What are sports?
Sport (or sports) is all forms of usually competitive physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing entertainment to participants, and in some cases, spectators.
Sport includes all forms of competitive physical activity or games which, through casual or organised participation, at least in part aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a match) is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion.
Sport is generally recognised as system of activities which are based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with the largest major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition, and other organisations such as the Council of Europe using definitions precluding activities without a physical element from classification as sports.
Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition, and allow consistent adjudication of the winner. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.
Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sport betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in some cases is central to the sport.
The precise definition of what separates a sport from other leisure activities varies between sources. The closest to an international agreement on a definition is provided by SportAccord, which is the association for all the largest international sports federations (including association football, athletics, cycling, tennis, equestrian sports, and more), and is therefore the de facto representative of international sport.
SportAccord uses the following criteria, determining that a sport should:
have an element of competition
be in no way harmful to any living creature
not rely on equipment provided by a single supplier (excluding proprietary games such as arena football)
not rely on any "luck" element specifically designed into the sport.
They also recognise that sport can be primarily physical (such as rugby or athletics), primarily mind (such as chess or Go), predominantly motorised (such as Formula 1 or powerboating), primarily co-ordination (such as billiard sports), or primarily animal-supported (such as equestrian sport).
According to Council of Europe, European Sports Charter, article 2.i, "'Sport' means all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim at expressing or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels."
Sportsmanship
Sportsmanship is an attitude that strives for fair play, courtesy toward teammates and opponents, ethical behaviour and integrity, and grace in victory or defeat.
Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it's "not that you won or lost but how you played the game", and the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: "The most important thing... is not winning but taking part" are typical expressions of this sentiment.
Participation
Gender participation
Female participation in sports continues to rise alongside the opportunity for involvement and the value of sports for child development and physical fitness. Despite gains during the last three decades, a gap persists in the enrollment figures between male and female players. Female players account for 39% of the total participation in US interscholastic athletics. Gender balance has been accelerating from a 32% increase in 1973–74 to a 63% increase in 1994–95.
Youth participation
Youth sport presents children with opportunities for fun, socialisation, forming peer relationships, physical fitness, and athletic scholarships. Activists for education and the war on drugs encourage youth sport as a means to increase educational participation and to fight the illegal drug trade. According to the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital, the biggest risk for youth sport is death or serious injury including concussion. These risks come from running, basketball, association football, volleyball, gridiron, gymnastics, and ice hockey. Youth sport in the US is a $15 billion industry including equipment up to private coaching.
Disabled participation
Disabled sports also adaptive sports or parasports, are sports played by persons with a disability, including physical and intellectual disabilities. As many of these are based on existing sports modified to meet the needs of persons with a disability, they are sometimes referred to as adapted sports. However, not all disabled sports are adapted; several sports that have been specifically created for persons with a disability have no equivalent in able-bodied sports.
History
No one can say when sports began. Since it is impossible to imagine a time when children did not spontaneously run races or wrestle, it is clear that children have always included sports in their play, but one can only speculate about the emergence of sports as autotelic physical contests for adults. Hunters are depicted in prehistoric art, but it cannot be known whether the hunters pursued their prey in a mood of grim necessity or with the joyful abandon of sportsmen. It is certain, however, from the rich literary and iconographic evidence of all ancient civilizations that hunting soon became an end in itself—at least for royalty and nobility. Archaeological evidence also indicates that ball games were common among ancient peoples as different as the Chinese and the Aztecs. If ball games were contests rather than noncompetitive ritual performances, such as the Japanese football game kemari, then they were sports in the most rigorously defined sense. That it cannot simply be assumed that they were contests is clear from the evidence presented by Greek and Roman antiquity, which indicates that ball games had been for the most part playful pastimes like those recommended for health by the Greek physician Galen in the 2nd century ce.
