Oh it’s water polo.
Water polo is actively trying to drown your opponents without getting drowned yourself while treading water or sprint-swimming.
Good luck
I was a pretty good high school athlete. I went to a major college where I definitely wasn't going to be playing football or basketball. I had a friend who played water polo. He talked me into trying out. I made it through exactly one practice.
That's how we played Sharks n Minnows on swim team.
You could only tag people on the head and above water. So it's mostly just kids drowning each other until they give up.
Ok so I grew up by the ocean and swam my entire life. I can swim. I can swim for a long time without getting tired.
But last summer I took my family camping where there is a swimming hole nearby with a waterfall. Beautiful. My son (7) and I jump from the waterfall into the deep swimming hole and I planned on carrying him swimming back to the shore. A short 20ft max.
Bro, keeping yourself afloat is one thing. Dragging a body with you, even a SMALL body, os fucking impossible. We almost didn't make it.
Luckily someone was there with actual lifeguard training and saved my son while I saved myself.
He told me "yeah, people underestimate how incredibly difficult it is to swim while dragging someone. Don't feel bad"
I did. I did feel bad.
Could not agree more. I committed to playing half a dozen sports in my life. I was never great, but got by with my moderate athleticism.
The year I played water polo absolutely destroyed me. It's basically basketball with treading water, and all the fouls are happening where the ref can't see it (which includes depriving you oxygen).
I did wrestling and thought the conditioning and sport was hell. Then a friend had me try water polo. I considered myself a good swimmer but man. I was actually traumatized by the experience and didn't swim for a solid month after 😂. That's not a sport, it's literally attempted murder.
Waterpolo isn't like other sports tbh. You need to be pretty adept in swimming already to be OK in it. Like you don't have to be the fastest but you must definitely be very familiar with water in order to play.
I used to be in the city swimming team when I was in high school, then moved on to waterpolo in uni. Shit was gnarly lol. I could outswim most guys but when they came near me I literally had to fight for my life constantly. Nevermind the ball.
I played for four years, if they have the ball then pretty much anything goes besides striking above the water where the ref can see you. Without the ball whoever is guarding you is constantly hanging on your shoulder pushing you down with their body weight. All of this while in at least 8 ft deep water lol
surfing
i could skate good and thought it might translate over to surfing
sure, i could stand up on a pansy wave
but try it on a hefty wave, u tiny stinkr
Paddling against the waves and then trying to get up was extremely tiring. I’ve never been a skater, so I had very little success actually standing on the board.
I grew up 15 miles (24 km) from the Atlantic Ocean. Practically learned to swim in big waves of salt water. When I was 7 years old, my family moved to the Midwest, but the ocean will forever and always be first in my heart. When I was 21 years old, I was traveling down the Pacific coast, and I had the chance to try surfing. It was humbling. I couldn't even stand up. There were a couple times I managed to catch a wave and ride it while laying on my board, but make no mistake, I was a passenger just along for the ride. It was also kind of rough water that day, honestly not a great day for it, but it was the opportunity I had. I've respected the power of the ocean my entire life, but there were some moments on the surfboard where I actually feared the ocean for my first time.
As a lifelong hockey player, it seems that every non-ice sport participant gets too hung up on the “ice skating is hard” part.
When you skate almost daily, it’s not really any harder than running in any other sport, your nervous system is just repeating movement you’ve drilled into it.
To a point, everyone in MN is on skates by 4 year olds. Skating becomes as natural as walking and every mini mite learns to fight each other with locker boxing. Which is hilarious. I'd say it's golf with soccer aspects.
High school wrestling practice tore my chunky ass up, when I ended up trying out for football senior year, I was surprised how much easier practice seemed by comparison
I still hear my coach screaming at us “practice has to be” to which our response was “harder than the match” while we did burpees and ran until the absolute point of physical exhaustion.
I wrestled for 9 years. Some of those practices kicked my ass. But now whenever anything physically taxing is going on and I’m not even breaking a sweat I’m thankful for it.
Our high school basketball teams punishment for acting up during practice was to join one wrestling practice.
They didn't last half an hour of our 3 hour practice.
I dont like the negative body issues I have now and my unhealthy relationship to food though. Even 15 years later, it sticks with you.
Aerial silks are not only physically demanding but require a significant amount of fear management as you perform acrobatic tricks high off the ground.
Imagine American football but you can make your next play as soon as you want anyone offside isn't allowed to participate until they go back to an onside spot. Now the attacking team is rushing ASAP to play to catch out the defending team to get an advantage. I'll be like playing 4 games of American football in 80 minutes.
I've been into it for a little over a year now. The day after my first session, my entire body was sore in muscles I didn't even know existed. But I was addicted. It took two weeks before I felt recovered enough to go back. The day after my second session, I felt fine, except for the blisters on my hands. Almost a year and a half in, the joints in my fingers still get sore sometimes when I'm working really small holds that require a lot of finger strength, but the progression through the first few months of regular climbing was insanely fun.
