The Best Sport For Getting Fit Is...

This is getting beyond a joke now. I had a calf injury. Then another one. Then an Achilles. And finally back to the calf. "Some people just can't run," a friend said this week. Maybe he is right.

I have hit that lull where your commitment wanes. The Florence Marathon is 20 weeks away and I can barely jog let alone bounce lightly by the Uffizi after 26 miles. The plan had been going well but has been derailed by a body that is now as fresh and firm as a tub of margarine left out in sun..

Each day I pass bronzed bodies with teak-tough six packs pounding the streets and I feel a tinge of envy. So I have given myself this weekend off and then I am starting again, lightly. I cannot afford any more days off. In the meantime I have watched a lot of tennis, which got me wondering who are the fittest sportsmen. Which sport provides the hardest test for the human body? Who can I draw most inspiration from? So starting with the worst...

10) GOLF: I like golf but it is a rule of thumb that you can't play sport while looking like your dad. Colin Montgomerie has a face made for rollneck jumpers and John Daly is an inflatable self-help group. The physical requirements needed for golf are an ability to walk, albeit this can be negated by the advent of the gold trolley, and the gift of bending down, albeit if you are good you can get a slave (caddy) to do this for you. It is symptomatic of the game's physical demands that they have teetime before lunch.

9) DARTS: Silk shirts, tattoos, Ray Stubbs and chicken in a basket. Hattie Hayridge, the British comedienne, said she watched sumo wrestling for two hours on television before realising it was darts. This is great fun, but you will have more chance of making the Olympics by doing a City & Guilds in hairdressing.

8) FORMULA ONE: In the good old days the Formula One drivers were a bunch of playboy reprobates whose formula was a crate of Bollinger on a yacht with a bevy of brolly dollies. Gerhard Berger summed this up when there were plans for the drivers to donate to a blood bank. "You won't be wanting any of mine," he insisted. You need a strong neck to deal with all that g-force and a degree of fitness to stay concentrated during the mindnumbing tedium, but sport is generally less demanding when sitting down.

7) CRICKET: Or organised loafing. The Ashes are here and so the country is about to indulge in fetish for hating Australia, but is cricket a demanding sport? It depends on your position. If you are a fast bowler you will, inevitably, have to do some running. If you are a spin bowler you are free to eat kebabs. Fielding is an exercise in inactivity. Batting is likely to entail some jogging, unless you are Australian, which means you will be hitting boundaries, or English, which means you will be walking slowly to assorted pavilions. Some great batsmen routinely feign injury so that someone else can do their running for them. One of the few frontline sports where you can still be fat.

6) SWIMMING: I am not a fan of swimming, either as a recreational or competitive activity. As a spectator sport, swimming is basically splashing, while for most of us it entails winding a meandering course around the great unwashed at the municipal baths. I am sure it is demanding at the elite level, if only on your hair, but you can't swim and sweat and, thus, it cannot figure highly. It is also a sport of dubious ambition given that it is impossible aim for anyone to become the fastest swimmer on earth.

5) ATHLETICS: Clearly some athletes are, er, the best athletes around. However, its lowly position here is down to two things. Firstly, as mentioned in my Saturday column in the weekend section recently, Usain Bolt has never run further than 800 metres. Michael Johnson, a four-time Olympic champion, has done only two miles. Dwain Chambers was forever out of breath when trying to swap sprinting for rugby league. Secondly, athletics loses places because of the field events. The shot put? The hammer? Being a large Russian woman with a beard is not a prerequisite, but it helps.

4) RUGBY: Being a large Frenchman with a beard is not a prerequisite but it helps. Rugby has changed considerably since forwards were chubby ex-policeman with handlebar hips. The invention of Lycra shirts (and professionalism) forced them to stop training as a Viking stag party, although the amateur game still holds this tradition dear.

3) FOOTBALL: Yes, our pampered friends are actually great at running. In fact, the majority are better at running than football. The pacemen arenot far off Olympic sprinters, while the midfielders routinely run 12km during a match, no easy feat that while trying to maintain a Paris Hilton pout for the cameras. If you want to get fit then football is almost as good as anything.

2) TENNIS: I still prefer the days of Ilie Nastase and Henri Leconte, when any louche layabout could become beloved of Middle England if they swore and grabbed their crotches between points. But you have to hand it to the modern men of Wimbledon, they are supremely fit specimens, even if possessing the look of the nerdy goalkeeper from Gregory's Girl (Murray). The same goes for most of the women, although puppy fat and an economy of movement normally found in funeral parlours are not disqualifying attributes. Alas, if you try get fit playing tennis, you will spend most of your time leaving the court to get your ball back.

