Endurance is an important element of many sports in which you are required to maintain an activity level for a long period with few or no pauses. While most sports require a certain amount of endurance, a game like American football allows for many breaks and periods of rest before you are required to perform again. Other sports are characterized by exceptional levels of endurance.
Triathlon
There might be no other sport that exemplifies the demands of athletic endurance more than the triathlon. The event is composed of swimming, bicycling and running. Different organizations and competitions have a variety of distances for each component of the triathlon. In the Olympics, for example, a triathlon is composed of a 1.5-k swim, a 40-k bike ride and a 10-k run. The legs in ultra-triathlons often are twice as long as those in the Olympic-style triathlon. Shorter distances often are part of local and youth triathlons.
Soccer
Unlike sustained endurance activity, such as long-distance running, soccer is a sport marked by short bursts of action followed by slower periods of activity. But soccer players usually play on a field that's 100 to 130 yards long and, depending on their position, might run around seven miles over the course of a game. And soccer training can be a suitable substitute for other endurance training activities, with the added bonus of including soccer skills, according a study published in the May 2006 issue of the "Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research."
Rowing
Rowing is a sport that demands a high level of endurance, as well as upper-body strength. Long-distance runners tend to do well at rowing because they have built up athletic endurance and are used to the kind of endurance training required to excel at rowing. Cross-country running often is part of the on-land training for rowers.
Cross-Country Skiing
Cross-country skiing requires endurance as well as all-over conditioning because the sport demands leg power to keep moving across the race course and upper body strength to drive the ski poles in and out of the ground. Olympic cross-country races include distances of 30 k and 15 k, as well as shorter relay races and the biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing and target shooting.
References
- Olympic.org: International Triathlon Union
- "Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research"; Suitability of Soccer Training Drills for Endurance Training; William T. Little; May 2006
- "Kansas State Collegian"; Club rowing team requires endurance, commitment; By Ashley Dunkak; April 27, 2010
- Olympic.org: Cross Country Skiing
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