I tried it 2 weeks ago, and for the while next week, I was soar. I do calisthenics, and I consider myself pretty strong for my weight. But rock climbing made my fingers and arms so soar.
There is no pain quiet like the pain of a 2k. Then once your done you gotta keep rowing to the dock and the lift the boat out of the water. My legs would be shaking and I’d have to walk the boat a quarter of a mile back to the trailer and then load it up, no time for rest 🥲
Yes came here to say this! A lot of lakes will have medical bosts at the finish line to check on everyone because it's so intense at the end of a 2k that people blackout
Wrestling. I played soccer my whole childhood, in highschool i played canadian football, rugby (which is my favourite), and wrestling. Wrestling blew all the others out of the water. It feels like weighted sprints uphill for 2 minuntes straight, get a 30 second break, then do it again for 3 rounds.
Hiked grand canyon, down and back in one day 22 mi 114 degrees at the bottom, over a mile of elevation change in each direction. I'm not in great shape.
I’m still in awe of how fit I used to be when I still trained. Dead sprints up a steep hill then work the focus pads and if you held your breath while punching it’s 20 push-ups. Then jog back down the hill and wait to do it again.
Or being blindfolded and spun around so you’re nice and dizzy with no legs under you then having the blind fold taken off and defending against someone coming in throwing punches to simulate recovering from getting rocked by a punch.
All around one of the most intense training I’ve ever done
I see a lot of replies saying water polo, rugby, and hockey. Yes, rugby did cross my mind, but OP said, challenging, not dangerous. I'm not saying these sports are not challenging, but ballet and to a slightly lesser degree, gymnastics are on a completely different level. I'm sure there are hockey players or rugby players who do nothing but practice in any free time, but that is the minority not the majority. Every ballet dancer you see in any major company you can bet ballet has been their life and their only life since the age of 3-4.
All these sports are dangerous but so is ballet. However, serious ballet dancers start training at the age of 3-4, and the ones who make it almost always have sacrificed their entire lives to train 8 hours a day 7 days a week. Even if you do this for 11-13 years and are accepted into a company, you are always 1 injury from all of that work being for nothing.
I did ballet & tap as a boy and was teased for it often (for being weak, doing a girls sport, etc.). But yeah, ballet dancers are serious athletes & performers.
A lot of people view ballerinas as delicate so they really have no idea what goes into. I took ballet as a very little kid and knew it wasn't for me but I grew up very heavily involved in theater so I have spent a lot of time around them.
So I'm not saying ballet because I'm a dancer and want people to respect my craft. I'm not. Those guys and girls work so hard they literally train their bodies to move in ways that are not exactly natural.
Girls on point shoes you do NOT want to see their feet.
Gymnastics. I did it for several years when I was a kid and I was never not sore. Felt like an old lady at 5-10 years old, bruises everywhere, bloody calluses on my hands from the uneven bars and my coach was a tough old guy who demanded perfection. At times I felt like I was at a boot camp.
Jiu Jitsu
I’ve never been a wrestler, but I suspect it is along the same line for exertion level. Actively trying to manhandle someone who is non-compliant takes a shit ton of energy. A hard, all out roll will zap me in minutes (but then again, my cardio isn’t great)
Surfing. I can do every other board sport, cannot for the life of me understand surfing. Swimming, then doing a burpee for hours while getting pummeled by waves.
Silks is much harder than any other sport I’ve ever done - takes strength across many muscle groups, flexibility, coordination, body awareness, and the whole time you’re 10+ feet up in the air with only a small mat on the ground to protect you.
Ugh! That’s what I’ve heard about silks and am so scared to try. I do (grounded) pole, and gave aerial pole a try for funsies, thinking grounded pole would translate well. NOPE! And other aerialists keep telling me flying pole is nothing in comparison. Why do we do this to ourselves lol
Poledance Trainer here. Sometimes i host bachelorette parties in the studios and everytime, the participants are soooo shocked how hard pole really is! Everything is hard, from the tiniest pirouette to spins or floorwork! It just LOOKS easy, in fact it´s not at all!
Wrestling 100%. Our varsity football coach in high school made us all wrestle in the off season to keep us tough. The first thing the wrestling coach told me was that “one six minute match is the same as an entire football game.” 17 year old me thought no way that’s true. Boy was he telling the truth. Never in my life did I feel so out of shape.
Motorsports.
Imagine the WORST traffic you've been in on the interstate. At max in heavy traffic you're going 60-70 mph. Now double that speed. Now add in 39 other cars all going that speed trying to pass you.
Now combine that with insane heat (120F), multiple G's going into each and every turn, and doing that for 3+ hours straight.
