Top 5 sports requiring lesser reaction time with more precision

Reaction time and precision are the two terms you can attach with any sports. They constitute the foundation of any athlete aspiring for success. Athletes work day and night to improve both. Reaction time plays an important role in various fighting games such as taekwondo, wushu, judo and other sports like badminton , squash, kabaddi. More requirement of precision can be seen in various aiming games such as archery, dart, shooting etc. Here in the list, we will see some of the sports which require both, better reaction time with good precision.

5. Gymnastics- There are many events in the category of gymnastics and almost every event requires high amount of precision whether it is artistic or rhythmic. Artistic gymnastics events like floor, high bar, vault, pommel horse, still rings, parallel bars – all require lesser reaction time. In rhythmic gymnastics, an athlete has to be very precise to do his or her somersault or catch the ring, and concentrate too. If you mistime it even slightly, your score will drop and your dream to win a medal may shatter at that moment.

4. Table tennis - Table tennis, also known as ping-pong, is a sport in which two or four players hit a light 2.7 gram, 40 mm diameter ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. You get less than 1/10^th of a second to play your shot perfectly. Playing a shot just for the sake of it will not get you any points. You have to be precise with where you are hitting the ball. There may be chances that you are playing a shot 10 ft off the table and you have to place it correctly otherwise you will lose the point. This is the sport in which many a times spectators are in a daze as to where the ball went, because in the faster rallies even seeing the ball becomes difficult.

3. Amateur boxing - Boxing is a sport in which you have to punch your opponent at certain positions to earn a point. Unlike pro boxing, power of the punch does not affect the score – just the position of the punch affects the scoring so you have to be precise with your punch. There should be no question about how good the reaction time is required in this sport because if you are slow you surely are out of contention.

2. Basketball - Basketball is a very popular sport in which a team has to put the ball through a small circular basket 10 ft above the ground. If you are on the court just to pot some baskets, you will not require a good reaction time, only precision. But if you are on the court to play the game you will have to convert the little openings you get to pot the ball into the basket. You have to be quick to be a good basketball player. Other than getting a basket, good reaction time is also required to get the ball from the opposition.

1. Double trap - Double trap is a shotgun shooting sport, one of the ISSF shooting events. Participants use a shotgun to attempt to break a clay disk flung away from the shooter at high speed of around 50 miles per hour. The shooter had to shoot two clay disks within a two second span of time. You will be awarded one point for each shot on target, that means two points if you able to blast out both clay disks at one go. So with the necessary precision you have to have a better reaction time.

Notable mentions

1) Hockey - It is a sport played by a stick and a ball. Playing with a stick considerably decreases an athlete’s reaction time and he has to practice hard to gain it back. Unlike football, in hockey you cannot strike a goal from anywhere or you cannot hit the shot as you like. There are some rules for the shot to be right, depending upon the safety, so you have to be precise in hitting your shot. In addition to it, the goal is also comparatively small. If you are a goalkeeper then you have to put on a kit which weighs more than 10 kg, so the goalkeeper has to practice his reaction time to stop a small ball getting into the goal.

2) Cricket - If you a batsman then you will get less than 1 second to play a ball so your reaction time should be less. But merely playing a ball will not give you runs, you have to place it in the right directions so that the ball can go through the fielders protecting the chances of runs.

And if you are a bowler then you have to be quick as well as pitch the ball correctly. A wrongly pitched ball will make a batsman’s job easy.

3) Water polo - Moving in water is already a difficult task and playing in water is a lot more tougher than you can imagine, so reaction time does play an important role. And you have to be precise to get the goals as the goal here is a lot smaller.