Blog 5

Sports and physical activities can have an impact on people’s lives in more ways than one. Not only can it help one live a healthy life style and be a hobby or a pass time for some, but sports and physical activities can also influence the life styles and decisions one makes later on in life. The article “Adolescent participation in sports and adult physical activity” by Tuija Tammelin talks about the relationship between participating in sports as an adolescent and how that would influence and affect the likelihood that one would continue being involved with physical activities as an adult. The article is about a study that was done where 7794 people responded to a survey about physical activity status at the age of 14 and then again at the age of 31 (Tammelin). The study showed that those who participated in sports and physical activities in their adolescence were more likely to continue to participate in physical activities as an adult.

            There are a few articles that help to support the ideas from the article by Tammelin. One of those articles is “Transfer of Strength and Power Training to Sports Performance” by Warren B. Young and it explains how strength and power training should be used to improve sports performance in things such as sprinting, how the training physically transfers to performance in sports, and how people could use the different types of exercises to train. The second article is “Statement on Exercise: Benefits and Recommendations for Physical Activity Programs for All Americans” by the Committee on Exercise and Cardiac Rehabilitation of the Council on Clinical Cardiology, American Heart Association and it explains some of the health benefits of continuing to exercise throughout your life, gives some examples of physical activities to participate in and how they can be good for you, and explains how there needs to be even more research done on physical activities to fully understand all of the health benefits that exercise can give us. People need to be a where that sports and physical activities can influence their lives and that certain aspects of their lives can also have an impact on their participation in those activities.

            The life style one has and the activities that one is involved with in their adolescence can have an impact on the life style and the activities that they will be a part of as an adult. In the study from the article by Tammelin, it showed that “the percentages of those who participated in sports daily, every other day, twice a day, once a day, and less often than once a day were 23%, 25%, 22%, 12%, and 18% for males, and 13%, 15%, 23%, 20%, and 29% for females” (Tammelin). For the participants at age 31, the results showed that “of very active, active, moderately active, and inactive persons were 13%, 28%, 29%, and 30% for males, and 12%, 29%, 25%, and 24% for females” (Tammelin). From the data collected by the study, one can see that males that participated in sports twice a week and females that participated once a week would be likely to be active or very active with sports and physical activities as adults. This helps to show that the life styles and the activities people do in their youth can influence what they end up doing later on in life.

            Another topic the article talked about was how the type of sport or physical activity that one participated in had an influence on what they participated in later on in life. The study showed that individual sports as well as team sports “showed a strong carry-over value from adolescence into adulthood” (Tammelin). For example, the data collected from the study showed that 27% of the males questioned participated in ball games and even more participated in endurance sports like running as adults (Tammelin).  This shows that the activities that one chooses to participate in early on in their life may influences the activities later on in their life as well.

            Tammelin also writes about how other factors such as where people live and their skills for a sport may influence their involvement in the sport and might ultimately influence their participation in the sport later on in life as an adult. The article explains how people’s participation in certain activities might be influenced by the area they grew up in or by the social status of their family. Tammelin writes that people who live in urban areas might participate in activities that would need certain facilities and organization, such as combat sports or dance; however, people who live in rural areas might be more involved with activities such as running (Tammelin). Another factor that might affect one’s participation in a sport is their skills for certain sports. For some sports, motor and coordination skills are needed. People who have those skills might be more drawn to play those sports and further develop those skills by participating in that sport throughout their life.

            The article written by Young explains how strength and power training can help to improve one’s performance in sports. One example that was used was for someone “to achieve a 2.2% gain in sprint performance a 21% improvement in squat strength was required” (Young). This shows that one must work to increase their strength in order to improve their sprint performance. Some of the exercises stated in the article that were used in the training to increase strength were various squats and pulling exercises. The article also stated that some findings “reported that 8 weeks of plyometric training including some unilateral/horizontal exercises induced significant improvements in sprint time to 10 m” (Young). This shows that multiple training exercises can be used to help one improve their performance in sports.  This goes along with the study from the first article because if people improve their skills at a sport they would be more likely to continue participating in the sport throughout their lives.

            The article by the Committee on Exercise and Cardiac Rehabilitation of the Council on Clinical Cardiology, American Heart Association explains some of the health benefits of continuing to exercise throughout your life. One of the benefits described in the article was that “exercise training increases maximum ventilator oxygen uptake by increasing both maximum cardiac output and the ability of the muscles to extract and use oxygen from blood” (Committee on Exercise and Cardiac Rehabilitation of the Council on Clinical Cardiology, American Heart Association). The article also states that “maximum ventilatory oxygen uptake drops 5% to 15% per decade between the ages of 20 and 80, and a lifetime of dynamic exercise maintains an individual’s ventilatory oxygen uptake at a level higher than that expected for any given age” (Committee on Exercise and Cardiac Rehabilitation of the Council on Clinical Cardiology, American Heart Association). The statements from this article show that exercising throughout one’s life can help to improve their health. The improved oxygen uptake described in the article helps to support what was written in the articles by Young and Tammelin because better oxygen uptake can help a person perform better in a sport which would make that person want to continue to be involved with that sport, and continuation with the sport will also continue to provide more health benefits for that person.

            Sports, physical activities, and the life styles people choose to lead all have an impact on their lives. Whether it is how much a person chooses to be active, the activity being involved with, or other factors that influences people’s decisions on what to participate in, it is all important and can affect one’s life in one way or another. The ways sports and physical activities can have an influence on people’s lives is another reason why it is important to participate in them and lead healthy life styles.

Bibliography

Tammelin, Tuija. "Adolescent Participation in Sports and Adult Physical Activity." American Journal of Preventive Medicine (2003): 22-28.

the Committee on Exercise and Cardiac Rehabilitation of the Council on Clinical Cardiology, American Heart Association. "Statement on Exercise: Benefits and Recommendations for Physical Activity Programs for All Americans." (1996).

Young, Warren B. "Transfer of Strength and Power Training to Sports Performance." International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance (2006): 74-83.