American swimmers Katie Ledecky and Caeleb Dressel finished second and third, respectively, on the Fit test 50 list, by Sport Illustrated (here the link to the whole rank). The sports magazine ranks the 50 best trained athletes in the world in its Fittest 50, written with the advice of coaches, physiologists and experts at university, professional and Olympic levels.
The criteria for which athletes are chosen are performance in the last 12 months, needs and risks of the sport practiced, training regimes, physical parameters such as power, speed, strength, agility, endurance and flexibility.
Sport Illustrated wrote: “There’s no denying it: all athletes’ bodies are built to meet the unique demands of each sport and withstand the rigors of the game. At the elite level, physical fitness and conditioning are ever-present.
But what happens when you level the playing field and compare athletes of all shapes and sizes in disparate sports? Each year Sports Illustrated accepts the challenge and ranks the best-conditioned athletes in the world, consulting the expertise of trainers, exercise physiologists and performance experts with experience across the college, pro and Olympic levels of sports.”
Ledecky and Dressel among the Fittest 50 by Sport Illustrated
The magazine wrote about ledecky: “Ledecky can swim faster and farther than you. And she can do it while balancing a glass of chocolate milk on her head.
She established that fact once again at the 2020 Olympics, sans milk, when she won gold in the inaugural women’s 1500-meter freestyle race with a time of 15: 37.34, which was four seconds faster than silver medalist Erica Sullivan.
The six-foot distance swimmer also picked up another gold and two silvers, bringing her total career haul to seven . When she isn’t doing laps in the pool, Ledecky hits the weight room for strength training and dynamic exercises like squat jumps.
† Then about Dressel: “At the Tokyo Olympics, Dressel proved himself at the peak of his physical powers, though by the end of the Games, his neck might have been a bit sore from the weight of his five gold medals.
The 25-year -old became the first swimmer in the history of the modern Olympic Games to win gold in the 50-meter freestyle, the 100 freestyle and the 100 butterfly at the same Olympics, and he also won as part of the 4X100 freestyle and medley relay teams.
At 6’3 ″ and 194 pounds, he tailors his workout routines to develop “explosive strength off the block,” and it worked: He left Japan with Olympic records in all three individual events and the medley relay. †
