Just for the sake of argument we can throw in the RAAM (Race Across America). The most grueling bicycle race from the West Coast of the US to the East Coast.
In 2014 Christopher Strasser traversed the country, 3020 miles, in 7 days, 15 hours, 56 minutes (over three mountain ranges) at an average speed of 16.2 mph. There are no stages. It’s start to finish. Typically the rider may be off the bike about 45 minutes a day.
There are two ways to go with this: strength vs. endurance, which Textual Innuendo referenced.
You’ve already got lots of examples of the first.
In the bad-ass ultramarathons category you’ve got things like:
[ul]
[li]Badwater - 135 miles Death Valley to Mt. Whitney[/li][li]Barkely - only 14 have ever finished[/li][li]Marathon des Sables - 6 marathons in 6 days…in the Sahara Desert![/li][li]Treppenlauf aka Mt. Everest Stair Marathon, 39,700 steps equaling the height of Mt. Everest.[/li][/ul]
No. That’s like saying anyone can run a 4-minute mile, or get a PGA (pro golf) card, if he just practices long enough.
It does take a lot of hard work and practice to do any of those things, but you still need the genes. People say nobody worked harder at basketball than Michael Jordan, or nobody worked harder at golf than Tiger Woods, and they may even be right. But hard work won’t make you a pro if you’re not also a genetic freak. Jordan could have played in the NBA with half the work he did, and Tiger could have played in the PGA with half the work he did. Maybe they wouldn’t have been as great as they were, but they could have played at the pro level.
On the other hand, pick a young, healthy guy at random, and 99 times out of a hundred, he won’t be able to play in the NBA or PGA no matter how much he practices. Pick a young, healthy guy at random, give him the best training and coaching and facilities for ten years, and 99 times out of a hundred, he would be absolutely smoked by a kid with Jordan or Tiger talent who had only six months of practice.
You may think deadlifting is an exception, because it involves very little skill, but strength is just as genetic as speed or coordination. If you take 10,000 people, and give them all the money and food and coaching and facilities and time in the world, maybe 1% of them will be able to run a 4-minute mile, or play PGA-level golf, or deadlift 700 pounds. Probably less than 1%.
1% of 10,000 is a hundred, so it can be done. 1% of (say) 2 billion healthy men in the world is 20 million, so if even a small fraction of them show up at the same PGA qualifier, or track meet, or powerlifting meet, it may seem like anybody can do it with enough practice. But no, only 1% or less can do it.
Anyway, to answer the OP: the men’s gymnastic events (like pommel horse and still rings) are unbelievably hard. The average guy not only can’t get a decent score in them, he can’t do most of the required moves at all.
There is a rather obscure documentary that was done about the first Canadian woman attempting to complete the RAAM in the allotted time. It is titled “Labour of Love”. Here’s an article about it:
I’ve done it, which I say not to brag, but to show that it is not extremely difficult. Yes, it’s hard, but not on a par with some of the other things mentioned here.