Globalization
From the British Isles, modern sports (and the amateur rule) were diffused throughout the world. Sports that originally began elsewhere, such as tennis (which comes from Renaissance France), were modernized and exported as if they too were raw materials imported for British industry to transform and then export as finished goods.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the British expelled the French from Canada and from India and extended British rule over much of Africa. To the ends of the earth, cricket followed the Union Jack, which explains the game’s current popularity in Australia, South Asia, and the West Indies. Rugby football flourishes in other postcolonial cultures, such as New Zealand and South Africa, where the British once ruled. It was, however, association football’s destiny to become the world’s most widely played modern sport.
Cricket and rugby seemed to require British rule in order to take root. Football needed only the presence of British economic and cultural influence. In Buenos Aires, for instance, British residents founded clubs for cricket and a dozen other sports, but it was the Buenos Aires Football Club, founded June 20, 1867, that kindled Argentine passions. From the gamut of games played by the upper and middle classes, the industrial workers of Europe and Latin America, like the indigenous population of Africa, appropriated football as their own.
By the late 19th century, the United States had begun to rival Great Britain as an industrial power and as an inventor of modern sports. Enthusiasts of baseball denied its origins in British children’s games such as cat and rounders and concocted the myth of Abner Doubleday, who allegedly invented the game in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York. A more plausible date for the transformation of cat and rounders into baseball is 1845, when a New York bank clerk named Alexander Cartwright formulated the rules of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club. Even before the Civil War, the game had been taken over by urban workers such as the volunteer firemen who organized the New York Mutuals in 1857. By the time the National League was created in 1876, the game had spread from coast to coast. (It was not until the 1950s, however, that Major League Baseball planted its first franchises on the West Coast.)
Basketball, invented in 1891 by James Naismith, and volleyball, invented four years later by William Morgan, are both quintessentially modern sports. Both were scientifically designed to fulfill a perceived need for indoor games during harsh New England winters.
Football (soccer) is the world’s most popular ball game, but, wherever American economic and culture influence has been dominant, the attraction to baseball, basketball, and volleyball has tended to exceed that to football. Baseball, for example, boomed in Cuba, where Nemesio Guilló introduced the game to his countrymen in 1863, and in Japan, where Horace Wilson, an American educator, taught it to his Japanese students in 1873. Since basketball and volleyball were both invented under the auspices of the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association), it seemed reasonable for YMCA workers to take the games to China, Japan, and the Philippines, where the games took root early in the 20th century. It was, however, only in the post-World War II world that U.S. influence generally overwhelmed British; only then did basketball and volleyball become globally popular.
In the 20th century, sports underwent social as well as spatial diffusion. After a long and frequently bitter struggle, African Americans, Australian Aborigines, “Cape Coloureds” (in South Africa), and other excluded racial and ethnic groups won the right to participate in sports. After a long and somewhat less-bitter struggle, women also won the right to compete in sports—such as rugby—that had been considered quintessentially masculine.
While the British Isles may be considered the homeland of modern sports, modern physical education can be traced back to German and Scandinavian developments of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Men such as Johann Christoph Friedrich Guts Muths in Germany and Per Henrik Ling in Sweden elaborated systems of gymnastic exercise that were eventually adopted by school systems in Britain, the United States, and Japan. These noncompetitive alternatives to modern sports also flourished in eastern Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among repressed ethnic peoples such as the Poles and Czechs, gymnastics became almost a way of life. For them, gymnastic festivals were grand occasions at which tens of thousands of disciplined men and women demonstrated nationalistic fervour.
Gymnastic fervour was not, however, much in evidence among the world’s schoolchildren and college students as they encountered gymnastics in required physical-education classes. Long before the end of the 20th century, even German educators had abandoned Leibeserziehung (“physical education”) in favour of Sportunterricht (“instruction in sports”). For young and for old, for better and for worse, sports are the world’s passion.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, the British expelled the French from Canada and from India and extended British rule over much of Africa. To the ends of the earth, cricket followed the Union Jack, which explains the game’s current popularity in Australia, South Asia, and the West Indies. Rugby football flourishes in other postcolonial cultures, such as New Zealand and South Africa, where the British once ruled. It was, however, association football’s destiny to become the world’s most widely played modern sport.
