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IMHO endurance sports are objectively the best sports: - Lowest chance of short term injuries. - Mostly low impact (less true for running, but true for sports

IMHO endurance sports are objectively the best sports: - Lowest chance of short term injuries. - Mostly low impact (less true for running, but true for sports like rowing and nordic skiing.) - Best for improving cardiovascular health, which is the biggest cause of death - Best for losing weight - Most fair and least influenced by random chance - Perhaps the best at developing a person's character also, since hard work and training is more consistently rewarded than with other sports (although there is still a lot of randomness). - Least commercialized and corrupted by the NCAA, pro leagues, tv ratings, etc. Perhaps the people smart enough to choose the best sports are the ones who are also smart enough to get wealthy.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
> I think most likely the people smart enough to choose the best sports are the ones who are also smart enough to get wealthy. Lol. Usually when people post something that is r/IAmVerySmart-worthy, they don't literally say how very smart they are in the post.
- Alex3917 8y ago
  Many/most people who do sports that are likely to leave people with TBIs or as quadriplegics don't actually experience those outcomes. But how many people who actually do those sports at reasonably high levels go on to make substantial contributions to society in other areas? And no, I'm not counting people who played football at Yale in the 50s or whatever. Some of them have popular clothing lines, but as of yet we haven't seen a lot of wingsuit BASE jumpers winning fields medals or whatever.
  - adrianN 8y ago
    There are a lot fewer BASE jumpers than joggers, so you would expect a lot fewer fields medal winners among them.
arcticbull 8y ago
The best/only way to lose weight is diet (and I don't mean "a diet" but changing what goes into your mouth). Exercise of any variety is marginally helpful at best in isolation. It's great for all sorts of other things, but losing weight, not so much. Even the American Heart Association [1] kind of beats around the bush saying "maximum benefits" start at 5 hours per week (spread out 1h per day 5 days per week) and they go out of their way not to use the words "lose weight" but rather "less weight gain." The adage about losing weight through "diet and exercise" is half lie. [2] Don't get me wrong, you should exercise anyways, but don't expect to lose weight. That's on your diet. [1] https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/fitness/fitness-basics/aha-recs-for-physical-activity-in-adults https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/fitness/fitness-basi... [2] https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-myth-burn-calories https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-m...
- tayo42 8y ago
  Exercise surprisingly, to me at least, doesn't burn much calories for how much work goes into. A whole day of snowboarding can barely break 1k burned. or ~100 calories for a mile of walking. Our food has to much calories in it i think. its to easy to eat crap or put some toppings on or have a snack and you suddenly added hundreds of calories to your day.
  - knrz 8y ago
    Couldn’t agree more! My personal challenge for the past little while has been being observant of when I feel full. I’ve found this to be a productive perspective to engage in.
  - arcticbull 8y ago
    Yeah, it's all metabolic -- sugar metabolism specifically. When you eat refined sugars, they go directly into your blood stream, causing your blood sugar to spike. Your body deals with this by producing Insulin. This triggers your body to remove glucose from your blood by turning it into fat (and protein, and glycogen), and store it for later. It also suppresses your body's ability to release stored fat. [3] Each time you eat sugar, you body becomes physically incapable of burning fat. The more this happens, the more your body gets used to high levels of insulin (insulin resistance) which turns into Type II and eventually metabolic syndrome. [1, 2] The vast majority of Type II cases are dietary issues. Your body has a well-defined hierarchy of what gets consumed first: (0) alcohol (1) carbohydrates (2) fats then last (3) proteins. [4] If you want to burn fat, you can't have carbs or alcohol around in meaningful quantities. Of the energy stores, dietary carbs are the only ones you don't need to survive -- your brain and red blood cells, I believe are the only part of you that requires them to live, and the liver/kidneys can synthesize all the glucose they need. [5] The rest of your body, including muscles, can operate solely on lipid metabolism. [6] In theory, anyways. This, though, is the science behind Atkins and other fat/protein/ketosis based diets. [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/carbohydrates-and-blood-sugar/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/c... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome [3] https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular-microscopic/fat-cell2.htm https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular-microscopic/... [4] https://www.myvmc.com/anatomy/metabolism-and-energetics/ https://www.myvmc.com/anatomy/metabolism-and-energetics/ [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis [6] https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mike-sheridan/carbohydrates-and-energy_b_6823546.html https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mike-sheridan/carbohydrates-an...
toomanybeersies 8y ago
Sports are a recreational activity. I don't think you can really define one activity as objectively better than another. That's like saying that sorbet is objectively better than ice cream because it has less calories and doesn't contain dairy.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
sacado2 8y ago
> IMHO [...] objectively Pick one. Now, you can get injured pretty easily with endurance sports too, I know lots of runners or cyclists who have very bad knees, for instance. And when you talk about randomness vs fairness, you are not talking about sports per se, only about competition. These are two different things.
justtopost 8y ago
> Least commercialized and corrupted Strong words for a sport notorious for cheating and performance enhancing drug abuse.

