The world's fittest athletes according to Sports Illustrated

Not surprising that thats an incredibly American-friendly list. But LeBron is a once-in-a-generation athlete, in any sport.
 
If I'm not mistaken, isn't Mayweather a boxer? Yet has lower strength than Ronaldo?
 
Keeps It tidy said:
My father was a footballer and a sprinter growing up. When he moved to the US he tried basketball thinking it would be easy. When he first played within minutes he was on the sideline huffing and puffing. There is very few sports with as much high intensity sprinting as basketball.
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This. Compare "soccer" to basketball, I've played both competitively all through my teenage years, basketball is more grueling and requires more endurance. You might run further playing "soccer", but basketball is more anaerobic. Constant explosions of speed, there are NO breaks, there are no moments when you can take your foot off the gas and walk. You're constantly marking a man at one end, fighting through screens, wrestling for position, matching rapid and extreme changes in speed and direction, or you're constantly moving, trying to beat a man with constant and extreme changes in speed and direction or wrestling for position.

For comparison.

Soccer/Football - Travel further at lower tempo.
Basketball - Travel about 1/3rd the distance but almost all of it is at or near sprinting pace + most of the game is equivalent to a free kick/corner kick scrum.

Few team based sports compare to the grueling nature of basketball.
 
How can Alistair Brownlee not be on there? The guy is Olympic, European and Commonwealth triathlon champion.
 
Of all the sports I've played in my life football, basketball and tennis have taken the most out of me physically. Football can be cramp inducing after sustained running, competitive basketball almost always makes your lungs burn like an inferno and tennis is very draining as long as you don't win or lose in straight sets.

I've never boxed but a mate of mine did some training at a boxing gym and he said it was the hardest he'd ever been made to work.
 
Dwazza Van Hernandez said:
Of all the sports I've played in my life football, basketball and tennis have taken the most out of me physically. Football can be cramp inducing after sustained running, competitive basketball almost always makes your lungs burn like an inferno and tennis is very draining as long as you don't win or lose in straight sets.

I've never boxed but a mate of mine did some training at a boxing gym and he said it was the hardest he'd ever been made to work.
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I did a bit of boxing training once as well and I was dead. I play a lot of football (I'm only a little guy, play on the wing) but that was killing me, my arms ached like hell. Then again I suppose I'm used to playing football whereas the muscles I was using for boxing were a bit more new for me.
 
Just saw this list. How is LeBron 10 for endurance? This is the same LeBron that has history of cramping in basketball games? Yet cyclists and marathon runners don't beat him for endurance...okay then.
 
ZDwyr said:
Just saw this list. How is LeBron 10 for endurance? This is the same LeBron that has history of cramping in basketball games? Yet cyclists and marathon runners don't beat him for endurance...okay then.
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LeBron is sixth all time in NBA history in terms of minutes ppg(and 4 of the guys ahead of him have played a long while ago), he has never missed significant time because of an injury, is one of the leaders in distance traveled per game but, let us just focus on the cramping.
 
Don't understand how Mayweather doesn't have 10 in endurance.

But at the end of the day, none of them could ride a tour de france at even amateur speeds most likely, so none should be getting 10's.
 
Keeps It tidy said:
LeBron is sixth all time in NBA history in terms of minutes ppg(and 4 of the guys ahead of him have played a long while ago), he has never missed significant time because of an injury, is one of the leaders in distance traveled per game but, let us just focus on the cramping.
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Even if he is those things do you think his endurance is better than cyclists or marathon runners?
 
ZDwyr said:
Even if he is those things do you think his endurance is better than cyclists or marathon runners?
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Depends, I've got mates that can run marathons but are fecked after 5 a side. I'd say more people could run a marathon in a decent time than could do the amount of running at pace involved in a top level basketball match. Things like this make the comparisons in the article pretty pointless.
 
Spiersey said:
Depends, I've got mates that can run marathons but are fecked after 5 a side. I'd say more people could run a marathon in a decent time than could do the amount of running at pace involved in a top level basketball match. Things like this make the comparisons in the article pretty pointless.
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Exactly, athletes condition their bodies in specific ways per sport that would make them useless at other sports so the comparison is useless.
 
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