What Are The Different Types of Extreme Sports?

Extreme sports, also known as action sports or alternate sports, are outdoor activities of fast and dangerous nature. The most common sports in this category include skateboarding, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, bungee jumping, paragliding, parkour, and mountain biking. In general, these sports run outside of regular mainstream sports and are praised for their adrenaline-pumping thrills.

Motorcycle and snowmobile racing are commonly categorized as extreme sports, and the term can be extended to cover such daring sports as rock climbing and sky diving. These sports also have a distinct subculture that sets them apart from traditional sports. It is an adolescent culture that values individual creativity. Extreme sports can take place in many venues ranging from BBVA Stadium in Houston to remote mountains.

Types of Extreme Sports

1. Bungee Jumping

Bungee Jumping

Bungee jumping is one of the thrilling recreational sports on the list. In this game, you have to jump head-first from a tall structure while attached to an elastic cord. Bungee jumping started in 1979, but its various forms were once a tribal coming-of-age ceremony in many cultures. 

Currently, bungee jumping is one of the most popular and widely available extreme sports on the planet.

2. Paragliding

Paragliding

Paragliding is an extreme airborne sport in which you have to glide through the air while being attached to a parachute. People who participate in the sport jump from high altitudes, like mountains, cliffs, or planes. The pilot sits into a harness or lies spine in a coconut-like speed bag hanging under a cloth wing. Modern paragliding has been in practice since the late 1800s.

3. Windsurfing

Windsurfing

Windsurfing is a great surface water sport that combines the significant characteristics of sailing and surfing into a prevalent sport worldwide. Windsurfing is a one-person sport that is played using a unique piece of equipment known as a sailboard. 

This sports activity has two distinct interest groups: Racing and Riding, with many participants embracing both. Windsurfing has existed since the mid-20th century.

4. Skateboarding

Skateboarding

Skateboarding is a recreational activity filled with action and includes performing different tricks on the skateboard. Skateboarding was invented in California in the 1940s. It is an alternative to surfing and has ever since grown to become a widely popular leisure activity, particularly among youngsters. Skateboarding has also introduced its subculture, complete with slang and music.

5. Scuba Diving

Scuba Diving

Scuba diving is the most common type of underwater diving sport, in which the diver breathes underwater using a breathing device. Even though compressed air is commonly used, enhanced air or nitrox, a blend of air and oxygen, has gained popularity due to lower nitrogen intake during long or repetitive dives. This sport is all about discovering the wonders and beauty of the undersea world.

6. Abseiling

Abseiling

Abseiling is a recreational sport often played in spring. It requires you to slide down through a rope from a mountain, cliff, or artificial structure under regulated conditions. The weather is warmer and welcoming for abseiling in the spring, and because the sport is conducted in nature, it is the most suitable season for it.

7. Mountain Biking

Mountain Biking

Mountain biking is considered an extreme sport where people ride bicycles off the road, often over rough terrains, usually using specially designed mountain bikes. Mountain bikes have many things in common with other bike forms. They have features designed to enhance performance and durability in rough terrains like air or coil-sprung shocks used as suspension, more significant and wider wheels and tires, vital frame components, or hydraulically actuated disc brakes.

8. Kite Surfing

Kite Surfing

Kite surfing is also a form of extreme sport in which the kite flyers utilize the wind’s power with a large power kite to be pulled back on a water, land, or snow surface. It combines the aspects of some common sports like paragliding, surfing, windsurfing, snowboarding, etc. Kite surfing is one of the cheapest and the more convenient way of sailing sports.

9. Canyoning

Canyoning

Canyoning, also called canyoneering, crosses a fast-flowing mountain stream in a gorge using various techniques like abseiling, climbing, sliding, and jumping. The canyon itself is a natural cleft carved out of the rock by a flowing stream. 

They are usually relatively steep and have stunning cliff blocks on both sides and several waterfalls to be encountered along the journey. Some waterfalls generate natural toboggans that are natural slides down which people may travel with little effort – and this is a lot of fun.

10. Skiing

Skiing

Skiing is an extreme sport in which you have to glide on snow using the ski. It is done for various reasons, such as basic transportation, a recreational activity, or a competitive water sport. Skiing on the right terrain is much better because when the snow is wet, it builds a vacuum in the middle of the ski and the snow, making sliding a bit more complicated.

11. Ice Climbing

Ice Climbing

Ice climbing is a sports activity that involves ascending sloped ice formations. In Ice climbing, you have to climb with the help of rope. This activity includes icefalls, frozen waterfalls and cliffs, and rock slabs wrapped in ice refrozen from water flows. You can separate the ice into two categories for climbing purposes: alpine ice and water ice.

12. Blobbing

Blobbing

Blobbing is another outdoor extreme water sport in which the player has to sit on the end of a partially filled airbag and be flung into the water when another partner jumps onto the airbag from the platform’s opposite side. When the person is in the air, they can do a variety of stunts.

The airbag measures roughly 10 meters in length and 2 meters in width. The tower’s recommended height is 15 feet above the water’s surface or 10 feet above the air.

13. Wakeboarding

Wakeboarding

Wakeboarding is a sport where the rider has to stand on a wakeboard while surfing; he must be towed behind a motorboat across its wake, particularly up off the crest, to make airborne moves. The defining feature of wakeboarding is the attempted performance of midair feats. This sport has evolved from a combination of water skiing, snowboarding, and surfing techniques.

14. Parasailing

Parasailing

Parasailing is a recreational kiting sports activity where a person is towed behind a vehicle. At the same time, he is attached to a specially designed canopy wing that looks like a parachute known as a parasail wing. The moving anchor of the manned kite can be a car, truck, or boat. The harness secures the occupant to the parasail attached to the ship or land vehicle through the tow line.

15. Parkour

Parkour

Free running, commonly known as parkour, is the art of running and dodging the obstacles that come your way as fast as possible. Parkour doesn’t cost you anything, and you can do it almost anywhere you want. The bigger the obstacles are, the greater the risk. If you are a beginner, try practicing it step by step in your spare time, and you will get better at it slowly but surely.

16. Hang Gliding

Hang Gliding

Hang gliding is a recreational sport in which you have to fly in a light, non-motorized aircraft known as the hand glider. Most gliders are made from aluminum alloy or composite frames wrapped with synthetic sailcloth to form a wing. The pilot is often suspended from the airframe in a harness and controls the aircraft by moving body weight instead of a control frame.

Extreme Sports – All about Passion and Practice

Some extreme sports might be challenging, require a lot of effort and training, and even cost you a lot of money, while others are inexpensive. You can experience several extreme sports, such as skateboarding, hang gliding, bungee jumping, etc.   Of course there are some more exotic non-extreme sports that be fun to try like the hobby of juggling, knife throwing and more!

If you don’t know which sport you should partake in, try different sports and choose the one you think is best for you.