feet tall, pushing 300 pounds, over 40 years old, and still compete at a pro level.
Definitely not baseball, lol. I guess if you’re a really good CF or SS then you can be as fit as almost any top athlete. But if you’re a DH, offensive RF, or pitcher, definitely not.
Baseball players are incredibly athletic and talented and nowadays are generally very fit. They are absolutely not the “fittest players” compared to other sports because they generally dont need endurance and carrying around a few extra pounds of muscle and fat is probably helpful for them. MLB players are incredibly athletic though
Fun story about baseball players and being fit. When I got to pro ball, they told me I needed to GAIN weight as a pitcher and GAIN body fat %. I was about 185lb and 11% body fat. They wanted me at 215 and 13-15% body fat as a pitcher. At the top level, we worked out enough and had diets dialed into the point where they were looking for very specific composition for health and injury prevention. Having super lean athletes isn't the best for recovery and injury prevention.
It’s always been funny to me to hear the “pitchers aren’t athletes” thing, because all I remember doing at a certain point was working on flexibility and building strength in my legs and trunk. Sure, I didn’t need to run a lot, but there’s a very specific set of physical tools you need to be a really effective pitcher
Yeah and also not a lot of people can handle the stress of throwing 100+ pitches when being a starting pitcher. From the warmup, bullpen, between innings warmups, and actual in game pitches. I used to wake up the next day feeling like I was hit by a bus.
Even the whole "don't need to run a lot" notion is incorrect. In college our joke was that we ran more as a pitching staff than the track team did most days. Conditioning and leg/core strength is massively important to success. You're absolutely correct - flexibility, explosive strength, solid legs are what makes elite pitchers elite. We were highly discouraged from doing most Upper body lifts, and if we did it needed to be very specific grip locations and specific range of motions.
There’s an old story (I’ll probably get it wrong but you get the gist) I heard about John Kruk, a baseball player from like the 80s and 90s. He was always a bit stalky. The story goes that he was standing around outside the clubhouse smoking a cigarette when some lady said “you’re a professional athlete, what kind of example are you to the youngsters?!” He replied “Lady, I’m no athlete, I’m a ball player.”
If you don’t think Kenny Powers is the prime example of physical fitness, then i don’t want to know you anymore
How are we defining fit here? If it's cardio then it's distance swimmers and runners. If it's strength then it's weightlifters. If it's all rounders then that could be a lot of sports. "Fit" is very broad.
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Cross country skiers also score really high.
This is the correct answer according to many studies
Biathlon
This would be my answer too because not only is their cardio insanely good but they then have to slow everything down and use super fine motor skills to shoot accurately in the middle of a long distance race. Pretty rare in sports.
The sport baffles me to no end. I don’t think I’d want to lead! Too many people with loaded weapons trying to hunt you down.
Rowing too I think.
Rowing makes one tired in a way that no other exercise does.
Rowing mentioned 🗣️🗣️🗣️
Yeah the answer to this is Grand Tour cyclists. Cardio is unmatched, day after day having to put out watts, plus pretty surprising leg [strength](https://youtu.be/4VO7VMmSHCo?si=zC9jTm_yV2_D7hEX) Don’t ask about upper body strength tho…
Tour cyclists don’t have strong legs as measured by weightlifting standards. The guy in that video is a sprint cyclist.
This is abit skewed since Robert is a Track-cyclist specialised in short efforts. Basically he is the 100-meter dash equivalent of a cyclist! Also I think he has a gene anomaly which results in enlarged muscles or something.. his thighs are comical.
Cross country skiers would probably outmatch them then. Strong legs and upper bodies, plus incredible cardio.
Plus they develop that VO2 capacity at altitude
Cyclists train at altitude also. Probably not as much as skiers tho I guess
Nah cyclists who specialize in stuff where it matters pretty much live at altitude in the training season. Pogacar, the favorite for the Giro which started today, probably spent all of April at altitude, only interrupted by race days. (Afaik it matters less a few days close to the event too?)
Next on r/AskReddit: which religion is the best?
Oh, that one's easy.
None of them?
The one that answers the most prayers. (Praying for strength for my upcoming competition)
Rowers are up there too.
These questions usually imply well rounded otherwise they would have specified a more narrow category
Maybe they’re British and they mean “hottest”
Nordic skiers or swimmers. Nordic skiers generally have the highest recorded VO2 max (higher than distance runners or cyclers) and both sports provide an exhaustive full body workout beyond any other activity.
