Which sport is safest/healthiest for its athletes, over their lifetimes?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m someone who basically doesn’t watch or follow sports and so knows little about the whole field, but every four years it’s inescapable. So I’ve been watching all these best of the best athletes, and noticing how many of their little bio bits seem to feature ‘recovering from’ whatever damage or operation, and how many of them have various bits taped up or such, and it makes me wonder:

Which sport leaves its athletes in the best condition when you look at their whole life?

Whole groups of sports are out of the running for obvious reasons.

Combat stuff inevitably is going to lead to damage sometimes.

Contact sports are obviously out.

Some ‘sports’ fail to really require athletes to build overall good condition to start with.

So forth.

So, if you wanted to point your child to a sport that was likely to lead to a good physical condition over life, fit but unlikely to have repetitive stress/over use type damage, what would you pick?

My gut feeling is swimming, but nothing really to base it on other than it being strenuous action without major impacts. And the only downside being increased chances of ear infections and, possibly, drowning.

2

Off the top of my head, fitness trail/parcourse running.
Otherwise, a combination of an aerobic activity, strength training and flexibility work.
I don’t think there’s a single sport or activity that does it all. Also, you have to factor in weather.
One downside of swimming is having an available pool.

3

Swimming can be really bad on the shoulders. I know a lot of swimmers who have to take time off to heal or get surgeries to fix the rotator cuff. I’ve known a few swimmers who have are allergic to the chemicals in the water, so either can’t swim as much or only swim in outdoor pools.

I think too for kids, they get pushed way too hard in swimming, once they get to a more advanced level they are swimming 11+ times a week. They go in at 4-5am, then come back after school. And they have to do that or someone else will take their spot. A lot of kids burn out and just quit. I live in a huge swimming area in the DC area, and I’m really surprised that there are not more teams that swim a few times a week just for fun, but there aren’t many places to do that.

4

Define “good.” Golfers, for example, get a lot of walking over the typical course, and may carry their own bag. Considering the range of potential lifestyles, this is a decent level of fitness compared to an average couch potato.

There are some repetitive-strain injuries, but not to the level of most other sports.

(The fact that golf is boring as shit is a different issue.)

5

Tennis.

Studies (cite findable if desired) show longest lifespan associated with it.

6

My daughter swam for the local swim team and did very well. Then they started talking about really training hard with the Olympics in mind and my daughter dropped swimming like a hot potato.

7

There is nothing like turning something fun into a chore,.

8

A lot depends on the envirnment level you do it etc, and even particular events.

Cyclling is great aerobic fitness without the jarring impacts from sports that require running, the dangers are much greater if you are cycling on main roads, or in very close proximity to others (such as a Maddison) or doing something like competitive downhill racing.

I would suggest the walking is one of the healthiest / safest activities, tohugh it is debatable whether it would be classed as a sport unless you are doing competitve race walking which is essentially running while keeeping one foot on the groud at all times, and bears little resemblance to the sort of hike the rest of us might do.

9

There are many activities that someone can do that are good for fitness and have a low chance of injury. But if someone is a competitive athlete, they will need to train at a high level in order to compete, and the high level of training and competition may lead to injuries that a casual person might not be concerned about. For instance, casual biking may be a safe sport, but that doesn’t necessarily compare to competitive biking. A competitive biker may have injuries from training multiple hours a day, as well as have significant risks of injuries from accidents at high speeds. For the purposes of this thread, it might be good to limit the question by considering sports where the athlete can complete over their lifetime in competitions with major prizes/money.

Along those lines, I would suggest that golf is a good sport. It seems rare for a competitive golfer to get injuries from training or competition that limit their ability to play. The level of fitness is low, but they get a good level of basic fitness from all the walking and movements they do when hitting the ball. Golfers can play in competitive matches for 5+ decades.

But for the purposes of this question:

How much the child enjoys the sport is going to be significantly important as to which sport to recommend. If the child doesn’t like the sport, encouraging them to go into that sport won’t matter to their lifetime heath since the child isn’t going to want to stay in the sport over their lifetime.

