Top 10 Toughest High School Sports
This is not toughest sports, but it's the toughest high school sports. Ones which you dreaded all day, but you just couldn't quit.
I run XC in high school. It's a very draining sport and forces you to think differently. It's very rewarding though. It takes a lot to cancel races which means rain and cold and 90 degree races. I know lots of people with stress fractures from my team because of the hard work it takes. I lost a shoe during the first 100m of the 5000m race this year which meant through woods and sticks, mud, puddles, and pine needles. My foot bled a bunch but I PR'd a 19:58 as a freshman girl who ran a 21:45 my first meet 3 months before. We did get through and made it to state but I had to get my foot healed before. Anyway, there is no bench or breaks. You just run or you don't. Professional soccer players may run up to 6 miles in a 2 hour game, but we do that without a break in less than an hour. And I hated running at first, so never give up because it's hard. Trust me, I'm now high varsity and started out as almost last. Also, never forget it's a team sport and you need to motivate each other.
Wrestling is a combat sport involving grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. I have done wrestling, football, track, cross country, and even tried water polo for a few weeks all at the highschool level. I have also done swim team, basketball, and baseball in middle school. None of them are even comparable to wrestling. In wrestling we will run until we puke, it is rare that there is a practice where someone doesn't puke. You are pushing yourself as hard as you can the entire practice. Not only is conditioning hard with the pushups, pullups, sprinting, and other exercises, the drilling is extremely difficult as well. You have to pick someone up the same size as you, throw them, then pick yourself off the ground and do it again for all of practice. It is exhausting. Wrestling also requires a ton of skill. You have to learn hundreds of moves and the defenses to them, but that's not enough you have to develop muscle memory so the second someone shoots on you, you can defend it and counter it with a move of your own. You don't have time to think about what you are doing in a match. Wrestling both is the most physically demanding sport and requires the most skill. I've never played any sport, and I've played a lot, even remotely close in difficulty to wrestling.
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. You don't "play" swimming. That's that. If you think your sport is hard, try doing it holding your breath. You need to have incredibly honed skills just to make sure you don't get disqualified, and extreme endurance to even finish the race. On top of that, your raceing others who want to beat you just as badly as you want to beat them. You must be excedingly mentally tough, but at the end of the day, even though you hate it, you don't know what you would do without it.
Swimming is a sport that takes a lot of skill.You can never quit! The countless hours we put into this sport is unrealistic. To swim you have to have a unbelievable amount of endurance, skill, strength, and mental skill. It's not only a race against your competitors it's a race against the clock and the clock never makes a mistake.
The early morning practices, ranging from long endurance that makes slow torture seem relatable to the fast sprints where you wonder if it's possible if your heart will pop out. Oh yeah, combined with no breathing and freezing water. You love the sport, hate the swimming.
Gymnastics is a sport involving the performance of exercises requiring strength, flexibility, balance and control. Gymnastics is the hardest sport known. This requires more strength than a football player. More endurance than a track person, and more skill and balance than dance. This sport is all three cardio, strength, and endurance in one.
It's hard on the body, it's harder on the mind.
My kids both are excellent pole vaulters. My daughter is a multi season state champ in high school and is a heavily recruited high school senior. My son in a D1 sophomore vaulter. Pole vault is the hardest event in track to excel at and frankly you will find that pole vaulters typically excel at all sports. My daughter did XC one year for conditioning for her pole vault and earned a varsity letter as a freshman as the #5 runner (she is a sprinter for the pole vault). She didn't love the distance so she picked up volleyball and after one season on JV in the best program in the state. She was a varsity starter. My son excels at any sport he tried from mountain biking to snowboarding and everything in between.
I played both football and ran track competitively. Football requires much more in a combination of strength, speed, coordination, and quick thinking. Track on the other hand only relates to football in one way and that's pushing your body to its limits. The difference in track is that their is no stopping, the 400 is a constant full on sprint. Track consist of running, torturing yourself, then running again in Hope's that you get faster which is still constant pain.
Playing at a high level of water polo is definitely one of the most physically demanding sports possible. It's swimming while you're getting beaten up and trying to do a million different things at the same time. Go watch a college water polo game and you'll see for yourself. Definitely the dirtiest sport due to refs not being able to see under water.
Throw the best wrestler or quarterback you know in 8 feet of water and tell them to tread water without using their hands for 45 minutes. Then tell them to do that while passing and catching a balll with one hand while someone else is doing their level best to drown them in the process.
We used to play water polo after swim practice to wind down.
Ice on blades, Fighting, big sticks... It's a mans sport...
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players each. It is played with a spherical ball. The objective is to score the ball in the other teams goal. In soccer, you are trying to beat out every other player in that position for your spot. If you lose, you're JV, and nobody wants that. Many kids are specialists in a position, so they can't play good anywhere else.