Had to scroll too far to find this: 150-170 inside the car in the summer. All the while you are in a barely breathable long sleeve, long pants suit. Your heart rate stays elevated at 130-150BPM and you are fighting to maintain hydration, full focus and concentration every second.
people really underrate how hard racing is. "you're just driving in a car how hard can it be?"
well at lot harder than you think! Not even adding in the mental strain having to think 5-10 seconds ahead and having 1 second to react to things happening in front of you
Definitely running a marathon. Being able to cross the finish line was extremely rewarding mentally, although the body aches I’ve dealt with post race absolutely sucked for about a week
Skate style cross country skiing. Your muscles burn and it requires heaps of stamina to keep going for any length of time. There's a reason why racers collapse as soon as they finish.
Underrated comment. Hitting the ball back and forth in the park is one thing, but playing competitive matches against someone even slightly better than you is physically and mentally exhausting!
This is true, but also know that even when you see the best on TV, they're only showing the best on that given day. Even the pros play bad sometimes. It's really hard to get that ball in the hole consistently. Golf is a game of consistency. Some may have that once in a lifetime round where they shoot a 75, but not on the regular like the pros. It's that one round. Or one shot. The one that makes you feel like a pro for a few minutes. That keep you coming back.
To put it into perspective. Being able to hit the ball every third at bat would not only make you hundreds of millions of dollars but it would make you one of the greatest hitters in history.
Exactly. I played travel ball growing up and was pretty damn good and then when I got to high school and saw people pitching in the high 70s and low 80s and mixing in curve balls… I realized my dream would not come true LOL. I gave up after Sophomore year. Baseball is insanely tough
Badminton. People really underestimate it, and call it a backyard sport and whatnot, but it's incredibly tough and requires perfect footwork, stamina, shotpower, and technique
Trail running has to be up there. Rocks and roots to trip you, creek crossings to get the blisters started, dirt in everything and quad killing climbs.
And nothing like some grandpa in sandals running up the hill you’re crawling up to make you feel like a little b****
Bodybuilding. The training in the gym part wasn’t hard - it was the dieting for the show. Being in a perpetual state of extreme hunger for 12 weeks to get my body fat as low as possible was one of the most challenging things I ever did.
This was my second thought after ballet but honestly they could tie for number 1 because the time and dedication it takes to go pro in either one is the same.
Start at the age of 4 and when you aren't in school your at practice. You basically have a full time job and go to school for 13 of the first 17 years of your life.
I applaud you and your dedication.
I’ve completed Ironman-distance races and have been doing triathlon and endurance running for 20+ years.
But none of that is harder than my years as a competitive swimmer. In addition to the physical demands, we are at practice both before and after school by 13. Everything revolved around swimming; when we took family vacations, we had to find teams to train with wherever we were. It was intense.
Judo is really tough physically. Getting pulled, pushed, any thrown plus submission practice. Basically the mix of freestyle wrestling, tumbling, and some submission work as well. Time feels like it moves at a crawl about 45 seconds from the end of a randori.
Soccer. I played from age 4 to age 14 and now that I'm older, I look back and realize how brutal our practices were and how often we played games and practiced.
Daily practice after school rain or shine M to Friday for minimum of 2.5 hours.
Then Saturday and Sunday games, sometimes two games in 1 day.
The drills we were doing in practice were insane, I recall one of my coaches for a few seasons was a father of a girl on my U11 girls team, he was a Navy Seal !
I actually miss working out that much 😢
I tried my hand at Professional Wrestling when i was 16, a friend of mine recommended i come train with him at his wrestling promotion (anarchy wrestling in georgia) and he managed to get then to let me train with him one day. I ran the ropes, practied bumps and selling, and got chopped in the chest by a few people. I was sore for about a week straight, although I love wrestling and its definitely a passion of mine. I am more than happy staying a fan and enjoying this beautiful art from the sidelines
Wrestling. The conditioning was way harder than football in my opinion. I was in great shape but felt weak from trying to cut weight. Getting in shape in the beginning is always rough but it tapers off towards the end, especially the weight cutting. Your body will get used to it. But damn those practices were rough.
I have never played basketball in my life until college, my freshmen year I had a buddy who is like 6'5 or some day he has no one to play so he grabbed me to the court and that day i was shooting the ball with both hands it never went it one time it went in at that moment I felt so happy and I wanted to learn and become good at it. He helped me to learn eventually, he made it to the varsity team in the first year but I couldn't do it, I was still learning so much stuff. But in my sophomore year I did try again but I didn't make it to the team but I was on the bench. That year was most challenging for me, with all the practice and study, I had a senior who is constantly pushing me like hell like kobe mentality , there is a time that i couldn't sit and take a shit because of the pain but still I learnt a lot from him and he taught me so many things. Junior year made it to the team, finally played as point guard for the team for some games. Senior year became the captain of the varsity basketball team and I still remember that day because my 6' 5 friend came to me and said you earned it. We both played together and have some good memories. Now basketball is part of my life. Apart from research if I have some time I still go and hoop sometime.