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago

> I think most likely the people smart enough to choose the best sports are the ones who are also smart enough to get wealthy. Lol. Usually when people post something that is r/IAmVerySmart-worthy, they don't literally say how very smart they are in the post.

Alex3917 8y ago
Many/most people who do sports that are likely to leave people with TBIs or as quadriplegics don't actually experience those outcomes. But how many people who actually do those sports at reasonably high levels go on to make substantial contributions to society in other areas? And no, I'm not counting people who played football at Yale in the 50s or whatever. Some of them have popular clothing lines, but as of yet we haven't seen a lot of wingsuit BASE jumpers winning fields medals or whatever.
- adrianN 8y ago
  There are a lot fewer BASE jumpers than joggers, so you would expect a lot fewer fields medal winners among them.

arcticbull 8y ago

The best/only way to lose weight is diet (and I don't mean "a diet" but changing what goes into your mouth). Exercise of any variety is marginally helpful at best in isolation. It's great for all sorts of other things, but losing weight, not so much. Even the American Heart Association [1] kind of beats around the bush saying "maximum benefits" start at 5 hours per week (spread out 1h per day 5 days per week) and they go out of their way not to use the words "lose weight" but rather "less weight gain." The adage about losing weight through "diet and exercise" is half lie. [2] Don't get me wrong, you should exercise anyways, but don't expect to lose weight. That's on your diet. [1] https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/fitness/fitness-basics/aha-recs-for-physical-activity-in-adults https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/fitness/fitness-basi... [2] https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-myth-burn-calories https://www.vox.com/2018/1/3/16845438/exercise-weight-loss-m...

tayo42 8y ago
Exercise surprisingly, to me at least, doesn't burn much calories for how much work goes into. A whole day of snowboarding can barely break 1k burned. or ~100 calories for a mile of walking. Our food has to much calories in it i think. its to easy to eat crap or put some toppings on or have a snack and you suddenly added hundreds of calories to your day.
- knrz 8y ago
  Couldn’t agree more! My personal challenge for the past little while has been being observant of when I feel full. I’ve found this to be a productive perspective to engage in.
- arcticbull 8y ago
  Yeah, it's all metabolic -- sugar metabolism specifically. When you eat refined sugars, they go directly into your blood stream, causing your blood sugar to spike. Your body deals with this by producing Insulin. This triggers your body to remove glucose from your blood by turning it into fat (and protein, and glycogen), and store it for later. It also suppresses your body's ability to release stored fat. [3] Each time you eat sugar, you body becomes physically incapable of burning fat. The more this happens, the more your body gets used to high levels of insulin (insulin resistance) which turns into Type II and eventually metabolic syndrome. [1, 2] The vast majority of Type II cases are dietary issues. Your body has a well-defined hierarchy of what gets consumed first: (0) alcohol (1) carbohydrates (2) fats then last (3) proteins. [4] If you want to burn fat, you can't have carbs or alcohol around in meaningful quantities. Of the energy stores, dietary carbs are the only ones you don't need to survive -- your brain and red blood cells, I believe are the only part of you that requires them to live, and the liver/kidneys can synthesize all the glucose they need. [5] The rest of your body, including muscles, can operate solely on lipid metabolism. [6] In theory, anyways. This, though, is the science behind Atkins and other fat/protein/ketosis based diets. [1] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/carbohydrates-and-blood-sugar/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/c... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_syndrome [3] https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular-microscopic/fat-cell2.htm https://science.howstuffworks.com/life/cellular-microscopic/... [4] https://www.myvmc.com/anatomy/metabolism-and-energetics/ https://www.myvmc.com/anatomy/metabolism-and-energetics/ [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluconeogenesis [6] https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mike-sheridan/carbohydrates-and-energy_b_6823546.html https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mike-sheridan/carbohydrates-an...

toomanybeersies 8y ago

Sports are a recreational activity. I don't think you can really define one activity as objectively better than another. That's like saying that sorbet is objectively better than ice cream because it has less calories and doesn't contain dairy.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

sacado2 8y ago

> IMHO [...] objectively Pick one. Now, you can get injured pretty easily with endurance sports too, I know lots of runners or cyclists who have very bad knees, for instance. And when you talk about randomness vs fairness, you are not talking about sports per se, only about competition. These are two different things.

justtopost 8y ago

> Least commercialized and corrupted Strong words for a sport notorious for cheating and performance enhancing drug abuse.