Everybody Should Know About the Advantages of Playing Sports
The average person today does not participate in even 10% of the physical activities that his grandparents were “obligated” to perform. Chopping wood, building and tending a garden, walking to destinations, even washing clothes by hand, where daily habits for folks in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Nowadays, modern men and women spend far too much of their time sitting in the office, in their vehicle or in front of the TV. The gestures of everyday life are limited to pressing buttons to generate heat or cool the air, to wash clothes, to go up or down the floors, to cook food. Long live progress and innovation!
No doubt, man invented machines to reduce the most unpleasant tasks. Machines have since evolved to reduce most menial tasks as well. Unfortunately, the result of all this is that our sedentary lifestyles are literally killing us like a small, slow burning fire.
Move or Die
For 2008, according to a recent study by Harvard Medical School, sedentary lifestyle would have killed more than 5 million people, as much as tobacco. Still according to this study, 10% of the four largest non communicable diseases are related to doing less than 2 hours weekly moderate activity.
By generalizing physical activity, life expectancy in the world could increase about as much as if all obese in the US were recovering at a normal weight. Moreover, the practice of regular exercise has a favorable preventive impact on other ailments such as: obesity, osteoporosis, depression, Alzheimer’s disease, …
In order to avoid this, it is necessary to practice, irrespective of age and ability, a regular physical exercise, adapted to its possibilities, and under the condition that the efforts made require a little more than usual muscle mass, respiratory and cardiovascular exertion.
So at your marks, ready, move!
Many misconceptions about sport and its usefulness, did you know?
There is evidence that physical and sports practice also improves cognitive functioning. This boosts self-esteem, and improves memory and reasoning as well. When you are practicing activities involving throwing, swinging, kicking, catching, or jumping, your brain calculates the distances and trajectories of balls, anticipates obstacles and perceives the environment more quickly.
Sport does not specifically promote weight loss for the player because physical exercise increases muscle mass, which is denser and heavier than the fat mass. On the other hand, physical exercise helps to reduce the body fat and to improve the silhouette by firming it and sometimes by refining it. To specifically “lose weight”, the player will also have to change his eating habits to eliminate excess calories, often in the form of carbohydrate and sometimes fat.
Anyone Can Do It
There is no age limit in the practice of physical activity. Whatever his state of health, the person will benefit from it.
Even seniors who do not move for several years will be able to observe improvements in their overall shape after only 3 months of activity. It is strongly recommended to take sports recovery precautions, specifically after a long period of inactivity, or in the case of some pathologies.
It is as important for men as for women to play sports. All too often, women do not exercise before 35 years of age, where they go for aesthetic reasons.
Younger girls should be encouraged, ever more so than boys, to become more interested in playing sports. Athletics increase density of the bones and will help to prevent osteoporosis later in life. Moreover, breast cancer is particularly vulnerable to the benefits of sport and physical activity.
Tags: exercise, fitness, health, lifestyle, obesity, play sports, sedentary, Sports
