Sports of Benefits

Sports are loaded in benefits.  Some more than others.

Given the time-tight lifestyle many of us lead today, sport often plays an important role in helping balance lives.  It contributes physically and socially on many levels and to varying degrees and all-in-all it's a positive thing for sure.  But with many of use living sedentary lives, maybe there's too heavy a weight placed upon sport to deliver what we think is enough exercise.  In our chosen sport, are we getting enough of what our bodies need?  Well in my opinion the answer is mostly a flat no.

But what if we were to analyse individual sports for the long term physical and cognitive benefits alone?  Stand aside social benefits for a moment and look only at each sport from a perspective of movement.  How does each sport stack up?  Can they deliver what our bodies need?

The first question then should be, what do our bodies need to maintain a minimum baseline level of physical health?  Yes, we're all different but you see the point.   We're not talking optimal performance.  We're talking minimal loads. Looking at sport in this context allows us to loosely analyse it for it's contribution in movement and that's the topic of the moment. ie. how much of the essential movement patterns are involved ie. sqatting, single leg stance, hurdle step, rotation etc.  We could then correlate this with minimum baselines and the law of adaptation to make some comparisons.

The answer to this question is objectionable.  So many variables at play.  But shouldn't we look objectionably within a logical framework to determine if a chosen activity has a risks worth taking or at least the understanding of it's physical health contribution.

Too much of one thing will create an imbalance.  It has to, our body adapts to what we ask of it.  Ride a bike for example and nothing but riding has positive benefits but ultimately creates imbalances that have physical and neurological spill-over effects in our movement.  This is simply why the best exercise programs available are not generic.  They are goal orientated, balanced and individually specific.  They also account for your current movement short-comings and adjust accordingly as you adapt, not just as you become stronger. 

Sport training rarely has this personalised focus.  Sport training often quickly focuses on sport specific skill-sets in preference to movement quality and the fundamentals of movement are a generally distant second in importance, if even recognised at all.  But without the fundamentals, performance and longevity are compromised. You cannot layer fitness on dysfunction and expect to get away with it indefinitely. 

So when thinking about a range of different sports, the one's that offer the greatest bang-for-buck movement wise are the one's that demand a holistic broad range of positions and loads, without excessive risk.  For example, many football codes have tremendous loading benefits but for me, the head-injury and sheer contact risk within the sport carries too much long term risk well beyond the footballing years.  Contact sports bring this risk.

High up in my personal opinion-list is the climbing sport of Bouldering.  Problem solving demanding high neuro input, under full body tension (at end range) in a massive constantly varying range of positions and rates of speed.  Top shelf I say.  

It's a fine example of mindful movement in action.