The first thought that came to my mind was lung capacity (I played flute in middle school... I was awful). So, who has the best lung capacity- swimmers, cyclists, or runners? My initial thought was
swimmers, but apparently running is a
higher-intensity aerobic sport compared to swimming and cycling (note: this is not to say that you can't do a swimming or cycling workout that is higher-intensity compared to running). On the other hand,
swimming is specifically recommended for building lung capacity, as are some
yoga exercises.
I started to try and look up the
lung capacities of various athletes to get a quantitative comparison... but I couldn't figure out a good way to factor in that
Michael Phelps is a lot taller than most marathon runners (by nature, taller people have a greater lung capacity). And, it doesn't matter how big your lungs are if you can't
process oxygen effectively, which is more related to
VO2.
