Top 10 Most Painful Sports to Play

The Top Ten
1 American Football

Players get broken bones and even worse injuries from playing. This is a very brutal sport (not at all times).

It is very painful

2 Rugby
3 Ice Hockey Ice hockey is a contact team sport played on ice, usually in a rink, in which two teams of skaters use their sticks to shoot a vulcanized rubber puck into their opponent's net to score points.

I'm only 13 years old and I've seen my teammate get his ankle cut open, and my friend broke her arm when we were even younger. Hockey can also be about heroics. Players jump in front of a puck, and at least try to keep playing even if they are already injured. Even at a young age you are still at risk of injury. I play as a goaltender for a travel team and even though we have not yet experienced checking, which is slamming people into the boards, we can still get hurt. I've been hit in the throat with a puck many times and even got myself cut by the blade of a skate. They intentionally make younger kids' skates less sharp for that reason. It may only be my opinion, but from my experiences hockey can be a very dangerous, painful, beautiful, and exhilarating sport, and that's what makes this sport worth fighting through that pain and taking risks for.

Ice Hockey is indeed dangerous, but with skills you can avoid or at least decrease the danger factors mostly.
This sport is amazing but the skate state, ice quality and mostly other player can make ice hockey dangerous. Most dangerous thing in the game is the puck itself. Goalkeepers wearing heavy bulletproof equipment for that reason. The protecting equipment is very important!
I played ice hockey in my child/younghood (not professional level) for 2 years than, due to studies and work I had to finished. I felt 3 times (player combats for the puck) on the ice and I was lucky to having minor injuries, thankfully.
So I only recommend this sport for well- prepared condition and equipment. The 3x20 minutes thirds can definitely load your cardio system. In the gym I advised for taking cardio training. If you have heart disease or blood pressure problems I don't advise this sport.
Despite these facts I like to watch and sometimes go to NHL and international ice hockey matches. ...more

Ice hockey, you are skating with literal blades on your feet of you step on someone you are bound to cut them. I was playing Peewee A when I accidentally stepped on someone and cut open the back of there leg. I have also lost footing on many of breakaways and got slammed into the boards.

People have died playing hockey! There is no sport more dangerous than hockey

4 Basketball Basketball is a sport played by two teams of five players on a rectangular court. The objective is to shoot a ball through a hoop 18 inches in diameter and 10 feet high mounted to a backboard at each end.
5 Rowing

People might say "Its just putting a oar in the water and moving your arms". What it is when you put great force and pushing off with your legs. Doing a 5k and coaches looking behind you and making sure your stroke rate goes up is terrifying. Going over a certain number will mark you as the weakling. Ergs are called a death stroller once you do a warm up and your done you coach assigns you with workouts and meters. Once you get up from the erg and walk down your legs tighten up and you mill most likely fall which could cause a serious injury. I lost 10 pounds in a month just from doing rowing I way now. 115 at 5'5. And I'm 13 this is not a sport to joke around with,

You haven't felt pain until you have rowed a 2k. When you start you feel fine but that changes very quickly. 500 meters in you start to feel the burn of lactic acid slowly building. 1000 meters it hits you, your only half way done with this thing and it feels as though you cannot physically take another stroke. At the 1500 meter mark is where it hurts the most, your vision is going black and you can't even understand what people are yelling at you because your brain does not have enough energy to process it. Then it's over and you calapse on the floor chest heaving as you roll around in agony as though you have been shot.

I've rowed since my freshman year in high school. You can't understand how painful rowing is until you are blacking out at the end of a race piece, your body is begging you to stop, and you see your teammates crying tears of pain and exhaustion. The mental and physical strength rowers need is insane. Also your mutilated hands should be proof that rowing is one of the most painful sports.

Rowing is obviously the most painful sport. Rowing tears every muscle in your body and bits tremendous strain on the legs, arms, and back. The water is pushing with great force against the blade which tears huge chunks of skin out of your hands. Seriously, google 'rowing blisters' it's actually terrifying. You have never experienced true pain until you row a 2k on an erg.

6 Paintball
7 Cross Country Track

It's not that hard, all you do is run. It's not like we're running 3-5 miles a day at a fast pace, and eating healthy food all the time. You think a mile in PE is tuff, imagine that 5 more times in blazing heat, pushing yourself to your limits and not stopping till your done. Our sport is so hard that people throw up after running. I have screamed and been in tears before while running because I'm in that much pain. Remember, OUR SPORT IS YOUR PUNISHMENT

I run cross country and have never endured this much pain in my life. You have to be mentally and physically motivated to do this sport. While running I experience so much pain and to make it even worse, the hills, rocks, roots, etc. make it a true journey through the woods. After the practices and races you feel so good that it is over and you know it was worth the pain you went through and you have the support of a team that is like a family to you who will always be there for you. Recommend the sport to anyone who can take this sport very seriously.

