The fittest of the fit
Pitting multidisciplinary athletes against those who opt to specialize in one sport
It’s a question guaranteed to spark a lively discussion in locker-rooms from coast to coast and continent to continent. Who are the fittest of all athletes?
Is it endurance runner Eliud Kipchoge, who last year was just shy of breaking the two-hour marathon barrier running a speedy two minutes 51 seconds per kilometre, a pace the majority of runners couldn’t maintain for 42 seconds much less 42 kilometres? Or does your idea of fitness run more along the lines of the multidisciplinary athletes who compete in the Crossfit Games or the American Ninja Warrior television series?
Exercise physiologists typically evaluate fitness by way of VO2 max — a measure of the maximum amount of oxygen one can consume — and then circulate to the working muscles.
Considered the gold standard of determining cardiovascular fitness, cross-country skiers and cyclists generally have the highest VO2 max scoring in the mid80s (ml/kg/min) with the highest recorded VO2 max measuring 97 by a cyclist.
But aerobic capacity is only one measure of fitness. Speed, power, strength, agility and flexibility are also important, which makes a case for Olympic gold medal gymnast Simone Biles, who put on a pretty strong showing of all five assets at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, to earn a place at the top of the list of fittest athletes.
Then there are those who claim decathletes and heptathletes — who perform 10 and seven events, respectively, over two days (running 1,500 metres, 400 metres, 100 metres, high jump, hurdles, javelin, discus, pole vault, long jump and shot put in the decathlon; 100 metres, 200 metres, 800 metres, long jump, high jump, javelin and shot put in the heptathlon) — display the type of overall fitness that puts them at the top when it comes to crowning the fittest athletes.
Also vying for the top spot are boxers, mixed martial arts fighters, hockey players and football running backs, wide receivers and cornerbacks, all of whom score high on speed, power, agility and strength.
What most of these athletes lack, however, is cardiovascular endurance due to the stop-andgo nature of their sport, which demands bursts of high-intensity activity followed by periods of recovery, versus the type of sustained effort of a cyclist or marathon runner.
At the other end of the scale, not many people would put golfers, curlers or baseball players high up on the list of fit athletes. These highly skilled sports demand some level of fitness, but in most cases the athletes train just enough to fulfil the needs of their sport.
Leaning the vote for fittest athlete toward those who excel in multiple components of fitness versus those who specialize in just one (a decathlete verses a marathon runner), we’d be remiss not to mention Crossfit and Ninja Warrior athletes. Both disciplines demand high levels of strength, power, agility and speed and in almost equal measure. In fact, Crossfit has always claimed to produce the fittest athletes.
Does that mean marathoners, cross-country skiers and cyclists aren’t fit? Well, they can’t match the strength of an MMA fighter, the flexibility of a gymnast or the speed, power and agility of a decathlete or running back, but there’s no doubting their cardiovascular fitness.
Bottom line is elite athletes train for the sport in which they’re competing, prioritizing the elements of fitness needed to excel. But for the rest of us, being our fittest selves means training more like a decathlete than a marathoner, which requires diversifying our workouts to include strength, speed, endurance, agility and flexibility.
Sprints on the treadmill, spin bike or rowing machine (better yet all three), yoga, weight training, callisthenics and extended cardio workouts like swimming, cross-country skiing, running or cycling check all the fitness boxes.
Mixing up your exercise routine will also improve overall health and wellness, resulting in fewer overuse injuries, improved range of motion and a better balance between upper and lower body strength.
Translated into more lifestyle-friendly terms, it means you’ll have more energy and less fatigue at the end of the day. It also means that sprinting to catch the bus, playing soccer or going tobogganing with the kids and lifting a heavy load from the trunk to the house won’t set you back for the rest of the day — or week.
After all, the goal for the majority of Canadians isn’t to be the fittest athlete of all, but to live life like an athlete, full of vigour, confidence in your ability to tackle the chores of everyday life, yet still nimble enough to hop over a puddle, recover from an encounter with an icy patch of sidewalk and get down to the floor and back up again with ease. These are the decathlon of life’s events for which we should never stop training.