1) BOXING: This is the only sport where almost all competitors, amateur or professional, are fit. The threat of being knocked unconscious and ending up with a nose like a melted candle does this. Of course, you would have to be mad to box. And if you are not then you will probably end up that way. It is really mugging with rules, and nobody suggests you should happy-slap a pensioner as part of a fitness programme. Nevertheless, I have found a boxercise class at my local gym and am going to apply. It is the way back.

JESSICA ENNIS SAYS...

The best heptathlete in the world at the moment knows all about being injured after a miserable year out that included missing the Olympics. Now she is back, has set a personal best, and is a good shout for a gold medal at the World Championships in Berlin in August. As I seem to be injured most of the time at present, I asked her how to keep going.

"You need a programme and you have to stick to it," she said. "That's the secret. You need a routine to keep at it. It helps if you have people supporting you, but knowing you have a daily plan and then a long-term goal at the end of it helps. Even if you're not doing what you'd want, it is great to have something to cling to."

So Martin Yelling, the coach helping me towards the Florence Marathon, has given me a comfort plan to ease myself back in. It comprises no more than running for 30 minutes at a time. I realise I am going to have to do eight times this in five months, but I am now terrified of picking up yet another injury.

I tried to overdo it last week and told Martin I was running tentatively.

"

Hmm, tentative isn’t great," he replied. "Please repeat the plan I gave you last week this week and nail it all pain free. It’s impossible to progress a plan without sitting comfortably in the knowledge that you bagged the previous. If all feels strong and pain free by the weekend then add 10 minutes of easy running to the longest run at the weekend.

"Don’t leave stuff to chance at this stage in the journey. Establish the groundwork and build the subtle layers first."

Or perhaps rehab should work its way down the above list and I should lay the groundwork by playing golf, eating chicken in a basket, playing Scalextric and being Geoffrey Boycott in the back garden. There is plenty of time yet for a kickabout and a clip around the ear.

Comments

[RunningCoventry]

20 weeks should still give you plenty of time to train well.

I was having trouble running 4 weeks before a recent marathon - if you haven't already done so then try booking up a sports massage. It worked for me and anything is worth a try to get back on the road

[aditya verma]

You have got to be joking me. You actually think Tennis is much harder to play than Football? How many tennis players have you seen falling down, sliding, getting tackeled by rough defenders. You should permanently sit in your home and watch TV. Forget about your marathon Rick.

[Adi]

Try doing 2,000+ miles at an average of around 25mph on a bicycle and you'll find out which sport is hardest on the body.

[andy]

rowing, cycling, cross-country skiing? to name a few.

[Berty]

Rowing. Many sports are very tough. Nothing, torments the entire body like rowing.

Its why Redgrave and Pinsent are so astounding.

If you have not done it, try it.

[Mike]

Your knowledge of athletics is not particularly good and your knowledge of football worse still I'm afraid. The Olympic standard required for a GB 100m sprinter to have qualified for the Beijing Olympics was 10.21 seconds. Just how many footballers can ran that fast. Very few is the answers and of course 10.21 is just to get in, it takes something special to race with the big boys.

As for footballers commonly running 12K during a match, whats the big deal. They have 90 minutes to do so. This means they average a speed of 5 miles per hour, the equivalent of a fast walk.

You discussed sprinters in athletics but made no mention of endurance athletes who arguably endure the toughest conditions of any athletic discipline. If you want to find the true elite physical specimens then look no further than distance runners, their physiology is truly remarkable.

Number 1. Boxing, I say fair enough, but athletics needs a bump up. Football should without a doubt not be above athletics or rugby.

I could go on but its 11pm and whilst many footballers, amateur and professional alike would see this a time to get the drinks in, I have a run to do!!

[Spencer McGawley]

Rick, don't suffer with that leg. Calf and achilles problems are intimately related. Check my website (www.spencerjmcgawley.com) and I'll get you running again. Serious offer - I can help! Mind you, I was always very bad at Scalextric; never could keep the cars on the track.

[Bunsy]

I just ran a 52km off-road race called the Neander Trail with 6km of ascents and descents. Each competitor had to carry 5kg of water, food, survival gear. The start was at 8pm at night. It took me 8hrs 53, half the field did not finish. Two weeks later there was a similar race called the Grand Raid de Mercantour. 3 people died. The winner of the Neander Trail ran 5hrs 40 mins. That is, for me, a serious all round athlete.

[Jon Matthews]

Hi Rick

I agree whole-heartedly with the number one sport you have chosen, the ciruit training you do in boxing is often a killer. I would recommend you go and do some body sparring (but not head) as this will motivate you (not to get hurt) - make sure you have toughened up first though. Would also recommend you do some training runs as well though, as this is the event you are training for after all.

