Most "conditioned" athletes

[Nutriaitch]

tough one to answer.
I know people who do most of the choices.

and the thing is, almost none of them are able to do some of the other choices.

example:
I know a guy who was one hell of a soccer player in college.
but he always wore out on the basketball court.
a friend of ours always played basketball, but ran out of gas trying to play soccer.

i played football. neither of them could hang with some of the conditioning we did. and i would struggle to keep my breath playing either of their sports.

 

[BUCKYLE]

Interpret as you wish.

 

[jwinslow]

This. Pound for pound, the acro and tumbling/cheer folks are by far the hardest workers on our campus....

Wrestlers for men, acro/tumbling for women.

Plus the conditioner.

 

[southcampus]

I feel like Runners, cyclists, and swimmers take the cake here.

 

[ImFrigginFly]

Billiards, and it's not even close.

 

[OneBuckeye]

Softball Guy puts in the most work. Obvi.

 

[darbypitcher22]

tough one to answer.
I know people who do most of the choices.

and the thing is, almost none of them are able to do some of the other choices.

example:
I know a guy who was one hell of a soccer player in college.
but he always wore out on the basketball court.
a friend of ours always played basketball, but ran out of gas trying to play soccer.

i played football. neither of them could hang with some of the conditioning we did. and i would struggle to keep my breath playing either of their sports.

I was thinking this same thing. They're all different types of conditioning for different skill sets.

 

[OneBuckeye]

I think the question is better is who would win a series of events that tested the "conditioning level". What events? I'm not sure. But I would think 3 things should be tested, Speed, Strength and Endurance.

I think a wrestler or football player would win this event.

 

[knapplc]

As a follower of Le Tour for the last 25-ish years, I'm going with cyclists.

But the discussion on different kinds of conditioning has much merit. Regarding the difference between running and cycling:

You gotta give Lance Armstrong credit. He did more or less what he hoped to do, and finished the ING New York City Marathon in 2:59:36, holding on to his sub-3 goal when the going got tough. He also handed out plenty of plaudits to the distance and the event. "Given the level of my condition, this was the hardest thing I've ever done," he said. "Considering all my Tours, even the worst days, nothing was as difficult or left me with such a sense of fatigue and so much soreness as the marathon today.

"Sure I'm not in super shape, because this isn't my job, the way the Tour was. And I suppose I didn't train sufficiently for a marathon. But when I had 3 miles to go, even though I knew I had a chance for a sub-3-hour race, which was my goal, I was so tired I just didn't care. If you had told me I was going to finish in 3:05, I would have said, 'So what?' I don't care."

LINK

There are about a dozen caveats to that admission by Armstrong, including the facts that this isn't an event he's built/trained for, and he didn't run it in his peak condition. But it still bears noting that a world-class athlete in one sport had difficulty completing an event in another sport.

One last caveat - take the winners of each of this country's elite marathons, give them six months to train, and set them on a bike pointing up l'Alpe d'Huez. I'm betting more than 3/4 of them wouldn't finish the climb. Again - it's all about how you train, and what your body is built for.

 

[BrutuStrength]

I competed in soccer, wrestling, and football while growing up. I felt I was the most conditioned while playing rugby in college, despite all of the partying and such I did at the time. It was non-stop running and hitting.

 

[buckeyebri]

I think the hardest conditioning I did was in wrestling, it certainly beat what we did on the golf team.

In college I did tae kwon do and we would spend at least one hour working on conditioning in preparation for instruction and sparring. I was definitely in incredible shape while taking that.

 

[MolGenBuckeye]

There are about a dozen caveats to that admission by Armstrong, including the facts that this isn't an event he's built/trained for, and he didn't run it in his peak condition. But it still bears noting that a world-class athlete in one sport had difficulty completing an event in another sport.

Lance also started his career as a triathlete, so it's not like he was even a first timer at the sport.

Totally agree with the sentiment that it depends on body type and training. This argument is basically what decathlon and long course triathlon were created to answer, though. So, I'd say distance runner for Ironman given recent trends, and maybe a WR/CB type football player for decathlon.

Hey, there's an idea. Hold a decathlon, and then do an Ironman with a staggered start based on the decathlon scoring. First one across the line wins the whole thing.

 

[knapplc]

Totally forgot about the Ironman race. Can you lump all three activities into one sport? Those folks are crazy-conditioned.

I'm a big lump of a guy, but I really like watching Le Tour. I would never compete in a biking event, run a marathon or distance swim, but that stuff fascinates me. I'd rather watch hours of Le Tour coverage than golf or soccer.

 

[muffler dragon]

These athletes (male and female) are bad ass in the conditioning department as well.

http://games.crossfit.com/

 

[AKAK]

I think that other sports such as wrestling and swimming require more explosiveness rather than grinding for hours/miles and they require the use/torture of more muscle groups. So, yes, conditioned is up for interpretation.

When I saw Thump's list (and that's without Wrestlers, which are of course very worthy of consideration) it was between Swimmers and Cyclists for me, and much for the same reason, and that's of course because cyclists don't just grind for hours. While we shouldn't let the Tour de France be the example, as there's a lot more to cycling than that, but its the most known here and even within that, you have guys that are good at several different discipline, time trialing and mountain riding are different than just grinding it out. And, even in the flat stages if you don't have a break away trying to grind the peloton to death, the win comes down to flat out sprinters at the end. So, someone who is good at all those things is somewhat analagous to to a guy like Michael Phelps that is good at multiple swimming distances.

But yeah, specialization makes it hard.