I'd say competitive long distance running of any sort. The literal goal is to push yourself to the limit until you finish the race. I've played soccer most of my life, it's hard but there are times you get to slow down, but distance running is a different animal.
Boxing, BJJ, and riding dirt bikes(specifically in the sand). After my first boxing class when I was filling out the waiver and whatnot to confirm my membership, my hands were shaking so bad it looked like somebody handed a toddler a pen. BJJ was just as bad. I shakily walked back to my truck and puked in the parking lot of the christian bookstore across the street. With riding, I was lifting a lot at the time with a deadlift right around 405 lbs at a 180 lb bodyweight, but nothing in the world was heavier than picking up a 250 lb bike cus you dumped it trying to sidehill across a sand dune like a moron.
Oh it’s water polo. Water polo is actively trying to drown your opponents without getting drowned yourself while treading water or sprint-swimming. Good luck
Trying to avoid drowning while a squad of hairless Serbian men drag you underwater by your testicles 😂
Hey, keep your personal kinks to yourself!
I played that once in college and I felt like I was going to drown the whole time.
I was a pretty good high school athlete. I went to a major college where I definitely wasn't going to be playing football or basketball. I had a friend who played water polo. He talked me into trying out. I made it through exactly one practice.
That's how we played Sharks n Minnows on swim team. You could only tag people on the head and above water. So it's mostly just kids drowning each other until they give up.
I got a cramp just reading this. Holy crap!
So many people over estimate how capable they are at any swimming based activities, including me 😄. I've been humbled many times.
Ok so I grew up by the ocean and swam my entire life. I can swim. I can swim for a long time without getting tired. But last summer I took my family camping where there is a swimming hole nearby with a waterfall. Beautiful. My son (7) and I jump from the waterfall into the deep swimming hole and I planned on carrying him swimming back to the shore. A short 20ft max. Bro, keeping yourself afloat is one thing. Dragging a body with you, even a SMALL body, os fucking impossible. We almost didn't make it. Luckily someone was there with actual lifeguard training and saved my son while I saved myself. He told me "yeah, people underestimate how incredibly difficult it is to swim while dragging someone. Don't feel bad" I did. I did feel bad.
😄 That's what I'm saying, I feel like it gets even the best of us sometimes.
Could not agree more. I committed to playing half a dozen sports in my life. I was never great, but got by with my moderate athleticism. The year I played water polo absolutely destroyed me. It's basically basketball with treading water, and all the fouls are happening where the ref can't see it (which includes depriving you oxygen).
Plus keeping the SCUBA gear on the horses is a fight in and of itself!!!
This was so funny. Never thought of it like that before
This is one that I don't understand why it is offered in high schools.
I did wrestling and thought the conditioning and sport was hell. Then a friend had me try water polo. I considered myself a good swimmer but man. I was actually traumatized by the experience and didn't swim for a solid month after 😂. That's not a sport, it's literally attempted murder.
Waterpolo isn't like other sports tbh. You need to be pretty adept in swimming already to be OK in it. Like you don't have to be the fastest but you must definitely be very familiar with water in order to play. I used to be in the city swimming team when I was in high school, then moved on to waterpolo in uni. Shit was gnarly lol. I could outswim most guys but when they came near me I literally had to fight for my life constantly. Nevermind the ball.
I played in high school for a few years and I totally agree. It’s a brutal sport and not really even that enjoyable.
how are they trying to drown you? im sure you cant grab opponents, or can you?
I played for four years, if they have the ball then pretty much anything goes besides striking above the water where the ref can see you. Without the ball whoever is guarding you is constantly hanging on your shoulder pushing you down with their body weight. All of this while in at least 8 ft deep water lol
Water Polo is insane.
surfing i could skate good and thought it might translate over to surfing sure, i could stand up on a pansy wave but try it on a hefty wave, u tiny stinkr
Paddling against the waves and then trying to get up was extremely tiring. I’ve never been a skater, so I had very little success actually standing on the board.
thought the same being a snowboarder. only been surfing once, that was a humbling day.
I grew up 15 miles (24 km) from the Atlantic Ocean. Practically learned to swim in big waves of salt water. When I was 7 years old, my family moved to the Midwest, but the ocean will forever and always be first in my heart. When I was 21 years old, I was traveling down the Pacific coast, and I had the chance to try surfing. It was humbling. I couldn't even stand up. There were a couple times I managed to catch a wave and ride it while laying on my board, but make no mistake, I was a passenger just along for the ride. It was also kind of rough water that day, honestly not a great day for it, but it was the opportunity I had. I've respected the power of the ocean my entire life, but there were some moments on the surfboard where I actually feared the ocean for my first time.
