The Benefits of Participating in Sports

Playing sports helps you stay in shape, teaches you how to organize your time, boosts friendships, and builds relationships with
your peers and adults. Through athletics, you gain skills that can best be acquired on a court, track, or field.
 Friendship
 Family
 Coaches
 Health
 SportsNutrition
 School
 LeadershipSkills
Friendship
Playing sports enables you to create friendships you otherwise might not have formed. Sports bring teens together from different
schools, backgrounds, and communities. Many times, the friendships you create on the field remain intact even when you are not
playing sports. 

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Family
The fans on the sidelines are one of the most important parts of the game. The constant support of your parents helps you to feel
good about yourself and strengthens your connection to them. 

As a teen, it is not always easy to find time to spend time with your parents. Sports give you and your parents time to appreciate
one another. 

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Coaches
Providing wisdom and encouragement, coaches can be very good role models. The relationship that you develop with your coach
is very important to the success of the team. 

Positive coaching helps to bring the team together, and gives players the right tools to push themselves academically and
physically. 

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Health
Participating in sports improves your health in many ways. To be a good athlete, you must take care of yourself. This gets you
thinking about what to eat and how to treat your body to achieve peak performance levels. 

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Sports Nutrition
When engaging in sports for the first time, you may feel hungrier than usual. This is normal, because your body is expending
much more energy than it is used to. Here are some nutrition tips to help keep you healthy while you participate in sports.
 Eat fat. About 20 to 25 percent of energy comes from fats, so to keep energy levels high, your body needs
you to consume fat.
 Make sure to eat before, during, and after your sport. The helps maintain blood glucose levels, which in turn
will help enhance your sports performance.
 Keep hydrated! When playing a sport, your body loses a lot of fluid, which can cause dehydration. This is
dangerous – and potentially fatal – so drink plenty of water.
 Eat a balanced diet. An athlete's diet should include plenty of complex carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins,
minerals, and fats.
 Limit salt and simple sugar.
 Don'tfast!

 School
 It's a common misconception that being both a student and an athlete is hard, if not impossible. Participating
in sports can actually have a positive impact on school. 

Sports force you to organize your time so that you can both go to practice and finish your homework. The
key is finding a balance. If you can learn to organize your time then you can succeed in both. 

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 Leadership Skills
 Participating in sports helps build leadership skills. Sports teams give you an opportunity to surround yourself
with competitive people and role models, and learn from them both. You can demonstrate your own
leadership through team captainships and individual actions to improve your team's success
The Advantages of Playing Sports
Playing sports is an emotional, mental and physical adventure. You have the opportunity to learn what
you're made of and to determine if you're a team player or a maverick. And, as with any adventure, there
are risks involved; but experts agree that the advantages are worth it. Participating in sports -- if you play
safely and smartly -- can enhance your overall well-being.

TheGreaterGood
Learning how to function as part of a team is one of the most important advantages of playing sports.
Teamwork involves both being dependable as a teammate and learning to rely on your teammates to
achieve a positive outcome. Teamwork breeds accountability and challenges you to be responsible for
your actions on and off the field. Being part of a team allows you to learn social skills and gives you an
opportunity to be a leader.

A Fine Balance

Discipline is another advantage of playing sports. Most organized sports revolve around a strict training
and practice schedule. Until you are a professional athlete, you might spend a lot of your time as a
student-athlete, balancing academics and athletics. Playing sports builds the discipline you need to
adhere to a rigorous athletic schedule while being successful in the classroom. By playing sports, you'll
learn the discipline you'll need to fulfill your responsibilities as an athlete and a student.
BodyBoost
Regardless of your fitness level when you start playing sports, you'll notice an increase in your overall
physical fitness once you're involved. Nearly every sport requires some level of physical activity and has
you practicing the skills needed to be competitive. Most training regimens include running or some type of
cardiovascular endurance, and strength training, so playing sports is going to make you more fit.
Basketball players focus on strength training and short-interval cardio training, while football players work
on speed and agility and track athletes train through longer runs.

Positive Mentors
If you play group sports, you'll be part of a team that takes direction from a coach. By being part of this
group, you might develop a nurturing relationship with your coach or an older teammate which will have a
positive impact on your life. Playing sports gives you a chance to be exposed to thoughtful, caring and
skilled mentors who focus on developing not only a well-rounded athlete but also a well-rounded person.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of playing sports and participating in physical
exercises.

Since the beginning of human history, sports have become an integral part of our life. Although there are many
benefits that can be obtained by playing sports and doing physical exercises, one should always pay attention to all
the risks involved in such activities.

It is not an exaggeration to say that playing sports is one of the best ways people can maintain and improve their
health. There are countless empirical evidences and academic researches that link one’s participation in sports and
the improvement of his or her general well-being. Not only being physically active can help people burn fat, boost
their immune system but also prevent heart diseases and other major illnesses. Secondly, while playing sports,
people can communicate and interact with each other, thus, improve their social life. This is the reason why many
schools incorporate sports into their teaching program so that students can develop their social skills and
relationships. These elements are believed to be vital for a child’s development in the future.

Nevertheless, playing sports and other physical activities contain many dangerous risks, especially the risk of injury.
Without competent knowledge and professional guidance, sport players are prone to harm themselves during their
games and training sessions. It is thus recommended that people should seek helps and advices from other
experienced sportspersons at the early stage when they start involving in physical activities. 

In conclusion, sports and physical activities can undoubtedly bring many advantages to people’s general welfare,
especially their health and social life. Nonetheless, to effectively reap the most of these benefits, one should pay
attention to the risks of injuries in sports and have adequate prevention countermeasures.