2009 14 Nov

The Benefits Of Baseball As Exercise

Baseball is our most popular sport. It is greatly enjoyed by the participants and has much spectator appeal.

Great activity is encouraged in this sport through our “Little Leagues” for the children and our amateur and professional games. There are many benefits to the player from participating in baseball, but they deal more with sociological, psychological and emotional aspects than the purely physical ones.

The action in playing baseball consists principally of catching, throwing or batting the ball under various conditions and again the demand of running vigorously for short distances. As with football and basketball, there is no specific effect of the activity that has any relationship to good body mechanics. The effect of short runs with great energy is generally constructive in strength and physiology, but the effort is not sustained as in basketball and is very infrequent compared to football. It is almost impossible for the player in baseball to become “over trained” from the physical effort requirements (other than professionals).

There is some question about the desirability of the effects of the sustained nervous tension in highly competitive baseball on children, which the professional player is conditioned to meet, but the school boy is not. Again, the effort of running has much value for the player, but as with the other sports, the effort is controlled by the demands of the game, not the requirements of the player.

In track and field events, we find many different activities with different effects upon the participants. Each activity requires its own special training and skills. As with sports and games, there is little, if any, effect upon the mechanics of the body. Each event requires its own special adaptation of body use, to make a good performance, not to make good body structure.

All the activities tend to build to a greater or lesser degree improved physiological capacities, especially those which involve vigorous use of the legs in some degree of sustained effort. The clearest examples are the various forms of running .. . especially the distances from the mile upward. Sustained effort of the large muscle groups, back and legs, builds the greatest possible functioning power in the heart and lungs (cardio-respiratory systems).

In extreme training to excel in such efforts, the adaptability of the body causes it to become slender, and lean, and extremely lean in the case of the running of great distances. It is more difficult for the heart and lungs to deliver adequate supplies of oxygen for sustained effort to larger muscle groups, so the body adjusts to the demand by making the body weight less and the muscle mass smaller. There is no fault to be found in such training for the mature trained athlete who wishes to excel in such activities.

There is a question about the advisability of such training and sustained effort in the adolescent, especially the ectomorphic body type (slender) who may need more to have his general weight and strength increased rather than his capacity for extreme endurance.

The slender body type is attracted to this phase of track because his body structure gives him some advantage in this specialty, and is prone to “over train” and in some cases, lower his strength and resistance to the point that he invites physical problems for himself. The responsibility for estimating the boy’s capacity and controlling his training rests with his school athletic director.

Our general sports program has failed to improve the fitness standards of our children and adults to the desired level because they do not within themselves contain the basic requirements to bring about such improvement. Namely, the development and maintenance of good body structure and strong physiological capa¬ities in proportion to the needs of the individual. The difficulty of obtaining adequate participation adds further to their ineffectiveness.

All recreational activities, sports and games are more a reason to be in good physical condition than a means of obtaining good physical condition.

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