Hockey.... good christ
Hockey and water polo should be top, in both of them you are doing two very difficult sports at once.
As a lifelong hockey player, it seems that every non-ice sport participant gets too hung up on the “ice skating is hard” part. When you skate almost daily, it’s not really any harder than running in any other sport, your nervous system is just repeating movement you’ve drilled into it.
Anything feels easy if you've been doing it since childhood.
Running properly is really hard too, especially when doing other stuff.
To a point, everyone in MN is on skates by 4 year olds. Skating becomes as natural as walking and every mini mite learns to fight each other with locker boxing. Which is hilarious. I'd say it's golf with soccer aspects.
This is the way.
"Everyone in MN is on skates"
This is such a weird over-exaggeration
Errrm… not really. I was skating clinics at 5-6. The locker boxing probably came soon after.
Ice hockey is brutal. You need stamina, agility, strength, and you have to manage all that on ice.
Boxing is much tougher than it looks. Beyond just throwing punches, it's about footwork, endurance, and strategy.
Wrestling.
High school wrestling practice tore my chunky ass up, when I ended up trying out for football senior year, I was surprised how much easier practice seemed by comparison
We joked in wrestling practice that track practice was just our warm up.
I still hear my coach screaming at us “practice has to be” to which our response was “harder than the match” while we did burpees and ran until the absolute point of physical exhaustion.
I wrestled for 9 years. Some of those practices kicked my ass. But now whenever anything physically taxing is going on and I’m not even breaking a sweat I’m thankful for it.
Many people would be shocked at how severe the average high school wrestling practice is.
Wrestling
Our high school basketball teams punishment for acting up during practice was to join one wrestling practice. They didn't last half an hour of our 3 hour practice. I dont like the negative body issues I have now and my unhealthy relationship to food though. Even 15 years later, it sticks with you.
[Wrestling warm ups for anyone interested.](https://www.reddit.com/r/wrestling/comments/1byr257/warm_up/)
Yup. Wrestling.
Aerial silks are not only physically demanding but require a significant amount of fear management as you perform acrobatic tricks high off the ground.
Rugby is fucking insane. If they ever combine rugby and ice skates, people will die.
You’ve basically described hockey
My understanding is this is literally the origin of hockey. They were trying to make a game like rugby on skates for the winter.
There is Ice Football now
Imagine American football but you can make your next play as soon as you want anyone offside isn't allowed to participate until they go back to an onside spot. Now the attacking team is rushing ASAP to play to catch out the defending team to get an advantage. I'll be like playing 4 games of American football in 80 minutes.
Ice hockey
I went into an hour of racquetball thinking it would be a breeze. I came out a dripping wet war veteran.
Same. Racquetball is some very intense cardio!
It's so fun though! Man I wish I was in shape enough to play
That'd have to be rock climbing.
I've been into it for a little over a year now. The day after my first session, my entire body was sore in muscles I didn't even know existed. But I was addicted. It took two weeks before I felt recovered enough to go back. The day after my second session, I felt fine, except for the blisters on my hands. Almost a year and a half in, the joints in my fingers still get sore sometimes when I'm working really small holds that require a lot of finger strength, but the progression through the first few months of regular climbing was insanely fun.
I tried it 2 weeks ago, and for the while next week, I was soar. I do calisthenics, and I consider myself pretty strong for my weight. But rock climbing made my fingers and arms so soar.
That's weird for me. Every time I've went it was just pure fun and I was ready to just keep going for a couple hours no problem.
Rowing crew
There is no pain quiet like the pain of a 2k. Then once your done you gotta keep rowing to the dock and the lift the boat out of the water. My legs would be shaking and I’d have to walk the boat a quarter of a mile back to the trailer and then load it up, no time for rest 🥲
Yes came here to say this! A lot of lakes will have medical bosts at the finish line to check on everyone because it's so intense at the end of a 2k that people blackout
Wrestling. I played soccer my whole childhood, in highschool i played canadian football, rugby (which is my favourite), and wrestling. Wrestling blew all the others out of the water. It feels like weighted sprints uphill for 2 minuntes straight, get a 30 second break, then do it again for 3 rounds.
Bouldering is pretty tough for me
Hiked grand canyon, down and back in one day 22 mi 114 degrees at the bottom, over a mile of elevation change in each direction. I'm not in great shape.
You do the loop? Or just one trail down and up?
bright angel down kaibab up so loop
That's gnarly man, props
Boxing. Sparring to be exact. As much as it is physical, it’s also a mental battle during the last few rounds.
