<p>Rugby. You have to have the endurance of a soccer player but the strength and toughness of a football player.</p>
<p>I still think it’s hard to beat professional baseball for degree of difficulty. Look at someone like Ryota Igarashi, who’s a Mets reliever. The guy throws 95 mph with a hard breaking high 80s splitter, and he’s been torched his whole time in the majors. His career ERA is 6.35. So what does it say about the game if someone like that gets smacked around by hitters?</p>
<p>Well, the first problem is that he’s a Met! (coming from a life long suffering Mets fan)</p>
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<p>I’m making a comparison between a good NFL quarterback today, a good shooter in the NBA, and one of the greatest golfers in the game ever. I’m being more than charitable here.</p>
<p>GYMNASTICS IS THE HARDEST SPORT. If not the hardest, it’s in the top 3. People don’t realize how hard this sport actually is until you try it competitively. Gymnasts look little and cute but in reality they’re 10 times stronger than most people. Personally at the age of 8 I was training 24 hours a week, and I’m talking hardcore training. Now I’m an elite gymnast and spend 40+ hours in the gym every week and have to be homeschooled to fit it in. My practices consist of 1 hour warm up (usually suicides, plyo, running…some sort of cardio), 2 hours conditioning, then 1 hour on each event (vault bars beam floor). At the end of practice we do another hour of conditioning mixed with flexibility. It’d hard. I can’t count how many times I’ve cried in the gym usually out of fear. It takes some serious guts to do a back flip on a four inch wide balance beam. One last point is look how many proffesional hockey, baseball football, and basketball players there are in the US. Theres tons, but theres only 6 gymnasts than go to the top (the olympics).</p>
<p>People don’t realize how difficult golf is. I’ve played since I was 3 and can now shoot just about even par, + or - a few depending on the day. People see that and think “oh if skinny white guy can do that then so can I” so they try out for the team and get embarrassed. They have to pick up every hole because they’re already over double-par.</p>
<p>Every sports is hard for me except swimming and running.</p>
<p>Without a doubt it is Hurling [Hurling</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling]Hurling”>Hurling - Wikipedia)
You can get hurt playing that.</p>
<p>I’ve played, coached, and watched my kids play about every sport imaginable. “Hardest” is diificult to define. As far as most difficult to be really good at, basketball & soccer would be my choices. EVERY player on the field must be very skilled. As far as physically demanding, boxing & swimming get my vote</p>
<p>You guys don’t know what the hardest sport is… its Mayan Hipball. 'nuff said. :p</p>
<p>There’s a diff. btwn being a difficult sport to play and a diff. sport to play at the highest level.</p>
<p>I’d say that sepak takraw is in the running for both cases.</p>
<p>[Sepaktakraw</a> Doha Final match Thailand - Malaysia Takraw - YouTube](<a href=“Sepaktakraw Doha Final match Thailand - Malaysia Takraw - YouTube”>Sepaktakraw Doha Final match Thailand - Malaysia Takraw - YouTube)</p>
<p>This thread is ridiculous. Of course everybody will say their sport is the hardest. The fact of the matter is you will put forth the most effort into whatever you love, making that the hardest. Your passion for a sport requires your dedication both physically and mentally. For example, I can run 3 miles without pushing myself at all and call it easy. I can play 5 minutes of soccer and really put forth all of my effort and say I’ve never done anything harder.</p>
<p>-Coming from 4-year varsity soccer/3-year varsity basketball player</p>
<p>Oh, and by kind of contradicting my point I think water polo seems like the most physically demanding… at least I give an unbiased opinion unlike everybody else</p>
<p>Swimming or waterpolo, by far and away. If you think running is hard, try swimming. I am both a runner and swimmer, mi do cross country for my school. Doesn’t ven compare to swimming. The sports are actually similar in the way that theres distance and sprinting and its enurance. But when you run, you’re running through air. When you swim, you swim through water. Water is denser than air, making it harder for your muscles to move through it. Also when you swim, you are working EVERY single muscle in your body, it’s the only sport that does. You also have to hold your breath. When you breath, it takes time (keep in mind that one one hundreth of a second can be all that decides a race) and it puts your body out of position. And when you use all of your muscle strength, pushing through the water doing repetive arm and leg movements, as well as constantly stretching your abs to get a longer pull, not giving your muscles enough oxygen to do so makes you even more exhausted. When you end your race, my coach says that if you’re not in an aerobic shock (not enough oxygen in your bloodtream) that you breathed too much and didn’t work hard enough. Yes, there is such thing as breathing too much. Many people will say, yeah I can swim. No. Swimming is not just splashing around in a pool in the summer time. You can’t even begin to think of yourself as a swimmer unless you have at least BB or A times, if you don’t know what that is, you aren’t a swimmer. (Unless your from a different country. They do things different probably similar). </p>
<p>Waterpolo is also very hard. Its not just ‘treading water’. I have never played it because I wanted to freshman year but I was the only girl and the guys wouldn’t accept me. But in waterpolo, you are constantly fighting with someone, kicking, scratching,shoving, elbowing. The catch is, you are doing this while in water, not allowed to touch the bottom, making you very off balance. You also can only catch and throw the ball with one hand, and still keep in mind iu are off balance, with people trying to dunk and kick you.</p>