Get Fit with Sports, or Get Fit for Sports?
One common advice I always hear people giving to overweight people is You Should Play Some Sports or Go and run. While they are advice given out of good intention for them to lose weight, but if these overweight people were to take up this advice, they are at risk of injury in many ways, due to being physically unconditioned.
The reason I'm pointing particularly at overweight people who are physically deconditioned in this post, is because from my experience it is these people who are more likely to engage in sports or running to lose weight. Whereas people who are skinny and normal weight think that they are healthy and there is no need for physical activity. Bear in mind there are many skinny and normal weight people who are deconditioned too, but we'll talk about them later.
The term physical decondition itself vary from one context to another, but we'll discuss physical decondition in the general fitness aspect. I believe most fitness professionals will cite the 4 fitness components of muscular strength & endurance, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility and body composition as defined by American College of Sports Medicine, but I'll define it as dysfunctional movement patterns due to musculoskeletal dysfunction. In another word, the inability to move your body the way it's supposed to move due to musculoskeletal dysfunction.
First we’ll look at muscle balance which is related to posture. Muscle imbalance will cause postural deviation which leads to movement dysfunction. When moving in a dysfunctional manner over time, it will result in pain or even injury.
I’ll explain this from the kinetic chain concept. The kinetic chain is a system that consists of the nervous system, muscular system and skeletal system. All these components work together to create human movement. If any components from the kinetic chain system is not working properly, other components will be affected which results in movement dysfunction. In this case muscle imbalance (muscular system imbalance) causes postural deviation (skeletal system deviation).
When a physically deconditioned person engages in sports or even running itself, they are at risk of stressing and overloading their joints, tendons and ligaments due to an imbalanced muscular and skeletal system. For example; a person with Lordosis whose hip flexors are tight and abdominal muscles are weak will not have the full ability to raise their leg as high as possible, this person would not be able to execute a kick without stressing the knee joint and ligaments if Taekwondo or Kickboxing was this person’s choice of way to lose weight. Another example would be muscle imbalance on the quadriceps and hamstring which has a direct effect on the knee. Due to the nature that these muscles are required to work together when you are standing, walking, running and even jumping – all these are movements required in sports, there is a high chance for knee injury to occur due to inadequate muscle strength of the physically deconditioned.
Besides the kinetic chain and dysfunctional movement patterns, another concern for the physically deconditioned is their cardiovascular capacity. When cardiovascular is mentioned people will usually think about stamina or how long you can run. But on a detailed level, the heart's health has to be taken into consideration as well. The heart tissue, heart rate and stroke volume are factors to be looked at. A deconditioned heart is usually small and weak and has a high volume of beats per minute, usually 80 beats and above per minute. The weaker your heart means the more your heart requires to beat to push blood out to your body system.
While I started this post talking about overweight people who are physically deconditioned, but this write up is also applied to people who are skinny or normal weight who usually think that they are fine. But in actual fact most of them are not.
Take home message:
Sports are physically demanding task. You should properly condition yourself physically before engaging in sports. Get fit for sports instead of get fit with sports. The latter expose you to a higher risk of injury.
The reason I'm pointing particularly at overweight people who are physically deconditioned in this post, is because from my experience it is these people who are more likely to engage in sports or running to lose weight. Whereas people who are skinny and normal weight think that they are healthy and there is no need for physical activity. Bear in mind there are many skinny and normal weight people who are deconditioned too, but we'll talk about them later.
The term physical decondition itself vary from one context to another, but we'll discuss physical decondition in the general fitness aspect. I believe most fitness professionals will cite the 4 fitness components of muscular strength & endurance, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility and body composition as defined by American College of Sports Medicine, but I'll define it as dysfunctional movement patterns due to musculoskeletal dysfunction. In another word, the inability to move your body the way it's supposed to move due to musculoskeletal dysfunction.
First we’ll look at muscle balance which is related to posture. Muscle imbalance will cause postural deviation which leads to movement dysfunction. When moving in a dysfunctional manner over time, it will result in pain or even injury. I’ll explain this from the kinetic chain concept. The kinetic chain is a system that consists of the nervous system, muscular system and skeletal system. All these components work together to create human movement. If any components from the kinetic chain system is not working properly, other components will be affected which results in movement dysfunction. In this case muscle imbalance (muscular system imbalance) causes postural deviation (skeletal system deviation).
When a physically deconditioned person engages in sports or even running itself, they are at risk of stressing and overloading their joints, tendons and ligaments due to an imbalanced muscular and skeletal system. For example; a person with Lordosis whose hip flexors are tight and abdominal muscles are weak will not have the full ability to raise their leg as high as possible, this person would not be able to execute a kick without stressing the knee joint and ligaments if Taekwondo or Kickboxing was this person’s choice of way to lose weight. Another example would be muscle imbalance on the quadriceps and hamstring which has a direct effect on the knee. Due to the nature that these muscles are required to work together when you are standing, walking, running and even jumping – all these are movements required in sports, there is a high chance for knee injury to occur due to inadequate muscle strength of the physically deconditioned.
While I started this post talking about overweight people who are physically deconditioned, but this write up is also applied to people who are skinny or normal weight who usually think that they are fine. But in actual fact most of them are not.
Take home message:
Sports are physically demanding task. You should properly condition yourself physically before engaging in sports. Get fit for sports instead of get fit with sports. The latter expose you to a higher risk of injury.
Comments
The only thing slacking is I feel like I am not acting my age. Sometimes I feel I am going through a phase in life called mid-life crisis. This doesn't mean you are running away with another women. It simply means you start to like doings things you enjoyed when you were kids like becoming so enthused to play football and sports up to some extent that it begins to encroach into my daily job and compromise it.
Thank you for sharing your experience here. Keep the good work up :)