Cricket and rugby seemed to require British rule in order to take root. Football needed only the presence of British economic and cultural influence. In Buenos Aires, for instance, British residents founded clubs for cricket and a dozen other sports, but it was the Buenos Aires Football Club, founded June 20, 1867, that kindled Argentine passions. From the gamut of games played by the upper and middle classes, the industrial workers of Europe and Latin America, like the indigenous population of Africa, appropriated football as their own.
By the late 19th century, the United States had begun to rival Great Britain as an industrial power and as an inventor of modern sports. Enthusiasts of baseball denied its origins in British children’s games such as cat and rounders and concocted the myth of Abner Doubleday, who allegedly invented the game in 1839 in Cooperstown, New York. A more plausible date for the transformation of cat and rounders into baseball is 1845, when a New York bank clerk named Alexander Cartwright formulated the rules of the Knickerbocker Base Ball Club. Even before the Civil War, the game had been taken over by urban workers such as the volunteer firemen who organized the New York Mutuals in 1857. By the time the National League was created in 1876, the game had spread from coast to coast. (It was not until the 1950s, however, that Major League Baseball planted its first franchises on the West Coast.)
Basketball, invented in 1891 by James Naismith, and volleyball, invented four years later by William Morgan, are both quintessentially modern sports. Both were scientifically designed to fulfill a perceived need for indoor games during harsh New England winters.
Football (soccer) is the world’s most popular ball game, but, wherever American economic and culture influence has been dominant, the attraction to baseball, basketball, and volleyball has tended to exceed that to football. Baseball, for example, boomed in Cuba, where Nemesio Guilló introduced the game to his countrymen in 1863, and in Japan, where Horace Wilson, an American educator, taught it to his Japanese students in 1873. Since basketball and volleyball were both invented under the auspices of the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association), it seemed reasonable for YMCA workers to take the games to China, Japan, and the Philippines, where the games took root early in the 20th century. It was, however, only in the post-World War II world that U.S. influence generally overwhelmed British; only then did basketball and volleyball become globally popular.
In the 20th century, sports underwent social as well as spatial diffusion. After a long and frequently bitter struggle, African Americans, Australian Aborigines, “Cape Coloureds” (in South Africa), and other excluded racial and ethnic groups won the right to participate in sports. After a long and somewhat less-bitter struggle, women also won the right to compete in sports—such as rugby—that had been considered quintessentially masculine.
While the British Isles may be considered the homeland of modern sports, modern physical education can be traced back to German and Scandinavian developments of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Men such as Johann Christoph Friedrich Guts Muths in Germany and Per Henrik Ling in Sweden elaborated systems of gymnastic exercise that were eventually adopted by school systems in Britain, the United States, and Japan. These noncompetitive alternatives to modern sports also flourished in eastern Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Among repressed ethnic peoples such as the Poles and Czechs, gymnastics became almost a way of life. For them, gymnastic festivals were grand occasions at which tens of thousands of disciplined men and women demonstrated nationalistic fervour.
Gymnastic fervour was not, however, much in evidence among the world’s schoolchildren and college students as they encountered gymnastics in required physical-education classes. Long before the end of the 20th century, even German educators had abandoned Leibeserziehung (“physical education”) in favour of Sportunterricht (“instruction in sports”). For young and for old, for better and for worse, sports are the world’s passion.
Importance of Sports in Our Everyday Life
Sports Development in our Lives as a Kid
As children, we were introduced to sports early in our lives. From the time we could walk, we were running, playing tag, hopscotch, kickball, and other sports games.
At the same time, physical education in our school curriculum was introduced to us at an early age. I can remember attending physical education classes as a kid. Of course, we were divided up into teams for many of the sports games. This allowed for the development of good sportsmanship and the importance of learning how to win or lose gracefully. While many of us are competitive, it is important to respect our fellow teammates.
As a kid develops in personality, they use these skills to interact with others. While not everyone is smart in academics, it is important that every child develops a strong and healthy body. Moreover, participating in physical education and sports competitions fosters qualities such as leadership and self-esteem.
Sports as an Adult
Because physical education played an important part of our lives as kids, we have seen the impact as adults.