[John Morris]

As an ex-boxer and track athlete, i can agree with your placement of boxing, but you obviously haven't run 400metres( 1/4 mile), amongst athletes this is known as the mankiller event.

[Phil]

You have put the lard arses who roll around a rugby union pitch at 4 and yet omitted the hardest team contact sport in the world, Rugby league. At any level RL requires supreme fitness. Just getting back 10 meters onside for a set of six tackles is lung bursting without the ferocity of the tackle. RL is virtually non stop with no place to hide for 40 mins. The tackles at pro level are comparable with a a car crash but without the helmets and 3 feet of padding that american footballers wear. You are involved in attack and defence without any let up.

[Rich Almack]

Orthotics! Really, really worth the investment

[Andrew]

Try aussie rules football (AFL). Each year they do a comparitive test between soccer, AFL and Rugby. Each year the fittest is the AFL player. 120 mins of running, tackling, being tackled by 18 opposing players and kicking an oblong ball with pin point accuracy. Oxygen debt in the first minute and barely lets up for the next 119.

[bryn roberts]

boxing, tennis, football, and rugby (league and union) ahead of snooker?, it is proven to be the most demanding sport ever. fact, the fitness levels of the mighty snooker player are far beyond what us mere mortals could ever dream of.i am an experienced fell runner and ex special forces, and ex forces boxing champ, and played one set of snooker, never again. rowing LOL!!,any rowers or aussie rules need to get down to your nearest snooker hall, or try a quick blast of pool. if u think your man enough that is.

[Daryl (Bloody Aussie)]

Have you Pommies not heard of triathlon? Swim 1500 meters, cycle 40kms, and a brisk 10k run just to round it off.
Then you graduate to Ironman distance - 3800 meter swim, cycle 180 km, then run a full marathon.
Still, you do stage some classic sporting contests - Wimbledon, The British Open, The Ashes - it's just a pity you never win any of them.

[Peter]

Most of what is written here is laughable. 25kms on a bike? Pfft. 400 Metre run? Please, we did that in school.

Mixed martial arts, that's the toughest one I've done. And I can't think of a sport I've never played. It incorporates all forms of fighting arts, including boxing, kicking arts, grappling arts and wrestling.

This is because there is no real option of "taking it easy" as there is in most sports. Boxing, similar, but you only really have to punch and weave so the exercise is more focused.

MMA requires flexibility, strength, cardiovascular, aerobic and anaerobic fitness, as well as sharp reflexes and a mind like an encyclopedia, with literally hundreds of thousands of moves and nuances to master. Other brain demands include strategic planning, timing, body-reading, psychology, quick-fire judgement and reaction paths which require a good nervous system too.

You are required to manage your nutrition, sleeping habits and stay off smoking otherwise face mauling in a way that is most undescribable.

There is literally no part of the body that is not exercised and forced to become fit. I challenge anyone from any sport to train in MMA for a year and disagree with this.

[Maddie]

Believe me you do sweat when you swim. Just because you are in water doesn't mean anything. A lifetime of competitive swimming; combined with the arduous task of cleaning the 'scum line' as a lifeguard/recreation assistant/dogs body, where the only things to remove the dirt that becomes welded to the sides of the pool that’s caused by sweat, people not showering before-hand to remove make-up, hair gel, perfume et al is bicarbonate of soda and elbow grease.
While athletes are athletes, why is it that you can win a race by running so slowly? Why can people get in to finals by being the winner of the heat, but who ran a slower heat forcing someone who ran quicker than them, but came third in another heat, to miss out? How does that work? In swimming (boring to watch I know), you have to swim pretty much flat out straight away, as it is the fastest people that go through to the finals. Full stop.
Australian Rules Football deserves a mention too, they are supremely fit, much fitter than soccer players who fall over when they get brushed past, then roll around on the floor for good measure. Put soccer players on a rugby pitch or AFL pitch and get them properly tackled, that would wipe the pout of Ronaldo's face once and for all.
How can someone who cheats so blatantly be the world's best player is beyond me, what sort of an example is that?

[Nigel]

The fittest sportsmen in the world are Motocross riders. Try riding a motorcycle over a ploughed field at 70mph for an hour. They need strength, endurance, skill and bravery - every aspect of a true sportsman

These sportsmen dominated the Sporting Superstars TV program in the 70's and most comparative tests have them as the fittest sportsmen

I have run marathons, played tennis, darts, snooker and most other sports but motocross is just the hardest.