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Which sport suits me? In this article, I will address this question based on: What do I enjoy, what am I good at, and where are the best opportunities?
Which sport suits me?
When we talk about the big names in sports and their success, terms like ‘dedication’, ‘perseverance’, ‘talent’, and ‘skill’ are often mentioned.
However, one factor that is often overlooked and perhaps even more crucial than the others is the luck of choosing a particular sport. We might have never heard of Johan Cruyff if he had decided to play volleyball. Pieter van den Hoogenband might not have achieved much on a bicycle, and Tom Dumoulin might not have progressed beyond a beginner’s swimming diploma.
Many people start a sport because they find it enjoyable. It remains to be seen afterward whether they excel in that sport and whether success in that sport can bring more than just trophies and medals.
If you are looking for the most suitable sport for you, the answer depends on what you mean by ‘suitable’. Do you mean:
- The sport you enjoy the most?
- How accessible a sport is?
- What a sport can do for your body and mind?
- Your expectations of excelling in that sport?
- The opportunities a sport offers?
1. Which sport do you enjoy the most?
You truly know how much you enjoy various sports only after you have tried them. However, you can attempt to make a selection based on certain criteria beforehand. Consider differences such as:
- Team vs. solo
- Game vs. physical exertion
Team vs. solo
Many of my fondest memories stem from the time I played baseball. From the age of 5 to 16, I could be found on the fields of
Flying Petrols in Purmerend. Among those memories, only a few are about specific actions, like hitting a home run. It’s mostly the memories of the team spirit that have stuck with me.
A team sport is much more than just a form of exercise. It’s a form of social interaction outside your other social circles like school and work. It also creates a sense of unity that you may have never experienced before. Of course, you can also train together in other sports. However, it’s different when you compete as a team against others. Then, you depend on each other and are more inclined to support each other. For 11 years, whenever I was at bat, I had to hear: “Kenneth, you can do it!”
This social aspect can be immensely enriching, and for some, it can be as important as the physical activity itself. Others may see it as a distraction, a necessity to engage in social ties when you might want to escape from them.
Game vs. physical exertion
There were several reasons why I switched to basketball at the age of 16. In baseball, there are many moments when you are not physically active and stand still on the field or sit in the dugout.
This wouldn’t have been a problem if I lived in a warmer climate. However, in the Dutch spring, summer, and autumn, it often meant standing still for a long time on a cold and wet field.
Basketball is played indoors. When you’re on the court, you’re almost constantly in action. Although there’s still a significant element of gameplay, the emphasis on physical activity is much greater.
But maybe you don’t care much about the gameplay element. Throwing a ball through a hoop or hitting it with a bat requires a lot of fine motor skills and coordination. Some may find it enjoyable to develop these skills, while others might see it as a nuisance, preferring a sport where the physical effort is the most important.
2. How accessible is a sport?
I was watching ‘Drive to survive’ yesterday. The Netflix documentary about Formula 1. In the first episode, you hear Daniel Ricardo explaining how his father worked hard to make his son’s passion possible. In a documentary about Ayrton Senna, we heard the story of a family for whom weekends were about traveling to distant kart tracks to watch their son in action.
Costs of a sport
Not everyone is born as the son of Jos Verstappen. Or, like Senna, as the son of a wealthy landowner and factory owner. The fact is that not everyone can become an F1 driver, regardless of effort and talent.
Some sports are simply more expensive than others. As parents, you want your child’s sport to be primarily a source of joy and not the cause of stress over bills. Even if you are looking for a new sport to practice yourself, it is wise to research all the costs involved beforehand.
Region-bound sports
Furthermore, certain sports are especially popular in certain regions. The facilities around such a sport are often better in such regions than elsewhere. The chance that you will develop yourself as the best skater in the world in Suriname is very small.
That doesn’t mean you can’t practice that sport outside those regions. However, it makes it very unlikely that you will be able to practice that sport at a high level. For example, Japan was the undisputed number 1 in Judo as the founder of the sport. Until Anton Geesink became the first non-Japanese world champion in 1961 and thereby ensured the rise of one dojo after another in the Netherlands. As a pioneer, however, you will have a much harder time than in countries where an entire system around a sport is already in place.
3. What can a sport do for your body and mind?
It is also possible that you mainly want to exercise to live healthier and/or cause physical changes. Your choice of sport can then be determined by which sport adds the most to this goal.
For example, if I wanted to improve my endurance, baseball would not have been the best choice. That’s logical too, given that it’s a sport where the emphasis is more on the gameplay than on the physical element. Another better example is darts, for instance. You don’t play darts to build a lean, muscular, and healthy body.
Most sports should be able to meet the weekly recommended amount of exercise. At least in terms of the World Health Organization’s advice to engage in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week. Playing volleyball, football, boxing three times a week, it’s all good.
But you might be satisfied with that advice as you might be with a 5.6 on an exam. It’s sufficient, but not really something to write home about.