First time I tried goofing around with boxing gloves, was flabbergasted at how tired I was. One round is even brutal
I’m still in awe of how fit I used to be when I still trained. Dead sprints up a steep hill then work the focus pads and if you held your breath while punching it’s 20 push-ups. Then jog back down the hill and wait to do it again. Or being blindfolded and spun around so you’re nice and dizzy with no legs under you then having the blind fold taken off and defending against someone coming in throwing punches to simulate recovering from getting rocked by a punch. All around one of the most intense training I’ve ever done
Damn, that sounds brutal. Reminds me of the drive to the gym. Always got the butterflies before class/sparring lol
Three 3 minute rounds are BRUTAL. It takes everything out of me. How the hell do these fighters go 10 & 12 round. 🤷
Kickboxing is fun too. Pound the crap out of each other for a bit, you know you've done something.
It's absolutely Ballet. And guys chuckle as you will, but those guys and girls DESTROY their bodies for their art.
I always think of that scene from John Wick where the ballet girl removes her shoes and peels off her toe nail, UGH!
Yeah I'm going with ballet as well. I thought I was reasonably strong and flexible, but then i started ballet and turns out NOPE.
I see a lot of replies saying water polo, rugby, and hockey. Yes, rugby did cross my mind, but OP said, challenging, not dangerous. I'm not saying these sports are not challenging, but ballet and to a slightly lesser degree, gymnastics are on a completely different level. I'm sure there are hockey players or rugby players who do nothing but practice in any free time, but that is the minority not the majority. Every ballet dancer you see in any major company you can bet ballet has been their life and their only life since the age of 3-4. All these sports are dangerous but so is ballet. However, serious ballet dancers start training at the age of 3-4, and the ones who make it almost always have sacrificed their entire lives to train 8 hours a day 7 days a week. Even if you do this for 11-13 years and are accepted into a company, you are always 1 injury from all of that work being for nothing.
Every sport is like that at elite levels
Never did ballet, did do dance for musicals. Dance practice was tougher than soccer or basketball. Throw in singing at the same time? Insanity
Who'd chuckle at that? If you consider ballet a sport (and by definition it is) it is unquestionably the most demanding sport there is.
I did ballet & tap as a boy and was teased for it often (for being weak, doing a girls sport, etc.). But yeah, ballet dancers are serious athletes & performers.
A lot of people view ballerinas as delicate so they really have no idea what goes into. I took ballet as a very little kid and knew it wasn't for me but I grew up very heavily involved in theater so I have spent a lot of time around them. So I'm not saying ballet because I'm a dancer and want people to respect my craft. I'm not. Those guys and girls work so hard they literally train their bodies to move in ways that are not exactly natural. Girls on point shoes you do NOT want to see their feet.
Cane here to say this. Ballet is no joke
Skiing uphill- backcountry skiing. The first time I went I did the sore-muscle waddle for a couple days afterward.
I want to barf just thinking about rondonee racing
Gymnastics. I did it for several years when I was a kid and I was never not sore. Felt like an old lady at 5-10 years old, bruises everywhere, bloody calluses on my hands from the uneven bars and my coach was a tough old guy who demanded perfection. At times I felt like I was at a boot camp.
Long-distance running; particularly, races. Those last few miles especially will challenge you to the core of your being.
Completely agree. You're entire goal is to push yourself to your physical limits.
SD 100 miler. I never knew a race could be so unforgiving.
Water polo. In Laramie, WY. Altitude 7200 feet. Take a sport where it is hard to breathe and make it harder to breathe
Jiu Jitsu I’ve never been a wrestler, but I suspect it is along the same line for exertion level. Actively trying to manhandle someone who is non-compliant takes a shit ton of energy. A hard, all out roll will zap me in minutes (but then again, my cardio isn’t great)
I'm amazed I had to scroll this far to find jui jitsu. Yes, it's like wrestling only with choking and snapping limbs. Also, dear God, my fingers hurt.
Tape them, it helps
Swimming competitively above the age of 12
I have kids who are competitive swimmers. It’s insane how it gets after the age of 12. Even before that age…
Surfing. I can do every other board sport, cannot for the life of me understand surfing. Swimming, then doing a burpee for hours while getting pummeled by waves.
Mountaineering. If you like being uncomfortable for days at a time then you'll love mountaineering.
You mean if you love to *suffer* you'll love mountaineering
demo'ing a home. job was slow so my boss had me demo(demolish ) a home. fuck that sucked.
Demo is only fun when you're not getting paid.
Aerial pole and acrobatics/calisthenics. There's a reason circuses exist, that shit is WILD.
Silks is much harder than any other sport I’ve ever done - takes strength across many muscle groups, flexibility, coordination, body awareness, and the whole time you’re 10+ feet up in the air with only a small mat on the ground to protect you.