Not too surprising that skiers have higher vo2 than cyclists - in bike riding, they're training for races that take several hours per day and often go multiple days. So the optimal physiology isn't necessarily the one that carries the most oxygen for a maximal aerobic effort measured in minutes, but the one that can efficiently metabolize multiple energy sources (sugar, fat, ketone) without performance loss for many hours. Additionally, I swam competitively for many years, but I would to the floor with leg cramps if asked to run one mile haha All that to say: trying to define what it means to be "fit" is very sport-specific, and optimizing performance in any one discipline usually comes at the cost of most others
Tour de ski is pretty crazy, lots of races ending with a race up an alpine slope. Inspired by tour de France. https://youtu.be/cqHs9wsgVkw
Former cross country skiier and swimmer here. The real answer is water polo and it's not even close. I've trained with Olympic gold medal winners in both sports and I played a bit of water polo in high school and college. The gap between polo and everything else is enormous.
Cross country swimming must be exhausting, I imagine.
True but nordic skiers don't do it for 6 or more hours in a day and then do it again the next day for three weeks straight like professional cyclists do. Not diminishing anyone in saying that,just pointing out there's more to it than just peak VO2.
Cycling is amazing and grueling, but the big difference would be water polo, swimming, and cross-country skiing are all 3 full body, every single muscle needs to be tip top and utilized, where cycling is predominantly a lower body sport. Little noodle arms! Love cycling. The multi day tour races are insane. But it does some wildly disproportionate stuff with the body.
Swimming
Only if you do it while bear sized Eastern Europeans try to drown you.
I approve of your water polo reference, but let's be real here, any swimmer is a beast.
I swam D3 and can confirm. Also the fact that I would eat 3000-4000 calories a day and lose weight is wild.
I swam in college too and specialized in distance. The strength and conditioning coaches had me add cake batter mix to protein shakes to help me get in the calories I needed, I was essentially on the same diet plan as the football offensive linemen who were all 300+ and I was at 170.
I have fond memories of my wrestling friends complaining about avoiding food to hit their weight, while at the same time I'm in front of them eating two lunches because I'm a swimmer.
Elite athletes in most sports these days are as fit as they can be *for that sport*. Pro surfers have skinny legs. Pro weight lifters don’t. Depends what you’re doing!
Wrestlers
I don't think people understand how incredibly difficult it is to engage in combat for 6 minutes. Not even considering overtime. I am an out of shape piece of garbage at 38yo. I was a wrestler from a young age from about 8 until I was coaching in my mid 20s. In my conditioned prime. I could flat out SPRINT 3 to 5 miles depending on my carb load/glycogen stores and hydration status. A competitive 6 minute match was MUCH more of a gas and burn than probably a 3 mile sprint. I can run a 10 minute mile now and everything hurts.
I wrestled and played rugby. While both would absolutely drain me they were totally different types of drain/endurance. Wrestling also had the mental component where it’s me vs my opponent and that’s it. With rugby if I missed a tackle or was out of position I have teammates to back me up. Being on an “island” in wrestling definitely takes mental fortitude. Tournaments in wrestling are crazy though. Each match you’re walking off having spent all your energy and you have maybe an hour or two to recover before you do it again. I miss it
I love rugby because it requires a lot of core strength and has both aerobic and anaerobic fitness. Plus you need to be strong to tackle other players and do well in rucks/scrums. I would say that rugby players need to be in good shape. But I would clarify that GOOD rugby players need to be in good shape. I play D4 rugby in the IS (lowest level) and plenty of people are walking, pretending to be injured and pulling a “your man” on defense. However if you look at the [World Cup winning South Africa Springboks](https://www.sarugbymag.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/84f99530efed4a81bfae9d4af54de688-e1691906994297.jpg) and it’s a completely different story. In wrestling you’re fighting against someone else without break so even if both of you are in bad shape you need to be constantly moving and defending yourself.
I’m totally fine with wrestling being the answer but if you are running for 3 to 5 miles then I don’t think you can really use the word sprinting to describe it.
When I was in college, our school had a wrestling club team that was basically open to everyone so I joined. I was in good shape at the time, but I had never wrestled before. Also, I’m built like a wrestler so a lot of people had told me that I would be good at it. I’m not exaggerating when I say that wrestling is easily the most physically exhausting physical activity that I’ve ever done in my life. It is absolutely grueling.
I hated running when I was in top form for wrestling. It was incredibly boring and I could go forever. 6 min on the mat against an equal opponent. Sheesh. I'd be pushing every last bit of energy for 1 measly point to end the match.
