Thinking about this. I wouldn’t choose golf - it requires a lot but in a way that is fairly repetitive. Maybe gymnastics - lots of events, easy to get hurt, very quick.
But what says you?
Baseball in general. Hitting a baseball.
IMHO it is basketball.
Yeah running_coach, hitting a baseball is the toughest sports skill to teach to young kids.
But overall I’ll take hoops as requiring the most coordination.
Curling.
Wearing a teflon slider on your lead foot, sliding on ice while pushing hard and fast regularly with your other foot, while sweeping hard using both arms, while keeping up with the swept rock and avoiding touching any rocks, in tandem with your fellow sweeper who’s doing the same thing, but with a different dominant lead foot, and not bumping into that player.
Oh, and changing how hard you’re sweeping depending on whether the Skip is yelling “Clean” or "Hurry! Hurry hard!!|
Running and throwing a basketball? Pfft.
I’m no athlete so I don’t know. But if someone said “ice skating” I would not be inclined to contradict them.
I got to the point I could stand up and scuttle in an oval around the ice track.
Shouldn’t this thread be in the Game Room?
Yeah, I misclicked. But my track record on choosing the best forum is kind of mixed anyway.
Forgot to mention for curling - when you’re sweeping into a crowded house, jumping over the other rocks while continuing to sweep your own rock, as called by the Skip.
Happens to the best of us.
And then there’s shooting your rock in curling.
Squat in the hack, teflon slider on your non-dominant foot, bracing your body on your broom in your non-dominant hand and arm, lifting the 40+ lb rock in your dominant hand behind you and bringing it down and forward to launch your slide on your non-dominant foot, aiming at the broom held by the Skip at the other end of the sheet, knowing that they don’t want the rock to end up there, but at the place where the curl will take it, depending on whether the skip is calling for in-turn or out-turn, and giving the stone guard weight, draw weight, hack weight or take-out weight, depending on what the skip is calling for, and making sure you release the rock before it slides past the hog line, knowing that to make your shot you may have to slide it between two other stones by a few inches, 120 feet down the ice.
That’s easier than standing still and hitting a ball with a stick?
This makes me wonder about the case for, say, boxing. Oh, sure, a world-class professional might excel at using hand-eye coordination to hit a moving target in a variety of ways sure as he’s bobbing and weaving his upper body just so while keeping up some truly deft footwork — but the question isn’t how good is he at that after maybe bumping into a guy who’s trying to cooperate while being advised by someone who’s out to help; it’s how coordinated he is after getting repeatedly punched in the face by someone who’s out to make him fail, maybe put him in the hospital.
I would say that’s more endurance than coordination.
Well, it’s both, isn’t it? I’ll of course grant that a guy who can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee also needs a knack for keeping up that sort of thing for a respectable amount of time while someone relentlessly attempts to break his jaw; but I’d be just as quick to add that endurance without coordination doesn’t seem like a winning formula either.
Some baseball pitches exceed 100 mph. The batter essentially needs to decide whether to swing as soon as it has left the pitcher’s hands.
A contender. But I say gymnastics probably has a wider variety of difficult things. I can’t say for sure - don’t really watch it.
Northern Piper have I ever mentioned the time I took my family curling? It was at the Niagara Falls Curling Club. We were on vacation. We had an afternoon of some quick lessons and then a game. Fun!
Our son who is a professional dancer did the best. He had the best balance and body control of us all.
We had a blast! I recommend it for all to try.
Sure, and that is a major issue. But is that the case for non-major league pitchers?
Plus, the batter is using both hands to do the same thing, swing the bat, and is not moving - both feet are firmly planted. That doesn’t seem to me to need so much coordination. It’s not a dynamic activity.
When you’re shooting your rock, your hands are doing different things - your dominant hand / arm are throwing, your non-dominant hand / arm are keeping you balanced with the broom. Your legs and feet are also doing different things: the non-dominant foot / leg is bent beneath you, supporting your body, while you dominant foot / leg was used to push off and now is trailing, helping with your balance. And you’re moving at a good clip on ice - your core body muscles are keeping you upright and you’re moving. And your hand-eye coordination is in issue, while you have to asses in-turn v out-turn, and the throw weight. That’s a very dynamic activity, with each limb doing something different, needing to be coordinated just to keep up upright and sliding on the ice, let alone making a good shot.
Ice hockey? You need to be coordinated enough to skate, skate backwards, stop and turn on a dime, etc. And that’s before you even pick up a stick and attempt to move a puck along the ice with it while doing all that skating. Then finally you have to be able to pass and shoot that puck with extreme speed and accuracy.
Yeah, ice hockey is up there.
Define “sport” and “coordination.”
Formula 1 and IndyCar race drivers control powerful and highly sophisticated vehicles that travel at speeds exceeding 200 mph/320 kph, i.e., the length of a football field every second. This requires split-second reaction times unmatched by virtually any other sport. They use both hands and both feet to manage dozens of controls, while repeatedly experiencing forces exceeding 5 Gs.
They have to match their skills and strategies with 20-25 other competitors over the course of races that can last between 2 and 4 hours without any break. And if they are unlucky, they can face serious injury or even death, although modern safety equipment has thankfully reduced the chance of either possibility substantially.
Is this more or less “coordination” than, say, basketball?
Yes, I think racing is fair game. I thought of putting it as an example, but wouldn’t have known how to include so many details.
To clarify, though any opinion is welcome, my original thought was for a reasonably high level player who essentially specializes in that sport at a professional level with commensurate proficiency.