10

Polo. Only multi-millionaires can afford to play it, and multi-millionaires have the highest life expentancy. Therefore it is the healthiest sport ever.

11

Darts and billiards come to mind. They don’t do much for your heart, but your joints will last much longer. Most other sports are high wear activities no matter what they are. You can get a lot of joints repaired now, with great success, but not needing surgery to use a knee or elbow is definitely safe and healthier for you than reaching the point where it’s necessary.

OTOH claiming to be an high level athlete playing darts and pool doesn’t do as much for your ego as even moderate success at more strenuous activities.

12

You could always swim in natural bodies of water, but that carries risks of its own (swimmer’s itch, riptides, shark attacks, being swept downstream).

13

My wife took golf lessons. Not much power, but she had a very smooth swing, could hit the ball straight down the fairway, and had a very decent putting game. She tore her rotator cuff on an easy swing. She should have stuck to just walking the course.

14

I think that would be true of nearly any sport / exercise.

My gut feeling would also be swimming; as noted there certainly could be some RSIs, and access / chemical sensitivity issues - but unless you are in a rural area, it’s likely you could find an indoor pool which solves the year-round concerns. Swimming is recommended for numerous health conditions, due to low body stress, it can be as aerobic as you like, and if you work on various strokes, you can develop some flexibility.

Golf has similar problems with access; you can play golf when it’s too cool to swim, but not when it’s raining or snowing. You’re not going to have some of the flexibility benefits, and you don’t RUN while golfing, but simply moving / walking (assuming you do not use a cart, which eliminates some of the benefits) is hella better than sitting on the couch.

15

ETA: While we’re at it.

16

I think the OP is making a flawed assumption.

There’s a saying that the best race car falls apart just as it crosses over the finish line. If you’ve built any more durability into it than that, then you still have weight savings and, thereby, speed gains that you could have made.

So for any sport that requires strength, power, endurance, or whatever, the top athlete is going to be the one who pushed themselves closest to the limit without destroying themselves. That’s how you become the best on the planet.

And so the only sports where you won’t, eventually, see people with their bodies taped together, flat feet, impacted joints, etc. is going to be the sports where you just can’t push your body over the edge. Target shooting, for example, there’s not anything that you can really overwork or work to the limit, before destroying your own body. However, that doesn’t mean that, somehow, target shooting is healthier for you than swimming. Swimming is, generally, going to better for you over your lifetime.

Swimming might not be better for you if you’re going to train like an Olympian. But if you do it like a normal person, then it’s better than target shooting.

But, ultimately, no one sport (to my understanding of the current state of the science - though that could change) is the ideal sport for longevity.

The ideal (as I understand it) is that you:

  1. Do some low-impact, low-energy output work for long durations, e.g. walking for 6-10k steps a day, swimming the length of a bay once a day, etc.
  2. Do some medium-impact, medium-energy output work, semi-regularly, e.g. weight training, rucking, etc. a few times a week.
  3. Do some high-impact, high-energy output work, infrequently, e.g. distance sprinting, yoke walk, moving a couch up a stairwell, etc. every month or two (?).

That’s the sport of longevity, and it’s different than any Olympic sport. The nice thing with it, though, is that it leaves open a lot of variety so you can find things that interest you and keep you motivated and inclined to participate.

Swimming, you can get the first two by choosing how intensely you want to swim. And you work out more of your body and can work on your upper-body mobility and strength, which is lost in walking/running. But, I’m not sure that there’s any reasonable way to do the third type of workout except to tie an anchor to your belt and see how long you can stay on top of the water. Don’t do that. Find something else.

17

That seems to me to be a sport you can do for the rest of your life.

18

But yet, not reasonable.

19

Have someone toss a realistic looking doll into the water at the other end of the pool. That’ll also provide the third type of workout for you!

BTW, you all have inspired me to sign up for an aqua fitness class, except OUCH (400 bucks for 3 months).

20

Swimming is the obvious one. All kinds of running cause knee damage (everyone I know how has run as a pastime in the long-term has suffered)

But swimming has no impact at all. There is a slight risk of drowning I guess but I’ve never heard of professional or amateur swimmers drowning (as long as you stick to a pool)