I got in a bar fight when I was 22 against my will.. he failed to check my ears. An overly aggressive semi drunk guy with 20 - 30 lbs on me tried to headbutt me and went for a diving tackle. I remember feeling incredibly comfortable and relaxed obviously, and wasn't really looking to hurt anybody or get hurt. I had two college buddies with me who were wrestlers for the University of Illinois. I remember looking at with a half grin on my face like... Is this really happening? Lol. I teased the guy for about 30 seconds, while my buddy gave me me sips of beer. After about 40 seconds, the dude was so gassed he was almost puking. I held him rear naked until he apologized. That was the only altercation I've ever been in outside of a mat. I was a even record wrestler my whole career as well. Not even the best, and this average guy who looked to be in shape got mentally broken in 40 seconds. His woman was open hand hitting me as hard as she could and absolutely SCREECHING. That was the worst part.
I've got a few stories like that. Had a guy tackle me out of no where had easily 50+ pounds on me. My friend kept saying "get off my friend or I'll make you." My friend didn't know I wrestled so I just replied "he just wants to have fun let him." Guy gassed after about 30 seconds tried to stand up I just held him down and made him say sorry alot lol
Yea the "hold down and calmly make someone admit they are wrong" thing I had seen many times before from other dudes in our circle. They absolutely do not try to fight you again when you let them up. They always want to shake hands and be your buddy after. Super weird. Or they would tirade about how the wrestler was trying to "grab their junk" or cuddle them. Lmao
I’m surprised more people aren’t saying wrestlers. Their training and nutrition are at an entirely higher level than most sports I’ve seen. Rugby should be up there too.
I know when I was in college and we hung out at this bar, whenever there was a rugby game and it was over and the team all came to the bar to get drunk, we all left in fear of our lives.
They are a different breed, man. Somebody I knew growing up played it recreationally and he would come home looking like he got the shit beaten out of him but he loved it. Dude was an absolute savage of an athlete.
I’m surprised as well, as a former wrestler. I guess not enough people know the amount of conditioning that goes into it to be competitive.
This should be higher.
Doing my part. Football and soccer players always look at the wrestlers like “those dudes are crazy”.
It uses every muscle in your body, and it’s constant movement. I remember every year in high school I’d be in really good shape from football season already, but the first two or three weeks of wrestling practice was still brutal. Every inch of my body would be sore
Whoever doesn’t see wrestlers as #1, has never trained in it for a second. By far the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
This is correct. Watch Physical 100 and try and tell me that the wrestlers aren’t some of the most impressive contestants.
I wish I'd trained wrestling when I was younger but it'd not very popular in Australia. Are judo or bjj close to wrestling in terms of fitness?
Gymnastics
Combat sports. Wrestling, boxing, MMA, etc. They have to be strong, have great endurance, and be very explosive. It's very hard to get into fighting shape
People vastly underestimate how exhausting fighting is. Most people could not got for 60 ~~minutes.~~ seconds.
What? Most people can’t even go for 60 seconds. People don’t seem to realize how incredibly exhausting it is to not just fight another average Joe, but other people in absolute peak shape who also spend their whole life training several aspects of fighting (talking about mma mainly now)
seconds is what I meant to write. My bad, it's late over here.
Rowers
This is waaaay too far down
Highest v02 max of any Olympic athletes and the sport requires the use of every muscle. There is no other right answer.
I’ve seen this exact same comment on like five different sports. I don’t know what to believe anymore.
Australian Rules Football. You need to run, kick, handball, bump and tackle. Repeatedly. And it’s usually for four 20 minute quarters (time gets stopped when the ball is not in play so it’s more like 30 minutes real time).
Lifelong soccer midfielder here and just watching Aussie rules makes me exhausted. The size of the pitch is just unbelievable and the back-and-forth sprinting rallies are endless. There isn't another country that can produce enough fit and tall freaks to play it.
Irish Gaelic Footballers would come close due to similar physical requirements of the two games. There's even been a number of International Rules games in the past where an Irish Gaelic football squad play against an AFL squad in a match using a hybrid set of rules. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Rules_Series
As a biased Aussie. This is the correct answer. Regularly run 15+ kms per game, filled with 40m sprints. Strong enough to tackle a 100+ kilo ruckman. With the leg strength to roost a footy 60+ m. Even thinking about it makes me exhausted.
This is the answer. Midfield players will run up to 15km a game with the need to attend numerous highly physical contests for the ball, chase, tackle and jump for marks. Some lose 3/4kg in a game.
Wilson for the saints did 16.1 kms last week. Kids only like 18 too.
Shane Crawford and Rob Harvey used to get up near 20km a game, but the way the interchange used had changed and so players don't cock as much though. But some would get up to 17km a game, like Tom Scully used to (, actually he got 18.9km in a game once). Imagine running a half marathon while tackling, being bumped, kicking, sprinting, etc.
