Sports...or Exercise?

by Andrew Heffernan on Feb 17, 2010 5:14 PM EST Comment 1 comment

According to this, playing sports is good for girls and women: a long-term study reported in the New York Times suggests that girls who play sports (many of whom benefited from Title IX, which stated that girls and boys must have equal opportunities to play on teams at institutions which receive federal funding) get better grades, have fewer unwanted pregnancies, and get better jobs upon graduation, and that sports themselves--rather than other, possibly related factors like socioeconomic class and parental support--seem to be responsible for the boost.

I'm not surprised, of course. Recorded history is full of men who credit their football/basketball/baseball coach for making men out of them; barely fifteen minutes go by whenever comedian Adam Carolla is on the mic that he doesn't wax nostalgic about his days playing Pop Warner football. Surely the benefits of focus and drive and determination conferred by sports aren't gender-specific.

What I'm curious about is whether there are measurable differences in the kinds of benefits derived from different sports, or whether all sports are more or less equal in the intangible benefits they deliver. This is, of course, the kind of question that an exercise-science freak like myself would salivate over: I'm particularly interested in the life-lessons and psychological effects of various kinds of exercise.

I've written before of getting a tremendous boost in confidence (and academic performance) after I began working out during my sophomore year of High School--and I was nowhere near a team or a coach. Some team 'sports'--like track and swimming--are "personal best" sports, which lack some of the feeling of working together as a team that you get on a basketball court or football field. Yet I can't imagine that being on a track team provides any less of a grades-and-confidence boost than playing more conventional sports.

There also was no distinction made between the value of being on a losing team or a winning team, even though, one would think, a winning team is comprised of athletes who are stronger, more enduring, more technically proficient, and more successful team players than their less successful competitors.

So perhaps what we're seeing are less the effects of team sports than the effects of regular vigorous exercise.

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Hm ... well ...

I think the conclusion is well intentioned, but speculative at best. The error in reasoning is alluded to in the text of this post: “Recorded history is full of men who credit their … coach for making men out of them.”

Sports participation typically involves two components of behavior which exercise alone doesn’t necessarily require: socialization and competition. An athlete’s relationship with a coach and with other team members, whether the sport is focused on individual performance or on team coordination, is a powerful means of instilling fundamental achievement concepts. The people on the field or court or track with you every day can encourage you, yell at you, teach you, functionally limit you, and push you in a manner which goes well beyond what is normally available to someone training on his or her own.

Competition, too, is basic to the athletic endeavor. And while, yes, someone participating in vigorous exercise alone in the gym can and should challenge themselves in a self-competitive way, this isn’t the same experience as learning to cope with another person, or group of people, who actively, intentionally, and willfully are focusing to beat you and to do so with prejudice. Learning to cope with that class of stress, along with the stresses which go with it — approaching competition deadlines, the necessity of meeting physical requirements goals, the ability to cope with loss and injury — are recurring themes throughout life and in areas which sports can’t directly address.

This isn’t to say that I don’t somewhat agree with your point. I believe that regular, vigorous exercise can produce amazing results and also in areas that exercise wouldn’t normally be expected to have an effect. I believe, too, that individual exercise can be a foundation for personal emotional and psychological development. But team relationships and competitive stress are both elements which involve a social interaction occurring with intensity in a sports context and which, I think, is the basis for much for many of the life lessons sports can offer.

by Lockjaw on Feb 20, 2010 2:23 PM EST reply actions