Greatest all round fitness sport?

King Damager

King Damager

King Damager

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Ok guys. Let's have a bit of fun.

What do we reckon is the greatest all round fitness sport?

By this I mean, a combination of strength, strength endurance, flexibility, cardio, skill etc....

I'm going off of my short list of say 5.

This is what I have (organised alphabetically)
Ice Hockey
Gymnastics
MMA
Triathlon
Rugby
Water Polo

So interesting set of choices here, but let me justify each, and this may explain a few of the shortcomings.
Ice Hockey - Skating around, hitting things hard, including people often. :)
Gymnastics - incredible strength, stuff they do on the dips etc.. They also have huge flexibility. Endurance is arguably not quite as impressive as some of the other sports though.
MMA - Any list that has looked at fitness has always included Boxing. For obvious reasons. Now take that, and throw in more skill, and arguably more brutality.
Triathlon - arguably the king of endurance sports. Supposedly it was invented because cyclist, swimmers and runners couldn't decide who was the fittest. Hence triathlon was created.
Rugby - Arguably obvious, men running around the field hitting each other. Kind of. A lot of fitness and strength required here, and much harder than any other field based sport in my opinion.
Water Polo - I feel people may laugh at this one. But here me out for something that is relatively unknown as a sport and not what you think as your hotel pool fun in real life. Swimming in general is seen as a great sign of fitness. So try treading water for fifteen minutes. Add swimming up and down the pool constantly into that with no breaks, and no touching the bottom of the pool. Add into it the fact that you're constantly, pushing, kicking and trying to get away with whatever you can without the referee seeing under the water, and I'd argue it's one of the greatest all round fitness sport in my mind.

I'll add a poll in once we've had a few more opinions and ideas.

kd
 
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Water polo out of the ones you have listed as there is no opportunity to take a breather like in other sports such as rugby etc. It is 100% all of the time otherwise your opponents will paste you.
 
Will add badminton as it involves:

cadio/stamina
explosive power
incredible finese
flexibility
very fast reactions

I always found it tougher than Gaelic football, football, tennis and swimming.
 
I'mma say American Football. 'Cause lets face it, what other sports see >6ft players with such ridiculous lean body mass being able to run so fast for extended periods of time? Some of those boys are huooooge.
 
Rowing. All major muscle groups used. Also cross country skiing. Athletes in both sports are amongst the fittest in any sport, with the highest V02 max
 
I'd say tennis as far as pro sports go. Players need huge levels of skill, the endurance to play five hour matches and a great deal of strength and explosive power.

At lower levels there is less demand on the body as players have a smaller range of shots and less ability to move their opponents round the court.
 
If your talking just doing it as your training and not training for a specific sport then I would assume swimming would be the best exercise to raise fitness levels
 
In addition to those already mentioned, F1 driver :p

Rather elite group, the vast majority have intense training schedules and keep to a very high fitness level, Jenson Button is a prime example who competes at pro triathlon standard.
 
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