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The World's Fittest Sports - What You Think
There are individual athletes from a large range of sports which would be considered extremely fit, which ever way you define fitness (see info about the world's greatest athlete). However, here we are interested in the SPORT which requires the greatest demands of fitness. As fitness is not defined by just one component like endurance, speed or strength, the world's fittest sport would be one that requires the highest level overall on a wide range of factors.
We have come up with a list of factors of success in sports, and ranked just the fitness components of these for a range of sports to create our list of the World's Fittest Sports. In a similar process used by ESPN (Most Demanding Sports), by rating each of these factors in a whole range of sports, the profile of each sport can be compared to determine the sport ranked highest in terms of these fitness and sport psychology factors. See also my ranking of fittest sports using the same method as below. These sports rating figures are also being used to compare sports 'head to head', with interesting results so far.
Your Fittest Sports List
Comparing only the main trainable fitness components (aerobic, strength, speed/power, flexibility and agility) of the factors of success for a range of sports, the following sports are currently ranked highest based on your online ratigns. Surprisingly the predominantly female played sport of netball tops this list. And really, how much fitness is required for Clay target Shooting? Well this is how the site visitors have voted so far. This table was created March 2011 - the ratings are still being made so the rankings are expected to change over time. You can add your rating too. Not all sports are currently being rated, so there may be other sports that could score as well as these if they were included.
| Ranking | Sport | average fitness rating |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Netball | 67.2 |
| 2 | Boxing | 64.0 |
| 3 | Tennis | 63.2 |
| 4 | Shooting (Clay Target) | 63.2 |
| 5 | Rugby League | 63.0 |
| 6 | Water Polo | 62.8 |
| 7 | Diving | 62.8 |
| 8 | Gymnastics | 62.6 |
| 9 | Rugby Union | 62.4 |
| 10 | Field Hockey | 62.4 |
| 11 | Archery | 62.4 |
| 12 | Ultra-Edurance Events | 62.4 |
| 13 | Soccer | 62.2 |
| 14 | Weightlifting (Olympic) | 61.8 |
| 15 | Cycling (Road) | 61.6 |
Sports Ranking for each Fitness Component
The table above is based on the average ranking for all of the trainable fitness components: aerobic, strength, speed/power, flexibility and agility. We have also ranked the sports for each of these components to see what is thought to be the sport requiring the highest level of strength, speed etc. See the complete lists of factors of success sports rankings.
Comments
- In your list have you considered AFL Australian Football? (from Keith Davis, April 2011)
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Related Pages
- POLL: What do you think is the world's fittest sport?
- What is the Fittest Sport?
- See the ESPN Most Demanding Sports List.
- the complete lists of factors of success sports rankings.
- Some of the World's Greatest Athletes
- Who is the Greatest Athlete of All Time?
- Fitness Testing for Sports
