Sport Ranking by Physical Exertion

[supermike80 1,913]

Sitting around with a couple friends watching the Red Wings game last night we were going through the top sports based on how physical the players need to be.

This was the final list:

1) Boxing

2) Football

3) Tennis

4) Hockey

5) Basketball

6) Soccer

7) Baseball

8)) Golf

9) Bowling

Good list? Any changes or adds?

This is professional level--that's why we thought tennis should be up there pretty high

[RLLD 4,230]

Wrestling should be right next to boxing I think

[iam90sbaby 2,611]

I'd put F1 at the 1 spot

[supermike80 1,913]

I didn't consider F1...good one.  We talked about wrestling too.  But no one really wanted to include it  LOL

Maybe it was the tights

[Alias Detective 1,402]

I’d move football down the list. 

[Cdub100 3,909]

Wrestling is #1

Tennis is too high

[MDC 7,431]

Football should be lower. 

Boxing/wrestling/MMA and tennis are good calls toward the top.

Basketball should be higher. The average NBA player runs more than 2 miles per game. 

[frank 2,307]

 

[cyclone24 1,913]

I can’t get on board with a wrestling when you’re sport only goes nine minutes. I don’t care how hard it is. It’s nine minutes. 
 

You don’t have to run, jump, etc. 

Id up basketball a little and drop football. Tennis seems a smidge high and very case by case… I played at a pretty good level and you can get in some of those dog fights that are every bit of three hours and it’s the deadest I’ve ever been. But overall I wouldn’t call it a top sport for it. 
 

never played hockey, but it seems hard as . 

[tubby_mcgee 701]

14 minutes ago, cyclone24 said:

I can’t get on board with a wrestling when you’re sport only goes nine minutes. I don’t care how hard it is. It’s nine minutes. 

More kids quit wrestling because its too hard. 

Wrestling starts right after Cross Country.  Over the last 3 years....we've had 7 cross country runners join wrestling.  All have quit. 100% of them.  One is a family friend.  He told me "he didn't like it".  His parents told me that he admitted to them it's too hard. 

After we have a few kids quit every season, I say to the room "Little Johnny is done.  Wrestling is hard" I then ask them how many of you are in tennis?  Raise your hand. Football, raise your hand.  Track? Tennis? Hockey?  etc.  Etc.  I then say "Is any sports practice as hard as wrestling?"   Kids come in immediately after cross country season...and are puking during wrestling practice. 

In 14 years of coaching, I've NEVER had a kid say any high school sport was as hard as wrestling.

If you haven't wrestled, you don't get a vote.  How could you think you get a vote standing on the outside?

The only votes that truly count are the ones for folks that have wrestled and done other sports.  They can make a comparison because they've felt/experienced both.

I'd say boxing and MMA are at the top also.  
 

MMA has got to be #1.  15-25 minutes wrestling/boxing combination.

Boxing is 45-60 minutes...but....its not 100% use of your body 100% of the time.  Coasting happens.  Coasting doesn't happen in wrestling at the higher levels.

 

[Gepetto 1,368]

I'd move football down to near Soccer. They huddle up a lot in football. The plays last like 5 seconds give or take, and they usually don't run very far, and then a big break before the next 5 seconds of exertion.

[Strike 5,553]

Hockey and Basketball should be 1 and 2.  Not sure why you'd have Boxing and Tennis so high.  In both of those sports you get significant breaks quite often.  In Boxing, in addition to breaks between rounds, if you get tired you just grab the other buy until the ref separates you, and then you grab him again.  In Tennis, you can rest between points and then every two games.  In hockey and basketball you are in constant motion and, other than timeouts, the breaks are minimal.  And MMA needs to be in there.  Rounds are 5 minutes and you're still "fighting" even if you grab the other guy because it's legal and that guy will try to put you to sleep so you can't ever rest during the 5 minute round. 

[SUXBNME 1,503]

Outdoor Motocross - #1 without a doubt.

[tubby_mcgee 701]

One thing is....you can't get in a shape for one sport, by doing another. 

You could take a marathon runner and have them go to a wrestling practice, and they'll be dead ass tired.  And vice versa.   Now that comment is not intended on being indication on which sport is harder.  Like,  cross country has more of a seamless transition to basketball than cross cross country does to wrestling.  Both cross country and basketball are running, but basketball incorporates more sprinting, stop, sprint, stop sprint etc.   