Whether you become a professional athlete or used the skills learned as a kid, you have become more proficient in your everyday life.
If you participated in any type of sport as a kid, you learned discipline and the importance of being on time. As an adult, you’re able to use these skills to be punctual for business and social situations.
Health
In the same way, we cannot forget the importance of our body and health. You don’t have to be an athlete to remain fit and healthy. When you’re active in your everyday life, your body will respond better. If you weren’t active as a child, chances are you have more physical ailments as an adult.
Even if you weren’t physically active as a kid, there are many adult physical activities you can participate in. You can start by participating in a local fitness class. Another option is to walk on the beach or park. In addition, hiking, cycling, dancing, and swimming are other options.
In addition to exercising regularly, you will have healthier body functions such as a heart and lungs. Also, physically fit individuals have lower rates of diabetes and high blood pressure.
Conclusion
To sum up, the healthier you are, the longer you will live. In reality, many long term relationships develop from a physical activity or sport. Also, physical activities are a great stress reliever.
Although playing sports may have changed as we have become adults, it is important to find an activity or exercise that we can enjoy and have fun.
Women Athletics: How Your Sport Affects Your Bone Health
Studies suggest women athletics influences change in bone and body composition (3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13). Furthermore, these changes may be sport-specific (2-5, 8, 10, 11, 13). Every sport has different approaches to training because each sport has different physical requirements and performance needs (2, 5, 8, 11, 13, 14). Significant differences have been found in total body bone mineral density (BMD) among sports (2). BMD has been associated with sport-specific mechanical loading, bone strain, total body mass and lean mass (1, 3-5, 10, 11, 14). Weight-bearing physical activities, such as sports, are noted to promote bone density (1-3, 9, 10). Attaining optimal bone density during a woman’s early twenties is an important time (2, 12). Therefore, early sports participation can help reduce risk of osteoporosis later in life (7, 12). Overall, female body type adaptations to their sport can be beneficial to their health and fitness .
Though there are various reports on how sports effect body composition, there is little consistency . So, it is difficult to take results from one study and formulate accurate real-world assumptions. One study set out to characterize in- and off-season effects on body composition, as well as build a sense of reference and consistency for future research and athletic personnel.
Using specialized scans, the study evaluated bone and body composition based on the following parameters:
Basketball and volleyball athletes had unique results as well. Both groups of athletes showed statistically similar results in several variables, generally at high values scores. Meanwhile, values for baseball athletes, generally lied in between all other athletes.
To get a general idea of the study’s results, take a look at the graphic below. The graphic is meant to generalize values for all 5 sports and give an idea of how each sport placed. This does not represent exact values or statistical significance. Please refer to the publication for exact statistics.
Though there are various reports on how sports effect body composition, there is little consistency . So, it is difficult to take results from one study and formulate accurate real-world assumptions. One study set out to characterize in- and off-season effects on body composition, as well as build a sense of reference and consistency for future research and athletic personnel.
Let’s take a look at their science
The study investigated bone and body composition values during 3 seasonal periods (off-season, preseason and postseason) for 67 female athletes from 5 different sports (softball, volleyball, basketball, swimming, and track jumpers and sprinters).Using specialized scans, the study evaluated bone and body composition based on the following parameters:
- Total body mass (TM)
- Lean mass (LM)
- Fat mass (FM)
- Percent body fat (%BF)
- Bone mineral content (BMC)
- Bone mineral density (BMD)
- Arm BMD
- Leg BMD
- Pelvis BMD
- Spine BMD
What did they find?
Several conclusions were inferred from this study. Overall, comparisons showed bone measurements of swimmers were lower than athletes from all other sports for all seasonal periods. Also, track jumpers and sprinters showed lower percent body fat and fat mass compared to all other sport athletes for all seasonal periods.Basketball and volleyball athletes had unique results as well. Both groups of athletes showed statistically similar results in several variables, generally at high values scores. Meanwhile, values for baseball athletes, generally lied in between all other athletes.