Soccer your mind always has to be aware and prepared. The ball can go anywhere so you have to stay on your toes.
American football is a sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. Aside from the skill, mental preparation, and physical contact, football requires loads of work to prepare you for the game.
It's a lot harder then a lot of people think. It takes a lot of time, preparation, and it takes everything you have to play.
It's the toughest sport
Rowing is easily one of the most draining sports there is. Mentally and Physically. Its something you can pick up but hard to stay with.
While other sports may be greuling or require hard labor for short periods of time, there is no break in crew. If you're tired you keep going until the race is over, anytime between 7 minutes to 15 minutes. You might think before a soccer game or running a 5k " oh, this is going to suck" but you don't wish for death or are scared to death brought to the verge of crying on an erg.
Only reason it's not rated as high is because it isn't as well-known a story other sports: it's one of the most endurance based sports in existence, with necessary good technique, power, and flexibility.
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. Running, conditioning, skillwork, nonstop, and then practice starts.
Looks hard but the guys complain a lot so I don't know about discipline
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. Conditioning is the equivalent of cutting off both of your feet and walking through the Saharah desert.
If you have no physical stamina, no leg & arm strength, and nevertheless no skills to actually dribble and run at the same time, then sorry m8, this ain't your sport
Sweat! Sweat! And sweat some more!
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. Volleyball is not the hardest sport but it is harder than lacrosse and football. This sport is a lot with running and jumping constantly. The sport is also physically hard because of the speed the ball goes at all times.
You have to be quick, decisive, and be able to keep going at your full strength while predicting the other team. One mistake can cost a lot. The whole team has to work together as one or there is no chance to win.
Volleyball, like most sports, isn't a competition to see who is better, but rather, who makes fewer mistakes. tack that on with throwing your entire body on a hardwood basketball court at least 20 times a set, and the chance of a 6'4 manchild with the swing of a bear hitting a ball directly towards you, and you've got yourself one of the fastest and toughest sports.
Rugby is just Football for men.
So much conditioning
Rugby, when you can't tell if it's your blood or someone else's
Toughest sport ever
Skiing can be a means of transport, a recreational activity or a competitive winter sport in which the participant uses skis to glide on snow.
Golf is a club and ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes from a range of 80 to 600 yards on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf is a mentally hard sport, not physically hard. So to that guy who went insane saying this sport isn't hard, shut up. I personally hate golfing but I also hate people like you so I figured I'd stand up for golf
Why do people say golf is easy? No one has even PLAYED the game. I bet none of the haters can hit a ball
Tennis is a racket sport that can be played individually against a single opponent or between two teams of two players each. Doing tennis you would have to put way more power in your arms which we all should know that you would have to put your whole body weight on.
Tennis is often seen as a joke sport but it's far from it. Tennis matches can last for hours with only short breaks in between each game, and it's only you out there. While it might not be as physically demanding as some other sports it is definitely necessary to have stamina and be able to play for a few hours alone.
As well as physical there is the whole mental game. If you doubt yourself for even a moment you might as well give up the game then, it is so difficult to keep your confidence up if you have had a few errors. Some of the best players are the most technically sound but those that can get into your head.
And finally the most difficult part in my opinion (maybe the mental is more important but I'm not sure) is the technicality of it. If you've never played tennis, or had real coaching from someone who really understands tennis. Then you have no idea the amount of thought and care that goes into each swing. A single change in a swing could effect the spin on the ball, the speed, the angle, the height, the direction. Its absolutely insane. And even more where to hit the ball, often people wonder why some people don't just hit the ball where the opponent isn't standing. It's very very difficult to take a ball that was hit with even a small amount of speed and spin, and then change the direction. Its possible and maybe even easy for the pros who know how exactly how much spin they can put on a shot, but otherwise it's extremely hard. In my opinion. Other than gymnastics which is all technical, it is the hardest sport technically. But overall I believe it has to be the hardest.
Side note: Another thing is that tennis is probably the simplest game. You just have to hit one more shot back than the opponent. But it is still the hardest sport.
Softball is a team sport, kind of like baseball but the pitching is much different, and much harder to learn. The ball is also bigger. The fields are normally smaller, but also are larger sometimes.
Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each who take turns batting and fielding.
Cheerleading is a sport and performance activity that combines elements of dance, gymnastics, and acrobatics. Originating in the United States, it has evolved significantly over the years, moving beyond the traditional role of leading cheers for sports teams to become a highly competitive activity in its own right. Cheerleading squads perform choreographed routines that include stunts, jumps, and tumbling, often at athletic events or competitions. The sport has gained international popularity, with various championships and organizations promoting skill development and competition. Yeah cheerleading is all core, shoulders and legs the hardest thing to control for a lot of people.
Football player catch a two-pound ball, cheerleaders catch a 100-pound girl. You do the math.
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a cricket field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard-long pitch with a wicket, a set of three wooden stumps sited at each end.