The Benefits of Joining a Sport

     Hello and welcome to this week's blog post, the topic oof this is the overall benefits of joining a sport or adaptive sport. As well as some suggestions of my favorite sports I recommend participating in. Some of the key benefits that are going to be discussed are learning teamwork, making lifelong friends, communication skills, and overall health. 

     First benefit is learning how to be on a team and teamwork, this is an extremely important skill for a lot of aspects in life. This benefit is also great at building self-confidence as well as feeling a sense of unity due to having a whole team that has your back. Another benefit is making lifelong friends from teammates and opponents. Making these friends leads to your brain releasing dopamine, which of course is fantastic for your overall mental health. To piggyback off of the previous two benefits mentioned is learning communication skills. Being on a sports team, you are forced to communicate with teammates, coaches, officials, and/or opponents, which over time will lead to higher quality communication skills. As humans we yearn for companionship and human to human interactions, therefore these communication skills will also lead to overall mental health improvements (Figure 1). 

(Figure 1: Image of Team Friendships)

    Now, I am going to discuss how I would convince one of my friends to join an adaptive sports team, as well as some of the sports I would suggestion they play. The first way I would convince my friend is by reiterating the benefits I mentioned previously. I would explain how important and enjoyable it is to be part of a team, where they can meet new people with similar interests as them. Furthermore, I would also go over the physical benefits such as cardiovascular health, weight loss, as well as hand eye coordination. Lastly, I would elaborate on how joining an adaptive sports team would give my friend a sense of responsibility to their teammates to show up to practices and games, for the betterment of the team. 

(Figure 2: Image of Wheelchair Basketball)


(Figure 3: Image of Adaptive Floor Volleyball)

     In conclusion, the sports I would without a doubt recommend are wheelchair basketball and floor volleyball Figure 2 & 3). The reasons I chose these two adaptive sports over anything else, are first that these two are quite easy to get into with breaking the bank like sled hockey. Furthermore, I also believe that they are easier than most sports to learn how to play quickly, as well as you are able to practice them in most places. That is all for this week's blog post, thank you all again for tuning into yet another amazing blog topic. Stay tuned for next week's blog post and have a safe and enjoyable week!



References

https://activeforlife.com/img/large/2023/06/team-huddle.jpg

https://www.nchpad.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Picture2-1024x576.jpg

https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.83e1ab59ee4459d35e0c7a0851717fe2?rik=vd4Yk%2fLhJcE0BA&riu=http%3a%2f%2fadaptivesportsne.org%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2023%2f03%2fDSC_0964-scaled.jpeg&ehk=fa9GpBDD%2ffA6OwLwbUXyWfd3HAQn6uLMMnMGvMLvMRg%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0


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