Are most pro athletes about the same level of 'fitness'?

Thinking about this in the shower today, as you do.

I was thinking that most athletes at the top level of their sport, be they cyclists, rowers, runners, footballers, tennis players, whatever, must be about as fit as they can be in order to minimise competitive disadvantage, so therefore they must all be about as fit as each other?

Is there an element of truth in that, or is it the inane workings of a still half-asleep mind?

Kinda makes sense, obvious differences with body mass etc but two atheletes with similar build are probably very similar were as a larger athelete might have more power to compensate for and being gained by his extra weight/muscle mass. Probably many variable affecting different athletes but bringing them all within a similar level

well in theory yes, but its all totally different types of fitness.

rugby and football players have to be able to produce very short bursts of intense effort for 20 seconds at a time over 90 minutes.

cyclists need to be able to ride all day and if on a break or a mountain take their heartbeat up to just under max and hold it there for relatively long periods of time.

You have to define fit.

Fit for one sport is completely different to fit for another. See the other definition of 'fit' 🙂

Is a top 1500mm runner fitter than a top marathon runner?

V02 max is a good indicator of cardio fitness IMO – one of the best for this rating are cross country skiiers.

Running is a good example of differing fitnesses – top level sprinters built like body builders, marathon runners as skinny as rakes.

Kind of but not really.

Some sports require a lot more focus on skills than others which means that the people doing that sport will focus on that – eg Downhill mtbers – the world class guys are still pretty fit but nowhere near as fit as road cyclists for example.

And then you get the whole debate over what defines fitness – a 100m sprinter wouldn't be able to keep up with a marathon runner for any length of time but they do huge volumes of training.

V02 max is a good indicator of cardio fitness IMO

A much better one though is max sustainable VO2. But then, sustainable for how long? Depends on the sport 🙂

I was think of something like VO2 max as the benchmark. Obviously there are differences in build etc, but the 'base' requirement is being able to process oxygen as quickly/efficiently as possible, and any athletes in an aerobic sport must have similar abilities to do that as each other?

a 100m sprinter wouldn't be able to keep up with a marathon runner for any length of time

For 10 seconds or less I think you may be wrong!

And I wouldn't class 100m sprinting as aerobic

Obviously there are differences in build etc, but the 'base' requirement is being able to process oxygen as quickly/efficiently as possible

Not really, it's far more complex than that.

Why did Chris Boardman not win a tour?

ooooh is it time for this topic again?

Boxers.

They are all in the peak of physical fitness. However the activity they want to do defines exactly what that fitness means. People cannot really move between sports and be Olympic level of competitive [ without years of training to adapt -see rebecca romero ]I bet I can beat most olympians on a bike ride for example.

Not sure what athlete / sport would win a supoerstar type fitness competition.

Wasn't that part of the premise behind Superstars (probably only oder people will remember this classic 70s / 80s televisual feast. A range of sporting trials where sportspeople from different sports competed against each other. In those days there were clearly different standards applied to the sporting preparation and fitness between sports but invariably motorsport superstars and footballers were usually rubbish. With the evolution of wider training methods in all sports the gap is probably a lot closer but as others said above, different sports require different strengths, skills and attributes so although you may be very fit aerobically it doesn't automatically make you able to compete across all sports.

Not sure what athlete / sport would win a supoerstar type fitness competition.

Well I remember something back in the 90s that tested various sportsmen in specific tests rather than sport events like superstars and an American footballer won that. Oh well….

I wonder what sports would best prepare you for other sports.

For instance, I went XC skiing and once I'd figured out how to stay wax-side down, I found I could go for hours pretty well without suffering. I was plenty faster than most other people out on the trails. I reckon MTBing fitness transferred pretty well.

Within each sport their probably at about the same fitness when at their peak (i.e not just coming back from injury etc.) but different sports need different levels of fitness.

If you look at the people competing in multi-discipline events like the decathlon they are all very fit people but in most cases wouldn't be able to be someone that specialises in the one discipline.

What I find fascinating (!) is the way you can tune yourself to be better at different sports.

Not enough strength? Do some weights and swim.
Not enough cardio fitness? Run and cycle.

I've gained and lost weight "to order" a number of times and find it amazing how much is affects performance at different things.
Was a bit slight at 9.25 stone so slogged at the gym and gained 3 stone.
Found this a bit OTT for surfing and martial arts so trimmed off a stone by running and cycling a lot more.

Hard to find a balance that suits but it's pointless being massively bulky if you want to do triathlons or XC racing. But also daft being a super light whippet if you want to swim/surf/do martial arts.

You can't control what you look like (!) but you can control your physical strengths with a bit of dedication.

This is why I have no time for those that moan about not being able to lose/gain weight.

As for fitness – Boxers and triathletes are some of the best allrounders – cardio fitness with strength.

This is why I have no time for those that moan about not being able to lose/gain weight.