Cardio and strength training
You demand more from yourself if you want to ensure both moderate and high intensity. This way, you can develop not only cardiovascular endurance (fitness) but also greater muscle strength. Conditioning training is good for preventing, among other things, cardiovascular diseases. Strength training at a young age creates muscle mass that can prevent many problems later in life.
This doesn’t necessarily have to be weightlifting. Explosive forms of training like sprinting or quick punches on a punching bag also utilize the faster muscle fibers used in strength training.
Appearance of a fitness model
If it’s particularly important to you to look like a fitness model as quickly as possible, you cannot avoid training like a bodybuilder. Heavy weights aimed at muscle growth combined with a diet focused on muscle growth alternated with a diet focused on fat burning.
This may seem obvious. However, you’d be surprised how many people think they can achieve such a physique with other sports as a side effect. However, that’s the case for very few sports and even fewer people who practice them. Sprinters from the world top train explosively so often and have proportionally so many fast muscle fibers (optimal for muscle growth) that they can become quite muscular through their training.
Gymnasts who work on the rings must perform very heavy exercises. At the world level, this can also lead to the muscle mass that you find in some (lighter) bodybuilders.
However, these are examples of bodies that are achieved with a lifetime of training at the highest level within a sport. They probably could have achieved the same physique with a few years of strength training three to four days a week in the gym.
Increased self-esteem through sports
Sports can also increase your self-esteem. Sometimes because of what you can do with your body thanks to the sport, other times because of the changes in your body itself. Twenty kilos of extra muscle mass made me feel like a man instead of a boy twenty years ago. Purely because of the external effect and how others reacted to it.
However, for this transformation, I had already undergone another transformation. By taking up martial arts such as Karate, Aikido, Iaido, and Kobujutsu, I felt much more resilient. I now felt like I knew what my body was capable of and how to defend myself. Although there was little change in appearance at the time, I already felt much larger. The later strength training mainly ensured that others now saw me as I had seen myself for a while.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be a martial art or strength training. You don’t have to become stronger or bigger to have more self-esteem. Self-esteem can also come from the fact that you motivate yourself to get moving. Or from the fact that you’re just good at something. Whether it’s curling, checkers, or clay pigeon shooting.
4. Predicting which sport you’re good at?
Some people only think of the success they can achieve through sports. Think of the famous ‘Eddy the Eagle’. Eddy’s only reason for participating in ski jumping was because he would be the only Briton in that discipline. This would give him a great chance of qualifying for the Olympic Games. His childhood dream that he managed to fulfill in this way (movie tip!).
He wasn’t really good, by the way. He also didn’t have the body of a ski jumper. He weighed almost 9 kilos more than most of his competitors. He finished last in the 1988 Games. After that, the rules were changed so that newcomers had to prove themselves in international competitions first.
Aptitude for which sport?
This brings us to the more complex, more technical part of this article: Can you predict (or have someone predict) which sport(s) you will be good at?
As mentioned in the introduction, I think that the big names in sports all initially reached the top purely by luck. The pure luck that they chose a certain sport and turned out to be good at it afterwards.
There are a few exceptions. Think of tall men who are discovered by chance in Africa because they are 2.30 meters tall and end up in the NBA. Or ‘our’ Max, who didn’t end up in racing by chance and early on discovered that he had inherited the right genes.
Most of us are not 2.30m tall or have parents in top sports. No clear characteristics that would likely make us better in one sport than another. Do you then have to ‘waste’ a few years in a sport before you realize that your dreams of Olympic Gold and fame might be better pursued in another sport?
Aptitude for sport based on muscle fiber type
Predicting which sport you will be good at will remain almost impossible in the future as well. Being successful in a sport depends on much more than just your physical characteristics. However, these can push you in a certain direction or exclude other directions.
Think, for example, of the ratio of muscle fiber types in certain body parts and the energy systems that provide them with fuel. Slow twitch fibers, also called type 1 muscle fibers, are very efficient with energy. They can provide efforts of moderate intensity, but for a long period. Think, for example, of running a marathon.
Fast twitch fibers, type IIa and IIb, provide higher effort for a short moment. Think, for example, of sprinters on the 60, 100, and 400 meters. Researchers looked at the muscles of a world record holder in the (indoor) 60-meter hurdles and 110-meter hurdles in 2015 [1].
The researchers found the highest percentage of fast twitch fibers ever found in an athlete. In total, 71 percent of his muscle fibers were type II. Specifically of type IIb, also called super fast twitch, this was 24 percent.
Born as a sprinter
Those super fast twitch fibers (IIB) produced twice as much power as the fast twitch fibers (IIa) and
fourteen times as much power as the slow twitch fibers. So his legs are built for very high effort of very short duration. Like a car built for drag racing. You shouldn’t let it rally.
Unfortunately, most of us are not able to have the ratio of our muscle fibers measured. However, it shouldn’t be difficult to estimate for which sports branches your body is built.
