The 9 Best Sports for Building Muscle in 2025

Trying to build muscle can be challenging. While going to the gym and lifting heavy weights can be the traditional strategy, it’s not the right fit for everyone. Sometimes, we’re looking for something more involved and engaging to help us build muscle while doing something fun. Finding a sport to play can be the perfect way to help you build muscle while doing something you enjoy. Here are the nine best sports for building muscle. 

1. Boxing – Best for Upper Body and Core Strength

Boxing is known for being a violent and competitive sport. It’s also one of the best muscular strength sports. People forget that simple pad work or shadow boxing is a form of boxing that engages your core unlike any other sport. You can tone your arms, build up your endurance and practice great cardio with weekly boxing sessions. You could join a nearby boxing gym or hang a punching bag that should be half as heavy as you in the garage to get started at home.

Pros	Cons
+ Massively improves upper body strength	- Involves the risk of finger injury without proper safety gear
+ Offers physical and mental challenges	- Working with a trainer is recommended
+ Boosts your grip strength and core stability

2. Gymnastics – Best for Strength Training and Flexibility Work

One underrated sport that is often overlooked for building muscle is gymnastics. If you’ve ever been to a competition or seen Olympic gymnasts, you know just how strong, coordinated and agile gymnasts need to be. Many events involve holding up your body weight and staying in positions integral to building muscle. It’s also an excellent sport for those who aren’t looking to invest too much money in equipment — you’ll likely be able to find a local gym where you can exercise. 

Pros	Cons
+ Helps improve bone density	- Involves high injury risk
+ Improves self-confidence and self-discipline

3. Swimming – Best for Weight Loss

Swimming is one of the sports that require muscular strength but minimally impacts the body, making it great for those recovering from injuries or those who are elderly. It works nearly every body part to help you develop muscle and build strength. Swimming is easy to start, too — hardly any equipment is necessary. Just find a pool or another swimming area and start doing laps. You’ll be surprised how good of a workout it is. 

This sport involves several workouts that help you build muscle. For instance, you can do jump squats to build leg muscles. Get into the pool, put your weight on your heels and squat until your shoulders are underwater. Perform 20 reps per set before swimming.

Pros	Cons
+ Provides a full-body workout	- Requires pool access
+ Improves cardiovascular strength	- Entails a high risk of shoulder injuries without proper training

4. Bouldering – Best for Endurance Work and Mental Focus

One of the main reasons people don’t lift weights is because they find it too boring — some people may need something more mentally stimulating than simply lifting something heavy. If this sounds like you, you may be looking for an activity that allows you to be strategic and forces you to use your brain while also being active. 

Bouldering is a muscular strength sport that engages you mentally and physically. It’s a form of rock climbing that you can do indoors on artificial rock walls or outside on actual cliffs. It requires intense but shorter moves than traditional rock climbing. 

Spend 10 minutes climbing and you can engage your arms, core and back all at once. However, you’ll also try to pick out the best way forward, finding various handholds and footholds and thinking about traversing different areas.

Pros	Cons
+ Builds upper body and grip strength	- Involves high risk of hand and elbow injuries
+ Helps improve mental focus	- Needs access to outdoor boulders
+ Helps improve core stability

5. Rowing – Best for Achieving a Lean Physique

Rowing is one of the sports that builds muscle for your upper body, making it ideal for improving your core and amping up your shoulder muscles. This a full-body workout that can significantly reduce your body fat percentage, making you look more toned.

Alternatively, kayaking and canoeing let you spend considerable time out on the water, enjoying the scenery, getting some fresh air and building muscle at the same time. 

Only some have convenient access to a body of water, let alone shells, kayaks and canoes. Rowing machines are the next best thing. Using a rowing machine in a gym or at home can help you build lean muscle mass.

Pros	Cons
+ Builds back, arms, shoulders and leg muscles	- Exposes you to possible back injuries
+ Helps improve heart health	- REquires access to rowing machines

6. Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) – Best for Muscular Endurance

MMA has become increasingly popular in recent years. Many people are now realizing just how good of a workout it is. It’s more than just a great workout, though — MMA involves a lot of strategy and technique to beat your opponent. If you’re looking for a muscular strength sport that will push you to your limits, then MMA could be the sport for you. 

Pros	Cons
+ Teaches self-defense skills	- Requires proper supervision
+ Improves overall fitness	- Involves the risk of various body injuries during sparring

7. CrossFit – Best for Functional Strength

CrossFit has gained popularity in recent years because it combines weightlifting, cardio and gymnastics elements. Daily workouts use a mix of barbell and kettlebell movements, plyometrics, strongman, calisthenics and machine conditioning. These workouts, also known as workouts of the day or WODs, are implemented to push individuals out of their comfort zones.

Although CrossFit started as a fitness program, it is now considered a sport. Individuals compete against each other and more competitions happen worldwide. However, CrossFit still typically requires trainers and gym memberships to participate. In 2023, $65 was the monthly fitness facility dues on average in the United States — up 9% from the previous year.

