who are the fittest, football or rugby players?

Answer 1

RUGBY!!!!!! ---witout doubt..
all that testosterone...Sweaty and rugged...
Plus you know with a rugby player, they can give you a piggyback home after a night with some serious heels on..
and all without the theatrics..

Answer 2

Footballers don't run around for ninety minutes, they spend half that time walking and conserving energy, so that when they get a tap on the leg and fall down with a knock that makes them roll around like they've been shot they'll have more energy for the theatrical roll.
Rugby players get hit in the ribs, stomach, legs and everywhere else and spend a lot of time on the ground getting lumps kicked out of them because they happen to have landed on the wrong side of the ruck, then they get up and get back into the mix. And they're still doing that up to the last minute
Can't imagine a football player managing that, can you? Rugby is physically more demanding than almost every other sport on the planet. Football is running and kicking a ball.

And when you consider a certain very large former All Black used to run the 100 metres in a time that is under the Olympic qualifying time, you should begin to realise how fit top level rugby players really are.
In case you're wondering who that player is, it's Jonah Lomu.

Answer 3

As mentioned before, they have different types of fittness. Football is not as stop start or hi paced as Rugby. Its not oftern that a footballer reaches full sprint. However footballers rarely stop moving.

I know for an absolute fact that in 1995 the average level on the bleep test for a top level footballer was 13 and a half. For top lever rugby it was 15 and that was before rugby turned proffesional.

Having played both, I would edge towards Rugby players having the edge in the overall fitness stake.

P.S. LMAO @ the person claiming American footballers are physically fitter then Rugby & Football. The Running backs are fit and fast I grant you but average team fittness is **** even at top level.

Answer 4

RayN - American footballers don't play constantly for 80 minutes with just one short break at half time. In American football the game stops every few minutes so the players can have a rest and a chat.
Rugby is a very physical and demanding game. Football (not American football) is quite fast and goes on for longer. Difficult to tell

Answer 5

I used to sit and wonder how footballers could run about a field for 90mins, But then i started watching rugby and realised the rugby players have it harder than footballers do. Simply because footballers pretand they run about for 90mins but they actually don't! Rugby players get bashed and stuff and still run about more! Whereas if a footballer gets injured or knocked over he gets taken off and doesn't play again for like a week! Plus rugby players are so much bigger than footballers so they have more weight to carry around even if they do play for 10mins less than footballers!!

Answer 6

Re Mens Heath, Football fitness v Rugby fitness.( Webb Site) Footballers come out fitter than Rugby players in all aspects apart from muscle bulk.These are facts even From RFU people.

Answer 7

I would say it's 50 - 50. yeah, footballers have normally an extra 10 minutes on the pitch and they run around like blue **** flies. However, the rugby players, especially carrying all their weight must also be extremely fit. Yhe knocks that they get are normally worse also than a footballers.

Answer 8

They actually use different forms of fitness. Rugby players use a form of fitness with bursts of high intensity (followed by rest) while football players are required to play a lot more for position and therefore require a more constant form of fitness. This may explain why rugby players perform better in beep tests due to their ability to sustain high intensity effort for longer.

As for which is better? You can think of it in terms of who would cope better cross-code. Fitness-wise I believe that rugby players would have the edge because they would be able to sustain this constant fitness reasonably well while I believe that football players would struggle to maintain the fitness to compete in high intensity situations. But you have to remember that this is purely from a fitness point of view and doesn't account for differences in skill requirements between the two sports.

Answer 9

Rugby players are constantly playing, while in football when the ball is in the opposition´s territory, the defenders rest and when it is in your own field, the strikers rest.
Plus, in rugby you dont have to just run, but you have to tackle, push, lift, and even deck, which is much more demanding than kicking a round ball.

Answer 10

Well considering that footballers run around for 90 minutes and rugby players only for 80 minutes, I would say footballers.

Answer 11

Cricket players lol! I know as I'm Welsh I should say rugby players but most of them just look like cavemen and I don't do that whole "big burly sweaty lump with a broken nose" thing! Yeuch! I tend to go for brains rather than brawn. Footie players just look chavvy or are dowright ugly (ie Wayne Rooney) Cricket players (ie Simon Jones, Kevin Pietersen) are usually tall, lithe yet super fit! Yum!!! Nasser Hussain was a bit of a fox in his day. Wouldn't have kicked him out of bed for eating biscuits. And Mark Ramprakash! YES please! Till the fillings in my teeth fall out!