Somatotypes: Body type and aptitude for sports
The so-called somatotypes are actually nothing more than pictures and names that we attach to three different body types. Originally developed by a psychologist who thought he could link these body characteristics to psychological characteristics as well. People would always have properties of the different somatotypes to a greater or lesser extent
endomorph, mesomorph, and
ectomorph. Although the original theory turned out to be unfounded, the three names and accompanying pictures often turn out to be useful for classifying body types.
Among top athletes, we mainly see people who fall most into the mesomorphic class in terms of characteristics. Relatively little body fat, a lot of muscle mass, and a lot of fast twitch fibers. Think, for example, of 100-meter sprinters.
Some will also have more characteristics of an endomorph. More body fat, especially more mass in the lower body, and relatively short arms and legs. Think, for example, of powerlifters, shot putters, and as an extreme example sumo wrestlers.
On the other end of the spectrum, we see people who are very good at endurance sports. Think, for example, of triathletes, marathon runners, and cyclists. People with more characteristics of the ectomorph. More slow twitch fibers that can generate more oxygen, more red blood cells, less muscle mass, but also less body fat and long arms and legs.
Within the top of certain sports, there is still enough variation. However, a ‘real’ ectomorph does not need to hope to reach the world top in powerlifting or strongman competitions. Conversely, a true endomorph should not expect to ever run a marathon record.
Body proportions
The body proportions themselves also play a role, regardless of their relationship with muscle fiber type and body fat. Both swimmers and rowers benefit from long arms to make a larger stroke. For the swimmer, large hands are also an advantage. They serve as paddles. For the rower, it makes little or no difference.
But also the size of the range of motion your limbs can make, the ratio between the length of arms, legs, and torso can all play a significant role.
Predicting aptitude for sports with DNA?
Today, there are companies that claim to be able to predict which type of sport you will be good at based on your DNA. That would be fantastic, of course. Just take a little saliva and find out a few days later if you’re the new Messi, Hamilton, or LeBron.
Unfortunately, the same seems to apply here as for the DNA diet I wrote about earlier. In both cases, attention is paid to the possible existence of certain genetic variations in individuals. Variations that have already been associated with certain characteristics such as your appetite or the speed of your metabolism.
A genetic predisposition for certain sports does exist. For example, a rare genetic variation was found in a Finnish athlete who won two Olympic gold medals in cross country in 1964. Eero Mäntyranta was born with a variation on a gene involved in the production of red blood cells. His natural limiter on EPO is, as it were, disabled. Whereas Lance Armstrong secretly administered EPO, Eero naturally had levels that were 25 to 50 percent higher than normal [2].
However, this is a rare deviation. So, there’s a small chance that you happen to have it. There are more genetic variations that can have a greater or lesser impact on performance, depending on the type of mutation and the type of sport. So far, we still know too little to identify multiple significant genetic variations in random individuals and translate them into statements about talent for certain sports.
Proposing Sports Based on DNA Impossible
Although it could provide very interesting information in the future, there are currently too many gaps in our knowledge. It’s like knowing that eventually you could play a beautiful symphony on a piano. However, for now, there are only two or three keys on the piano to play, and you’ve just had one music lesson.
Things like appetite are much easier to measure than ‘aptitude for a certain sport’. Besides needing to know the effects of all genetic variations (and their combinations), you also need to know which characteristics fit best with which sport. The latter is already a big challenge in itself.
However, that doesn’t stop commercial parties from pretending they can play Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with three keys and one music lesson. Gyms claiming they can create your perfect schedule based on your DNA. Companies claiming they can predict which sport you would be good at.
For now, it’s mainly quackery [3]. Making money from a thin theoretical basis that cannot yet be translated into a significant added value in practice.
Even if in the future, by examining your DNA, you can precisely highlight your strengths, it doesn’t mean there is a sport in which you would excel. If such a sport does exist, it may not coincidentally be a sport that you enjoy or that is practical (location, costs, etc.)
Just Do What You Like.
In addition to considering what you like or what you’re good at, you can also make a more business-like decision. Choose a sport in which a lot of money can be earned.
A combination of all these factors is, of course, the dream of many. A sport you enjoy, that’s good for you, that you’re good at, and that also earns you good money. It’s clear that this luck is reserved for few. Not everyone can play for FC Barcelona or compete in the NBA.
Personally, I still believe in the traditional path. Just choose a sport that you like. If you happen to be good at it, great. If you happen to be able to earn money from it, even better. If none of that happens, at least you’re doing what you enjoy.
Moreover, you have to wonder how long you can sustain a sport at a high level if you don’t enjoy it.
References
- Trappe S, Luden N, Minchev K, Raue U, Jemiolo B, Trappe TA. Skeletal muscle signature of a champion sprint runner. J Appl Physiol (1985). 2015;118(12):1460–1466. doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.00037.2015
- https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/37/3/192
- https://www.nocnsf.nl/nieuws/corporate-nieuws/experts-genetisch-testen-op-sporttalent-is-zinloos