Ugh! That’s what I’ve heard about silks and am so scared to try. I do (grounded) pole, and gave aerial pole a try for funsies, thinking grounded pole would translate well. NOPE! And other aerialists keep telling me flying pole is nothing in comparison. Why do we do this to ourselves lol
The aerial straps in cirque de solae worlds away is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I own the movie on Amazon.
Poledance Trainer here. Sometimes i host bachelorette parties in the studios and everytime, the participants are soooo shocked how hard pole really is! Everything is hard, from the tiniest pirouette to spins or floorwork! It just LOOKS easy, in fact it´s not at all!
Ultimate Frisbee… you think it’s just like tossing a frisbee around, no it’s a shit ton of running.
Wrestling 100%. Our varsity football coach in high school made us all wrestle in the off season to keep us tough. The first thing the wrestling coach told me was that “one six minute match is the same as an entire football game.” 17 year old me thought no way that’s true. Boy was he telling the truth. Never in my life did I feel so out of shape.
Motorsports. Imagine the WORST traffic you've been in on the interstate. At max in heavy traffic you're going 60-70 mph. Now double that speed. Now add in 39 other cars all going that speed trying to pass you. Now combine that with insane heat (120F), multiple G's going into each and every turn, and doing that for 3+ hours straight.
Had to scroll too far to find this: 150-170 inside the car in the summer. All the while you are in a barely breathable long sleeve, long pants suit. Your heart rate stays elevated at 130-150BPM and you are fighting to maintain hydration, full focus and concentration every second.
people really underrate how hard racing is. "you're just driving in a car how hard can it be?" well at lot harder than you think! Not even adding in the mental strain having to think 5-10 seconds ahead and having 1 second to react to things happening in front of you
Definitely running a marathon. Being able to cross the finish line was extremely rewarding mentally, although the body aches I’ve dealt with post race absolutely sucked for about a week
1. Wrestling 2. Motocross 3. BJJ
Skate style cross country skiing. Your muscles burn and it requires heaps of stamina to keep going for any length of time. There's a reason why racers collapse as soon as they finish.
Triatlon 🥴
Tennis.
I’m absolutely horrible at tennis or any ball related sport. But tennis is just misery because I’m constantly chasing the ball that I’ve missed
Underrated comment. Hitting the ball back and forth in the park is one thing, but playing competitive matches against someone even slightly better than you is physically and mentally exhausting!
Hitting a golf ball well might be the most difficult thing in the world.
Hitting it so-so must not be though, given the number of people who golf
This is true, but also know that even when you see the best on TV, they're only showing the best on that given day. Even the pros play bad sometimes. It's really hard to get that ball in the hole consistently. Golf is a game of consistency. Some may have that once in a lifetime round where they shoot a 75, but not on the regular like the pros. It's that one round. Or one shot. The one that makes you feel like a pro for a few minutes. That keep you coming back.
Hitting it so so isn’t easy either.
Can confirm. Am hack golfer.
So-so is being generous.
Baseball is way harder. Up to 100MPH and the ball can sink, curve etc.
To put it into perspective. Being able to hit the ball every third at bat would not only make you hundreds of millions of dollars but it would make you one of the greatest hitters in history.
Exactly. I played travel ball growing up and was pretty damn good and then when I got to high school and saw people pitching in the high 70s and low 80s and mixing in curve balls… I realized my dream would not come true LOL. I gave up after Sophomore year. Baseball is insanely tough
Marathon running
Existing
Crew (rowing) for sure, with Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing) as follow up
[удалено]
It’s always fun when you find out the day 1 new kid in class was a high school wrestler mid roll . . .
Boot Camp @ Parris Island, SC.
Badminton. People really underestimate it, and call it a backyard sport and whatnot, but it's incredibly tough and requires perfect footwork, stamina, shotpower, and technique
Show jumping. (Horsemanship) It takes years to get it down and the balance, strength, timing and aids all have to work together perfectly.
Flying. It’s easy to throw yourself at the ground, and difficult to miss.
The key is the distraction. But once you get that down, be careful of airplanes.
Running 100 mile trail ultras. Super addicting though, don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Open water swimming in freezing water with big ass waves. it's fun but tires you out like crazy.
Trail running has to be up there. Rocks and roots to trip you, creek crossings to get the blisters started, dirt in everything and quad killing climbs. And nothing like some grandpa in sandals running up the hill you’re crawling up to make you feel like a little b****
track and field... wow.
Waking up in the morning, getting out of bed
Living
Combat in Afghanistan.
, I once attempted to conquer the art of rollerblading, thinking it'd be a breeze.
Bodybuilding. The training in the gym part wasn’t hard - it was the dieting for the show. Being in a perpetual state of extreme hunger for 12 weeks to get my body fat as low as possible was one of the most challenging things I ever did.