To get a general idea of the study’s results, take a look at the graphic below. The graphic is meant to generalize values for all 5 sports and give an idea of how each sport placed. This does not represent exact values or statistical significance. Please refer to the publication for exact statistics.
Bone and body composition results found per seasonal period were as follows:
Off Season Results
On the lower end for TM, FM, and %BF values were jumpers and sprinters compared to the other athletes . Which can make sense, as track athletes typically want to be lean due to the nature of their sport. Most likely, these athletes continue to try and maintain that physique while off season.Basketball and volleyball athletes showed the highest values for TM, LM and leg BMD. In fact, the basketball athlete values were significantly greater compared to softball and track athletes. As well, BMD and BMC were significantly greater in basketball than softball athletes.
Preseason Results
Significantly lower bone measurements in all bone sites were found in swimmers compared to the other athletes. This may be due to the fact the buoyant force of water reduces bone stress. Meaning, there is little stimulus for increasing BMD values.Track athletes comparatively had the lowest values of TM, FM, and %BF to other sport groups.
Basketball and volleyball athletes comparatively had the highest values of LM, with basketball athletes having significantly greater LM than softball, swimmers and track athletes.
Postseason Results
Again, swimmers measured the lowest in several variables: BMC, BMD, leg BMD, pelvis BMD, and spine BMD. Track jumpers and sprinters had the lowest values in %BF and FM.Basketball athletes, again, showed higher values in TM and LM. Their TM values were significantly greater than swimmers and track athletes, whereas their LM values were significantly greater than softball and track athletes.
Only spine BMD was significantly different among the 3 seasons.
So, what can we put together?
Significantly lower BMD in swimmers was found in pre- and postseason (the study was unable to evaluate swimmers’ off-season). Similarly, other studies found significantly lower bone mineral density values in swimmers compared to other sports, such as basketball, volleyball and gymnastics (3, 14). In swimming there is no high impact loading on the athletes, and though they experience forceful muscle contractions (2, 14), this may explain the low BMD values in swimmers. This suggests sports or training that include high impact loading and high rates of bone strain are vital for better bone development (1, 3-5, 10, 14).TM and LM are suggested to correlate with BMD values (4). A 2006 study reported women with high TM and LM values, participating in high impact sports, had the highest BMD values (4). This suggests athletes with higher TM and LM values can demonstrate greater force and strains on bone which leads to greater osteogenic response (2). However, in this study, track athletes, while having similarly high values of BMD with basketball and volleyball athletes, had low TM and LM values (2). This outcome may be a result of the study using sprinters and jumpers to represent track athletes. While track athletes desire to be lean and fit, sprinters and runners do experience similar actions to basketball and volleyball athletes. Athletes in respective sports run and jump frequently. These similarities may explain why selected track athletes showed similar BMD values with basketball and volleyball athletes – yet differed in TM and LM values (2).
Though swimmers were measured on the lower side for LM, FM, and %BF, the values were statistically similar to other sport athletes . This suggest athletic swimming still allows for muscle development and proper maintenance of body fat.
What does this tell us about bone health and body composition?
What this study tells us is both bone and body composition can be sports-specific – which makes sense. It is vital for sprinters and jumpers to have low FM and %BF in order to be competitive and optimize performance. Furthermore, this study suggests softball, basketball and volleyball athletes share similar body compositions due to similar values in FM, %BF, and TM. These sports do share similar qualities of play: need for endurance, upper body strength, short sprints. Therefore, it is reasonable to imply athletes from these sports may share similarities in body structure. Swimmers had lower bone values, possibly because they experience the least amount of resistance in their sport. This suggests it is important to include high-impact loading activities into a swimmer’s training to promote bone health and development.This study also found significant shifts in bone and body composition between off-season and preseason, as well as off-season and post season . For example, softball athletes had significantly lower BMD values compared to basketball athletes during off-season . However, after preseason training, there was no longer a significant difference between the 2 athlete groups . This means that the training structure was sufficient enough to stimulate an increase in BMD values However, after playing through the season, softball athletes again had significantly lower BMD compared to basketball athletes. What this tells us is that it is important to continuously measure and re-evaluate an athlete.
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