Pros	Cons
+ Provides a variety of exercises	- Better for varied health goals than pure muscle building
+ Presents new and fun challenges daily	- May cost a recurring membership fee
+ More accessible for all ages and skill levels

8. Weightlifting – Best for Muscular Hypertrophy

Just like its name suggests, it refers to the actual activity of lifting weights. It’s a form of exercise in which your muscles contract against an external resistance, boosting your body’s tone, mass, strength and endurance. Weightlifting is the most popular sport that builds muscle with the right dedication.

Different types will allow you to build athletic muscle:

• Bodybuilding: This is the most popular sport. It involves working out specific muscle groups to boost muscle aesthetics and size.
• Powerlifting: Its primary focus is strength and includes three lifts called squat, deadlift, and bench press. Powerlifters often look out of shape and much stronger than bodybuilders because they can push more weight.
• Circuit training: In this method, you must perform weightlifting exercises one after the other with minimal rest to enhance cardiovascular fitness and various muscle groups.
• Olympic lifting: The two lifts that characterize it are the snatch and the clean and jerk. This sport is a test of strength, flexibility, coordination and speed.

Pros	Cons
+ Ideal for individuals whose primary goal is to build muscle mass	- Involves high risk of injuries, tearing muscles or overtraining without proper form
+ Can boost body composition, aesthetics and metabolism	- Can set unrealistic expectations
+ Improves strength and bone density	- May lead to imbalanced muscle development

9. Rock Climbing – Best for Upper Body and Grip Strength

Rock climbing requires you to use multiple muscle groups simultaneously, making it one of the most excellent sports for muscular strength. Engage in intense climbing training and expect to lose body fat and gain muscle mass. While climbers don’t usually have the bulky and excessive muscles weightlifters have, many athletes have toned and lean bodies. This muscular strength sport may be ideal if you want an all-around sport that doesn’t require you to bulk up.

Pros	Cons
+ Improves upper body strength	- Involves high risk of falls and finger injury without proper safety gear
+ Offers physical and mental challenges
+ Boosts your grip strength and core stability

Frequently Asked Questions

Get your pressing questions about muscle gain and sports answered.

What Sport Uses the Most Muscles?

Swimming is the sport that uses the most muscles. It engages various muscle groups and uses most muscles uniquely to propel and help the body move through the water, which acts as powerful resistance.

Swimming strokes put your abs, deltoids, latissimus dorsi, Iliopsoas, obliques, pectoralis major, rectus femoris, trapezius and triceps to work.

What Sport Makes You the Strongest?

Gymnastics, rock climbing and CrossFit are the sports that make you strongest.

Gymnastics is best for increasing your physical strength. Rock climbing is best for improving how firmly you can hold onto things and how heavy you can clutch, aiding your dexterity. CrossFit is best for enhancing functional strength, helping you perform everyday activities more easily.

Does Rock Climbing Build Muscle?

Rock climbing does build muscle. It calls your core, arms, legs, glutes, upper back and other muscles all over your body into action.

Learning proper techniques matters to reap the muscle-building benefits of rock climbing. If you’re a complete newbie, go to a gym with appropriate equipment and take lessons with a qualified instructor to learn the basics. Knowing the ins and outs of belaying and ideal foot placements is essential to keep yourself safe during every climb.

Increase the intensity of your climbs as you get more confident. Rock climbing is one of the sports that requires muscular strength, so you may gravitate toward other strength training activities — like doing dead hangs to stabilize your muscles and stretching your joints — to elevate your performance and execute rock-climbing skills more easily.

Is Boxing Good for Building Muscle?

Boxing is good for building muscle because punching a bag or air is a form of resistance training. Your muscles contract with every blow, increasing their size over time.

This sport requires muscular strength since knocking your opponent out is the surest way to victory. You want your adversary to hit the canvas as soon as possible to minimize the damage you absorb, so you want to finish the job with as few punches as possible.

Landing a lucky punch is one thing. Building power through muscular strength and moving fluidly in the ring through agility and footwork is another.

Which Sports Require the Most Muscular Strength?

The sports that require the most muscular strength include weightlifting, weight throw, amateur wrestling, American football, rugby, Australian rules football, boxing, baseball, rowing, gymnastics and rock climbing.

Most involve overcoming resistance — lifting a heavy object or overpowering grown human beings — to achieve goals, score points and ultimately win the competition.

Muscular strength is also important in some sports. However, other primary physical characteristics are necessary for success. For example, in basketball, more skilled players can outshine stronger ones in the NBA as more coaches favor outside shooting than mid-range and post-up plays.

What’s the Best Sport for Building Muscle? 

All the sports on the list are great options for building muscle. Much of it will depend on what sports you enjoy — you may want to try a couple of sessions to see which will fit you. Then, once you find the right muscle-building sport, you can dive in and start bulking up while doing something you enjoy. 

Looking to continue safely building strength and muscular endurance? We break down the best foods for muscle growth and strategies for maximizing muscle gain.

Originally posted Jul 26, 2022 – Updated April 7, 2025