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Sport Specific Athleticism
What is athleticism? The term athleticism encompasses all the attributes that make up a successful sports person. It is different from fitness - many people can be fit, for example having good endurance, speed, power, strength, but they may not necessarily be athletic. In addition to the basic physical components of fitness are other sporting attributes such as body control, decision making and reaction time, which as a whole makes a person more 'athletic' and subsequently a successful sports person.
In an interesting exercise by 'Page 2' on ESPN, they decided to once-and-for-all determine which of the world's sports is the most demanding. They analyzed 60 sports and got experts in their field to rank them (see full ranking list) based on the ten skills listed below that they determined make up athleticism. From this ranking list, we were able to determine which sports were rated highest for each of these individual components of athleticism.
- Endurance — which sports are rated highest in terms of endurance.
- Strength — highest ranking strength sports.
- Power — highest ranking sports for power.
- Speed — highest ranking sports for speed.
- Agility — highest ranking sports for agility
- Flexibility — highest ranking sports in terms of flexibility
- Hand-Eye Coordination — sports requiring good hand-eye coordination.
- Nerve — the sports ranked highest for 'the fear factor'
- Durability — sports whose athletes need to constantly withstand physical punishment
- Analytic Aptitude — top sports needing the ability to evaluate and react to strategic situations