Cross country and track runners endure endless suffering throughout training and races, diet, etc. Ever tried voluntarily punishing yourself for hours at a time, 6 days a week with no entertainment or fun involved? 99.8 percent of the other sports on this list are painful, but involve entertainment, fun, anything more time passing or interesting than xc/track. Not only is this sport physically demanding and exhausting, you must be mentally ripped to push through every workout.

I run the 400m dash, I also play football and basketball, and let me say there is no pain in this world that is so mentally and physically draining than the last 100m of the 400m.

8 Snowboarding
9 BMX
10 Skateboarding Skateboarding is an action sport which involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard. Skateboarding can also be considered a recreational activity, an art form, a job, or a method of transportation.

My body is 12% scar tissue, not to mention the gnarly sackings I have endured.

The Contenders
11 Airsoft
12 Boxing Boxing is a martial art and combat sport in which two people wearing protective gloves throw punches at each other for a predetermined set of time in a boxing ring..

This is a very bloody sport I can't believe it isn't number 1.

Imagine getting punched in the face...

Gloves have padding

13 Gymnastics Gymnastics is a sport involving the performance of exercises requiring strength, flexibility, balance and control.

I do gymnastics and I am only 11 and I have got several injuries like at least 20 and I am only in level 4 and I have already torn a back muscle when I was in level 2 so I think gymnastics should at least be in the top ten. Plus I gotten many at least 100 rips in my hand through the years of gym.

14 Competitive Dance

You do NOT understand the pain! Bleeding from your toes becomes routine. And if you do not think it's a sport you're right. It's like a sport only harder. So boom.

Try putting all of your body weight onto two big toes (pointe) and you'll know the pain, also it's really easy to get stress fractures in dance, I would know.

15 Wrestling Wrestling is a combat sport involving grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds.

Wrestling… the pain is horrible. Let's say your playing football with your friend and you get nailed. That hurts pretty bad right? Imagine that happening to you for an hour and a half straight, no water breaks, and the heat busted all the way up. 3 months straight. And to top that off, you have to starve yourself to cut weight. Then the next day you go to a tournament and wake up at 4:30 and wrestle Five matches.

The goal of the sport is to immobilize another person using techniques that cause intense pain. For example, imagine having someone bend your arms, back, neck, legs, in ways they're not designed to in order for you to do what they want to because it hurts too bad.

I wrestle and play football and in wrestling the is a secret underlining goal to hurt the other kid, so eather the people voting don't wrestle or the people just are not good enough at the sport to where the go gains people who want to hurt them.

16 Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) Mixed martial arts is a full-contact combat sport that allows the use of both striking and grappling techniques, both standing and on the ground, from a variety of other combat sports and martial arts.

Almost bare knuckles

17 Biking

It's the most painful sport, climbing on mountain passes, which can exceed to 22% gradient, with lactate-acid running through the legs, heart rate constantly at a rate of nearly 200bpm, this is the most competitive sport

Just watch the climbs on The Tour. The winners can take the most pain.

A constant 3-5 hour effort puts you through the most suffering ever.

18 Horseracing

I reckon horseracing can be really dangerous because it could crush you with out proper training

19 Lacrosse Lacrosse is a contact team sport played between two teams using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick.

I've played box lacrosse my whole life it's different than regular lacrosse in the way that everyone is a little more violent than lots of other sports. We can hit way more and get into fights often. Along with the fact most players can shoot 70+ mph with a heavy rubber ball I've seen 4 times in one season of people getting hit in the throat by shots most of them went for a quick water break and went back in. I've once got hit by a shot right on my chest and ever since then if I sit in a strange position to long my ribs start to hurt. In just 28 years 23 people have died in this sport.

20 Motocross

Motocross I think is one of the most painful sports on the plant. You have to put a lot of time and work and money into it and then there's possibilities that you could crash once and ruin your life or one wrong crash and then you can't do certain stuff or you could damage something so bad in this sport that there's a low chance of death. I think that's why motocross is one of the most painfullest sports on the planet.

21 Swimming Swimming is an individual or team sport and activity. Competitive swimming is one of the most popular Olympic sports, with events in freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly.

I have done swimming for all my life and it's hurts so bad. I feel like I suffocating all the time don't get me started on butterfly or long distance. You can feel the lactic acidosis building up and your coach yelling at you for needing to breath to live đź’€

22 Running Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground.

People don't understand how painful it can be. You've got to push yourself to your limit, until you just can't move. And sometimes after a while you get bruised. It takes all your force, agility and teamwork. You have to make sure not to switch lanes or pass the baton too late. It's a lot of stress because you're not in a team and you're alone. I have a team and I am the fastest, my team depends on me to win. It's stressful like a lot of sports.

It takes a lot of stamina.

23 Baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each who take turns batting and fielding.
24 Muay Thai
25 Rock Climbing
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