We all CAN do it, but it's massively more difficult for some than others. If you think it's easy then you're one of the lucky ones 🙂

Surf_Mat…. I agree to an extent.
But even standing only 5'10" tall if I was 9.25 stone I'd be looking like something out of Belsen.
I think we all have a natural 'build' that lends itself better to certain sports. We can tailor / tune this to an extent but… I ain't never gonna be a marathon runner!

TSY – I'm 5'8" but still used go get blown over by a strong breeze. It was however really good for surfing (I was pretty fit despite being so slight) – I caught almost anything!

Mol – gaining weight can be as hard as losing it IMO. I spent years slogging at weights and eating grotty protein rich food with zero results. Found the right routine/diet and suddenly it all worked out fine. It's not easy at all but then if it was, we'd all be super duper pro athletes.

And the issues with inactive/obese people are different and quite probably worse.

Yeah right.

The England football team needed more than two weeks off after doing nine hours work during the world cup. Hardly equivalent to a tour cyclist or Eddie Izzard is it?

Brian Jacks!

Any pro althlete will be fit for their sport. Any comparison is going to be massively open to bias.

BTW I'm nt sure VO2max is the only mesure of fitness even in endurance sport.

I'm fairly sure Abraham Olano's VO2 was fairly normal (Mid 60s) but he still won the worlds, olympic medals, a grand tour etc

A more practical measure might be something like watts per kg that can be sustained for 20 minutes or an hour.

Of course this would bias things in favour of small riders and only really predict climbing performance.

Jessica Ennis and Victoria Pendleton are fitter than most other sports people i can think of… although there is that nice pole vaulter… *drifts into reverie*

You can't compare as athletes train very specifically for their individual sports.

I know when I used to ski competively though, it was rumoured that skiers have to have some of the best all round fitness, some thing that tended to be reflected in that TV programme thats name escapes me when all sports people competed against each other..

Funky – a chart I saw recently had cross country skiers at the top of the V02MAX scale. What discipline did you compete in?

The winners of Superstars were often pole vaulters as that required speed, strength and the abilty to line your pole up with a small hole in the ground. I imagine tri/pent/hept/dec athletes would be about as good as you could get for general fitness… probably still not great at marathoning though

Surf I was talking about downhill skiing, and not V02 Max, just general overall fitness, which can mean many different things to many people.

Funky – just mentioned cross country skiing as an aside. I'm sure most good skiiers are pretty fit. When did you compete? Sounds fun!

Well it's pretty easy to compare fitness when you talk about road riding where the technicality of the sport is close to zero (once you're clipped in with your ass on the saddle, you have little choice about how to turn your pedals) that's why most of the studies are done on cyclist. Or runners (although running is technically more difficult than road riding). Then the more a sport is technically challenging, the less 'fitness' matters. For example climbing. I use to climb indoors on a regular basis, and some regular use to always climb the big over hang wall with a lead vest. I would only dream to be able to do that. However, they where very crap on the slab (when you need more tech than strengh). Judo is another good one. If you have a very good tech, you'll be amazed how easy it is to kick stronger players' ass (hope the apostrophe is correctly placed).

I've had a think about this whilst at the gym…. wasn't the answer scaffolders?

I saw one of those Superstars-type programmes from the states a couple of years ago, most of the athletes were from American team sports or athletics. Herman Maier absolutely destroyed them all, it was incredible.

You can't really compare across sports because they all train for different results.

Hardly equivalent to a tour cyclist or Eddie Izzard is it?

Apples and cricket balls mate. Totally different.

I'm sure Alberto Contador would be crap on a football pitch, I'm also sure Wayne Rooney would be crap on a bike. Are they both crap athletes?

You could just as easily say that all tour cyclists do is spend two weeks spinning along in the peleton and make two or three killer climbs to win.

If you have a very good tech, you'll be amazed how easy it is to kick stronger players' ass (hope the apostrophe is correctly placed).

.. kick stronger players' asses (both plural).

You could ask who has the most all-round fitness, and that would surely be multi-discipline sports people or those who use a lot of muscle groups. So dec/pentathletes, triatheletes for endurance or maybe rugby players for all out strength and stamina.

about 20 years i played rugby and our team used to do circuit training in this big gym hall. Later in the season some footballers started; they struggled a lot more than us. Then, bizarrely, a rowing team started ; they musch much fitter (at circuit traing sessions specifically) than either the futblers, or us rugger types.
the rugby and football teams had similar training regimes, but I think the rowers were doing their thing 6 times a week, mixing up longish runs with heavy weight training etc

triatheletes for endurance

Well not sprint and super sprint then 😉 (btw thanks for the tips I still struggle with the plural sometimes) as said it's very difficult to juge fitness between sports, as the aim of training is different, so is the tech aspect of a sport.

I'm sure I read something once comparing VO2max's of cyclists and cross-country skiers- the skiers did slightly better, but it was said that it was not peak season for cyclists and they reckoned if they'd done it in the summer when cyclists were at peak fitness they would have whupped the skiers' sorry asses. (I gather that is the correct phrase)