's Pick: The Toughest Sport/Martial Art/Fighting Style

[1123581321]

Being that there are a lot of threads about "best of this" or "best of that", i ask the question, what is the toughest sport/martial art/fighting style? I would have to say rugby (football w/ no pads and more running) or judo, being that i do judo, i think its tough .

Fibonacci

 

[neurocomp2003]

depends on what do you mean by toughest...
toughest to accomplish or toughest in violence.

Accomplish - hmmm kapoiea or mmm SUMO
Violence - rugby is up there but I'd have to go with UFC and lacrosse...there's one thing to be hit with no pads by a human but another to be hit with no pads by a stick.

 

[The_Professional]

Toughest sport would have to be the Strongman Competition.

 

[Danger]

Aussie football? As far as I know, the only rule is that no fully-automatic weapons are allowed on the field.

 

[Huckleberry]

I think the most physically demanding would be the Iron Man triathalon. It's more of a competition than a sport, but still tough as hell.
If you mean tough as in most likely to receive injuries I would go for UFC. The whole point of that sport is to injure your opponent. Somebody is definitely going to be hurt.
Then again, there's nothing quite like watching a Nascar race and seeing someone flip their car end over end 4 or 5 times before slamming into a concrete wall and bursting into flames.

 

[franznietzsche]

Jai Alai. hands down. Not fun to get nailed in that game. Really, really not fun.

 

[BicycleTree]

Aussie football? As far as I know, the only rule is that no fully-automatic weapons are allowed on the field.

Okay, Robert Asprin.

 

[BicycleTree]

Any kind of boxing where you get punched in the head is probably the worst.

 

[fourier jr]

Violence - rugby is up there but I'd have to go with UFC and lacrosse...there's one thing to be hit with no pads by a human but another to be hit with no pads by a stick.

both types of lacrosse are tough in their own way. in field lacrosse you're allowed to hit a person een if they're only "kind of" close to the ball, and you're allowed to slash someone's hands/wrists, but not allowed to cross-check. it's also on a bigger, more open space than box lacrosse though. so box lacrosse you're right up close to the other players & they can grab you (against the rules, but not always enforced) & get cross-checked.

as a former competitive rower I would say that must be one of the toughest sports there is. back in high school we trained 12x/week & that was fairly light as training goes. most national teams train 3x/day. the lactic-acid levels after a 2000m rowing race (or 2000m ergometer test) are among the highest ever measured. that's roughly a measure of the amount of pain & suffering an athlete has to endure. in most races after only 500 (takes ~90secs.) everything (legs, back, arms, etc) is totally fried. those dragon boaters & canoe/kayakers are sissy girls compared to rowers.

i guess the truth is every sport is the hardest, depending on how far you want to go with it. someone could say archery, strongman, swimming, etc etc is the hardest & come up with a convincing reason for sure.

 

[BicycleTree]

Come on, what's a little muscle fatigue compared to a hole in the lining of your brain?

 

[Danger]

Okay, Robert Asprin.

Never read any of his stuff, so I'm afraid the reference eludes me.

 

[BicycleTree]

Oh... he wrote a novel about a sport where the only written rule was "no edged weapons." I thought you were referring to it.

 

[Integral]

As best I can figure only a few Irish Lads are tough (or stupid?) enough to engage in http://www.gaa.ie/page/hurling.html

 

[Echo 6 Sierra]

Hands down, the toughest sport is being the parent of a teenager.

 

[Smurf]

Maybe it wouldn't be so tough if you spent more time parenting and less time whining about it.

 

[russ_watters]

If by "toughest" you mean simply "most demanding", then it has to be wrestling. The "pure" sports like track, swimming and rowing are roughly equal in how physically demanding they are (though to combine 3 of them into a triathalon takes it to another level altogether), but they aren't anywhere near as intellectually/emotionally demanding as, say, a game of chess. Wrestling combines both.

 

[Huckleberry]

Wrestling is surprisingly demanding. That would get my vote for exerting the most amount of physical effot in the shortest amount of time. It also is an intellectual and emotional battle and a contest of pain endurance. I've never been any good at wrestling, but I have tried it. I could run 5 miles in 40 minutes at the time and I was worn out from 5 minutes of wrestling. Totally different muscle groups than I was used to working. Wrestling uses your entire body.