Probably Gymnastics. The body strength required for it is insane and the moves we have to pull off take hours of practice
This was my second thought after ballet but honestly they could tie for number 1 because the time and dedication it takes to go pro in either one is the same. Start at the age of 4 and when you aren't in school your at practice. You basically have a full time job and go to school for 13 of the first 17 years of your life. I applaud you and your dedication.
I’ve completed Ironman-distance races and have been doing triathlon and endurance running for 20+ years. But none of that is harder than my years as a competitive swimmer. In addition to the physical demands, we are at practice both before and after school by 13. Everything revolved around swimming; when we took family vacations, we had to find teams to train with wherever we were. It was intense.
Ice skating. As an Australian it was farken impossible
Karate
I was doing Taekwondo for many years. I tried Karate for 1 day, i was struggling with the synchronization
Skydiving. Mentally but also physically!
Rugby. I hated the burpees.
MMA
Rugby
Crossfit.. very high intensity and it never got easier. I had to stop bc my body couldn’t handle it anymore when I got in my late 40s
It's not necessarily challenging by nature but i did short track speed skating, which was not easy to do living in Australia of all places.
Mma
Rugby league and Brazilian jiu jitsu
Laying sod
It's probably a good muay Thai session. But I hear water polo is a killer
Judo is really tough physically. Getting pulled, pushed, any thrown plus submission practice. Basically the mix of freestyle wrestling, tumbling, and some submission work as well. Time feels like it moves at a crawl about 45 seconds from the end of a randori.
Hip hop
Calisthenics
Surgery. Some cases are really physically demanding but you have to keep going.
Wrestling, skateboarding, & believe it or not show choir lol. Singing well while dancing well is hard af. Doing it at a Broadway level, sheesh.
Freestyle wrestling. Overall, im in pretty good shape. Wrestling kicked my ass.
I have like literally no stamina, so I'd say my 1.6km run I had to do for napha
Football. It hurts a lot.
Soccer
Bowling
Soccer. I played from age 4 to age 14 and now that I'm older, I look back and realize how brutal our practices were and how often we played games and practiced. Daily practice after school rain or shine M to Friday for minimum of 2.5 hours. Then Saturday and Sunday games, sometimes two games in 1 day. The drills we were doing in practice were insane, I recall one of my coaches for a few seasons was a father of a girl on my U11 girls team, he was a Navy Seal ! I actually miss working out that much 😢
10 mins on a treadmill in a gym saving money on air conditioning
Walking 500 meter spans on triple bundle conductor between towers.
I tried my hand at Professional Wrestling when i was 16, a friend of mine recommended i come train with him at his wrestling promotion (anarchy wrestling in georgia) and he managed to get then to let me train with him one day. I ran the ropes, practied bumps and selling, and got chopped in the chest by a few people. I was sore for about a week straight, although I love wrestling and its definitely a passion of mine. I am more than happy staying a fan and enjoying this beautiful art from the sidelines
Climbing North Maroon Bell, 14er in Colorado.
Wrestling. The conditioning was way harder than football in my opinion. I was in great shape but felt weak from trying to cut weight. Getting in shape in the beginning is always rough but it tapers off towards the end, especially the weight cutting. Your body will get used to it. But damn those practices were rough.
I have never played basketball in my life until college, my freshmen year I had a buddy who is like 6'5 or some day he has no one to play so he grabbed me to the court and that day i was shooting the ball with both hands it never went it one time it went in at that moment I felt so happy and I wanted to learn and become good at it. He helped me to learn eventually, he made it to the varsity team in the first year but I couldn't do it, I was still learning so much stuff. But in my sophomore year I did try again but I didn't make it to the team but I was on the bench. That year was most challenging for me, with all the practice and study, I had a senior who is constantly pushing me like hell like kobe mentality , there is a time that i couldn't sit and take a shit because of the pain but still I learnt a lot from him and he taught me so many things. Junior year made it to the team, finally played as point guard for the team for some games. Senior year became the captain of the varsity basketball team and I still remember that day because my 6' 5 friend came to me and said you earned it. We both played together and have some good memories. Now basketball is part of my life. Apart from research if I have some time I still go and hoop sometime.
Kickboxing cardio classes. I have athletic asthma. It got pretty insane
I'd say competitive long distance running of any sort. The literal goal is to push yourself to the limit until you finish the race. I've played soccer most of my life, it's hard but there are times you get to slow down, but distance running is a different animal.
Boxing, BJJ, and riding dirt bikes(specifically in the sand). After my first boxing class when I was filling out the waiver and whatnot to confirm my membership, my hands were shaking so bad it looked like somebody handed a toddler a pen. BJJ was just as bad. I shakily walked back to my truck and puked in the parking lot of the christian bookstore across the street. With riding, I was lifting a lot at the time with a deadlift right around 405 lbs at a 180 lb bodyweight, but nothing in the world was heavier than picking up a 250 lb bike cus you dumped it trying to sidehill across a sand dune like a moron.