In wrestling, we do other forms of cardio to break up the monotony and to reduce injury risk.  But the only way the kids get in wrestling shape is to wrestle.

We just did a swimming workout for cardio the other night.  Kids were dead ass tired. 

Which leads me to this....

What about Water Polo?  That seems like that would be ranked very high also in "how hard is it". 

[Alias Detective 1,402]

45 minutes ago, Strike said:

Hockey and Basketball should be 1 and 2.  Not sure why you'd have Boxing and Tennis so high.  In both of those sports you get significant breaks quite often.  In Boxing, in addition to breaks between rounds, if you get tired you just grab the other buy until the ref separates you, and then you grab him again.  In Tennis, you can rest between points and then every two games.  In hockey and basketball you are in constant motion and, other than timeouts, the breaks are minimal.  And MMA needs to be in there.  Rounds are 5 minutes and you're still "fighting" even if you grab the other guy because it's legal and that guy will try to put you to sleep so you can't ever rest during the 5 minute round. 

Check out how long the average hockey shift is.  You will be surprised.

[supermike80 1,913]

1 hour ago, cyclone24 said:

I can’t get on board with a wrestling when you’re sport only goes nine minutes. I don’t care how hard it is. It’s nine minutes. 
 

You don’t have to run, jump, etc. 

Id up basketball a little and drop football. Tennis seems a smidge high and very case by case… I played at a pretty good level and you can get in some of those dog fights that are every bit of three hours and it’s the deadest I’ve ever been. But overall I wouldn’t call it a top sport for it. 
 

never played hockey, but it seems hard as . 

The hockey thing is what got us started on it.   Those guys hump...Yeah only a couple minutes per turn, but man.

We put tennis high up there cause 5 sets can go a couple hours..Lots of running hitting, jumping.  Seemed like a marathon.

Didn't include MMA....figured that could fall into the boxing category.

Not sure why folks would want to drop football.  That's a lot of physical activity.  realize it is position based of course.

Basketball....meh...It's jogging mostly.   And only 48 minutes.

 

[MLCKAA 574]

Football goes way lower.  It’s way overrated.  The actual amount of action is under 20 minutes per game.  Offense/defense not on the field at the same time, so the individual player isn’t even working during all of the real action.  Aside from OL/DL and LB, many players are only putting forth minimal effort on some plays.

Wrestling obviously goes near the top.  Soccer is way up there.  Tennis is a fcking killer.  Distance running?  

[supermike80 1,913]

5 minutes ago, MLCKAA said:

Football goes way lower.  It’s way overrated.  The actual amount of action is under 20 minutes per game.  Offense/defense not on the field at the same time, so the individual player isn’t even working during all of the real action.  Aside from OL/DL and LB, many players are only putting forth minimal effort on some plays.

Wrestling obviously goes near the top.  Soccer is way up there.  Tennis is a fcking killer.  Distance running?  

Fair point about the time spent actually doing football things..But when you do..You do....

[jerryskids 6,799]

By "physical exertion," it seems like we are interpreting it as cardio endurance.  Which, if so, introduce sports like cross country skiing which I've heard is the most cardio-intensive.

But there are other measures of physical exertion.  Olympic weightlifting (clean and jerk, snatch) take tremendous explosive power, for instance.

[cyclone24 1,913]

3 hours ago, tubby_mcgee said:

More kids quit wrestling because its too hard. 

Wrestling starts right after Cross Country.  Over the last 3 years....we've had 7 cross country runners join wrestling.  All have quit. 100% of them.  One is a family friend.  He told me "he didn't like it".  His parents told me that he admitted to them it's too hard. 

After we have a few kids quit every season, I say to the room "Little Johnny is done.  Wrestling is hard" I then ask them how many of you are in tennis?  Raise your hand. Football, raise your hand.  Track? Tennis? Hockey?  etc.  Etc.  I then say "Is any sports practice as hard as wrestling?"   Kids come in immediately after cross country season...and are puking during wrestling practice. 

In 14 years of coaching, I've NEVER had a kid say any high school sport was as hard as wrestling.

If you haven't wrestled, you don't get a vote.  How could you think you get a vote standing on the outside?

The only votes that truly count are the ones for folks that have wrestled and done other sports.  They can make a comparison because they've felt/experienced both.

I'd say boxing and MMA are at the top also.  
 

MMA has got to be #1.  15-25 minutes wrestling/boxing combination.