UFC includes martial arts that use grappling techniques. Grapplers have a lot of success in those competitions because they can manipulate the opponents body. Someone who doesn't know how to grapple will only get one or two strikes at best before the grappler outmaneuvers them. When I mentioned UFC it was wrestling that I had in mind, but with other martial arts added in for more variety.

 

[Physics_wiz]

Well, IMO the most dangerous sport is throwing darts when I'm playing it (I don't know if it qualifies as a sport or not) .

I heard some martial arts monks somewhere in Asia can throw darts and make them go like bullets through glass. I also heard they had to train day and night for years just to do that trick. I guess if this is true then I'd vote for this to be the most demanding sport. Again, I don't know if this qualifies as a sport or not.

Now, what do you think the most fun sport is? I'd say indoor soccer. Mainly because I believe there's a lot more thinking involved in soccer than most people realize. Once you get good at soccer and get past being tired from running and have all the skills needed, the rest is thinking and anticipating other players...it feels so good . I'll probably get bashed by everyone for saying soccer is fun since here in the US almost everyone I met said soccer was the the most boring sport ever *cough*Baseball*cough*

 

[loseyourname]

I'm going to have to go with the ultramarathon. As obscure a sport as it is, running 100 miles or even further, especially some races that are uphill for upwards of 50 miles or so in the middle of a desert, is a fairly difficult thing to do. I can't imagine ever doing anything more physically and mentally demanding than that. There aren't too many sports out there where you can only compete two or three times a year because the wear on your body is so severe. The curious thing about this sport is that it may be the only physically oriented sport in the world in which a woman beats all of the men. Ann Trason has to be one of the most impressive athletes in the world today, and she gets no recognition whatsoever.

 

[PerennialII]

Anything endurance related when done for "real"... type, length etc. don't really matter since when done to the max it's always as tough. Of course endurance running is the "worst" of all due to non-existent recovery periods during the actual event.

 

[BicycleTree]

How about horse jockey? I think that's the most dangerous sport.

 

[loseyourname]

If I recall correctly, I think women's cross-country has the highest injury rate of any sport (it might have just been among high school sports, though - I can't remember where I read this). Of course the injuries aren't really that severe. Horse racing and car racing and downhill skiing and such can result in death, even if the chance of getting injured is lower.

 

[brewnog]

Hurling? Ironman? Wrestling? Lacrosse?

Pah!

Snooker wins this discussion by a country mile. Physically exhausting, mentally draining, and pretty dangerous too.

 

[Joel]

Good one, Brewnog. In Snooker we are talking about millimeters, if not micrometers - and you can pull a neck muscle if not streching properly.

I will also throw Figure Skaring into the rink. On top of a trimmed body, you also need to be touch with the artistic world to score.

 

[Zygotic Embryo]

Extreme Knife Fighting LOL

I'd say rugby by far, and I am an avid sports fan

GO HEAT!

 

[Echo 6 Sierra]

Maybe it wouldn't be so tough if you spent more time parenting and less time whining about it.

BURN! Ouch! I have no children, but if I did and they flamed me like you did I'd (edited for content by myself) make them eat Wendy's knuckle chili or Boca Burgers with Wendy's knuckle chili on it, or KFC with no napkins and nothing to drink. You cut me deep Smurf...you cut me deep.

 

[BobG]

I'd go with wrestling as the most physically demanding, in general. You can have some variations of other sports (Tour de France, ultra-marathons, etc) that can slowly wear a competitor down, but wrestling is the most intensely physically demanding sport.

When I ran cross-country and distances, the toughest distance was always the half-mile. It was too short to really pace yourself and too long for a sprint - it was just 2 minutes of hell. Wrestling takes that a couple steps further - after 2 minutes of hell, you get a 30 second break before your next 2 minutes of hell, and then your next, and then maybe an overtime period just in case you forgot you were in hell.

It also just feels so much more degrading when you lose a wrestling match than a race. You lose a race to someone ranked among the best high school runners in the nation's history you don't really feel that bad (there were two kids in our local area chasing Steve Prefontaine's national high school record in the two-mile). In wrestling, losing to a three-time state champ whose never been beaten still sucks.

Edit: I'd also second Physic's Whiz's vote for indoor soccer being the most fun.

 

[BicycleTree]

I believe jockey is the most dangerous sport in terms of frequency of death, right up there with coal miner.

But boxing is the creepiest. Slowly losing your memory and reasoning power because of blows to the head.