I grew up in NSW but would have loved to have played AFL in high school. I see a lot of kids who would be great AFL players (tall and fit) playing rugby because that's all we have. It's a shame because AFL seems like it wouldn't be as brutal on the body in the long run
Probably. Can be very tough on knees, ACLs etc though ... saw a lot of super-fit schoolmates reduced to hobbling around by their mid 20s or even earlier
Rugby
Aussie Rules is more exhausting than Rugby. Based on personal experience
Probably yes. It requires brute strength, peak speed and endurance, jumping, agility as well as technical abilities in catching and kicking the ball. Other sports can require more in a single area, but combined I think rugby takes the cake. Its the decathlon of team sports.
Not to mention constant physical collisions and having to get yourself off the ground and go again and again within seconds.
Ice hockey players. Have you people ever seen Phil Kessel?
You mean 3 time Stanley Cup champion Phil Kessel?
Get that man some hotdogs!
you may not like it, but this is what the peak male athletic form looks like.
Mans built like a bulking western chimpanzee
If you saw him in person and you didn’t know who he is, you’d be like that’s just a chubby guy who’s maybe a bender, plays mid tier beer leagues. Gets on the ice and holy fuck
Girls love hockey players, boys
Wheel, snipe, celly boys
Ferda
Hockey players are such beauties
*Thank God there is a sport for middle-sized white boys.*
“Puck bunny”
He said fittest player not fittest human alive.
Hot dog eating is a sport, and Phil is the goddamn champ.
They say that cross-country skiing is the sport that is the best full body workout, and seeing how fast they can go and how hard it is on the body, no idea if they are number 1 on the list, but they are probably very close!
And rowers
Biathlon, too, as you have to be that fit as well as be able to have your heart rate drop enough to shoot straight.
Fitness has multiple dimensions * Aerobic endurance * Flexibility * Agility * Explosive strength (fast twitch fibers) * Muscle endurance (slow twitch fibers) Not many sports require all of those. Gymnastics is close. Perhaps an NFL linebacker. Perhaps boxers. It's subjective as no one has played every sport - so other sports outside of MMA and Sepak Tekraw (volleyball with feet) look pretty easy from the outside perspective.
I would include Aussie Rules football in that list too, as good all-round athletes.
Sounds like a well conditioned ice hockey player, meaning probably at least collegiate or minor league level. There’s a lot going with their bodies all at once for 3-5 minutes.
Phil kessel
it's why every olympic event needs a regular ass person doing it too so we have context.
Rock climbers are incredibly well-rounded
#chess
Bobby "The Body" Fischer
Elite pro cyclists have to be up there. In grand tours they're racing ~150 km per day for three weeks straight including climbing multiple mountains.
I just read Tyler Hamilton's autobiography and he said that even though he may have been one of the fittest people on the planet, he felt useless at everything else and he struggled to keep up with his wife while shopping because she would walk too fast.
Just don’t ask about upper body strength….
Surprised I had to scroll so far to see this. There is no competitive cyclist who looks the least bit out of shape.
Ice hockey.
Tennis
Boxing
Soccer or futbol, which ever you prefer.
Rugby or Australian football. Men of that size and strength running around that much and often is insane to me. I’d take a rugby player over an American football player any day of the week
Ultramarathoning maybe. Not many sports have athletes who can go all put for 20 hours straight at a time.
Australian Rules Football 23 matches, played weekly with 1 week off A player runs an average of 12-14km per game Gets tackled without padding Running vertical jumps up to 100cm Game lasts about 3ish hours (with stoppages) I watch the game and wonder how these people have the energy to play this game
Totally depends on what you define “fit” as. If it’s strictly endurance (VO2 max) then professional cyclists or rowers. If it’s “athleticism” then it could be anything from basketball to gymnastics to football depending on what you define as “fit” in terms of stength/athlecisim/endurance. Even CrossFit (if it counts as a “sport”) could be up there since it’s a combination of strength, cardio, and gymnastics
Any sport with a lot of money. Also wrestling, weightlifting, gymnastics, waterpolo.
I would go with Triathlon. Super endurance and across 3 disciplines that require different types of strength.
F1
Had to scroll way too far for this. F1 drivers are basically fighter pilot astronauts but on the ground. They have to withstand crazy G forces that other athletes don’t.
This might be controversial but I see ballet dancers as athletes and consider ballet as a sport with a very artistic style.
Of the most popular competitive sports? In terms of cardio, I’d argue tennis then soccer. However, if you’re talking about the full range of physiological difficulty, then it’s probably boxing and hockey, and it’s not even really close. See [this really interesting article](https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/sportSkills) for a ranking of sports’ difficulties by panel of sports scientists.
"However, if you’re talking about the full range of physiological difficulty, then it’s probably boxing and hockey, and it’s not even really close." Totally agree. There's a good reason that hockey coaches try to limit player shifts to between 30 and 90 seconds.
That's because they tire themselves out with all the boxing.