Boxing is 45-60 minutes...but....its not 100% use of your body 100% of the time.  Coasting happens.  Coasting doesn't happen in wrestling at the higher levels.

 

What stupid logic. I played basketball in college so I guess basketball is the hardest and sorry you don’t get a vote because you didn’t play at that level? How stupid would that be of me to say?
 

Again, I don’t care how hard it is. Your sport is nine minutes. That’s great you guys practice hard and hold up each other’s asses so they make weight. 
What’s funny is a lot of sports are hard, but only the wrestlers try to shove this philosophy down your throat that they are the hardest. Basketball? Football? We all know those are we don’t have to say it. Wrestlings always trying to justify it. It’s a fringe sport that like two states and like three countries, give a crap about. And most of them are just kids that were way too short to actually play basketball.

 

you don’t have to run you don’t have to jump you don’t play with a ball, you don’t have to account for anybody else, but one person, you don’t have to process plays, process defenses, you don’t have to cover large amounts of ground. When you have to do that longer than it takes me to take a dump then I’ll consider it tough

[supermike80 1,913]

32 minutes ago, jerryskids said:

By "physical exertion," it seems like we are interpreting it as cardio endurance.  Which, if so, introduce sports like cross country skiing which I've heard is the most cardio-intensive.

But there are other measures of physical exertion.  Olympic weightlifting (clean and jerk, snatch) take tremendous explosive power, for instance.

We weren't thinking cardio.  I don't see boxing as a cardio thing.  I see it as a physical thing where you can get the crap beat out of you and that seems very  physically challenging.

 

[tubby_mcgee 701]

2 hours ago, cyclone24 said:

What stupid logic. I played basketball in college so I guess basketball is the hardest and sorry you don’t get a vote because you didn’t play at that level? How stupid would that be of me to say?

You missed the part about I ask kids that played both sports.  We had one that dual-sported the entire year.    Played basketball and wrestled.

He laughed when asked which was harder and said it's not even close.    I'm not saying based on my "view".

I'm saying based on the comments from those that have done both.  Can you name a better source?

 

Oh, and basketball is for absolute pussies. 

 

I'm in the school system.  I see the kids. I've tried recruiting a few  basketball players to to wrestle..  Most are built like pussies, and most can't handle any kind of physical challenge/confrontation.  Any kind of adversity they lay down.   That's why the ones (other than 2) that have tried in the last 13 years have quit.

That's why on a percentage basis, a higher number of wrestlers start on the FB team. 

That's why Forbes had an article...something like "When choosing between candidates, choose the wrestler"  

 

[cyclone24 1,913]

7 minutes ago, tubby_mcgee said:

You missed the part about I ask kids that played both sports.  We had one that dual-sported the entire year.    Played basketball and wrestled.

He laughed when asked which was harder and said it's not even close.    I'm not saying based on my "view".

I'm saying based on the comments from those that have done both.  Can you name a better source?

 

Oh, and basketball is for absolute pussies. 

 

Lol. Like I said, only wrestling is constantly trying to justify how tough they are. It’s like a girl that looks in the mirror and tells herself she’s pretty every day. 
 

I’m sure wrestling is tough. Your sport your body is your main tool since most of them are tiny little runts and they don’t have to use a bat or a ball and they don’t have to go more than about 10 or 15 feet in any direction ever. It’s a nice feeder tool, or sport for the kids that actually want to play football.
But it’s big in like two states so I mean cool

[seafoam1 3,031]

 

 

[Cdub100 3,909]

6 hours ago, cyclone24 said:

I can’t get on board with a wrestling when you’re sport only goes nine minutes. I don’t care how hard it is. It’s nine minutes. 
 

You don’t have to run, jump, etc. 

Id up basketball a little and drop football. Tennis seems a smidge high and very case by case… I played at a pretty good level and you can get in some of those dog fights that are every bit of three hours and it’s the deadest I’ve ever been. But overall I wouldn’t call it a top sport for it. 
 

never played hockey, but it seems hard as . 

I do lots of wrestling. People who think they are in shape including cross fitters can't hang for more than 2 minutes.

There's in shape and then there's fighting shape. 

[cyclone24 1,913]

Just now, Cdub100 said:

I do lots of wrestling. People who think they are in shape including cross fitters can't hang for more than 2 minutes.

There's in shape and then there's fighting shape. 

Absolutely. It’s different just like basketball players couldn’t do marathons even though they are also in shape.