Sports, physical development for girls, women

Content:

1. What is physical activity?
2. What are the benefits of sports?
3. Why do women do or ignore sports?
4. How to get rid of limiting beliefs?
5. How not to make mistakes when choosing loads?
6. How to motivate yourself to do sports?
7. What physical activities are recommended?
8. Which sports are better suited for women?
9. What sports are suitable for girls up to 12 years old?
10. What sport is suitable for a teenager from 12 to 18 years old?
11. What sports are best avoided by women?
12. Which sport is easy to learn and simple to perform?
13. Which sport will maximize health benefits?

Regular physical activity is important for a woman’s health. Sport helps to maintain an attractive body shape, prevents obesity, reduces the risk of physical illness, and improves psycho-emotional well-being. WHO guidelines state that a person needs at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity daily for normal health. However, only half of women fulfill this recommendation.

What is physical activity?

WHO defines physical activity as any motor act produced by the skeletal muscles in which energy is expended. Physical activity includes all body movements, such as walking to a transportation stop. Popular choices for active pastimes include running, bicycling, swimming, and moving team games. The main reasons for the deficit of physical activity are the use of motorized transport, the demand for gadgets for work and study.

What is the benefit of sports for girls, women?

Moderate physical activity can:

• improve cardiorespiratory function;
• strengthen bone structures;
• prevent the development of arterial hypertension, heart disease;
• reduce the risk of fractures;
• maintain a healthy body weight, reduce obesity;
• improve cognitive outcomes (academic performance, executive function);
• improve mental health (reducing symptoms of depression).

Why do women exercise or ignore sports?

Female members of the fair sex indicate that they exercise regularly to:

• improve body shape;
• prolong youthfulness;
• relieve stress;
• feel energized;
• manage weight;
• socialize with like-minded people.

Typical “barriers” to exercise that women described:

• Lack of time;
• lack of motivation;
• family commitments;
• lack of energy due to workload;
• inadequate health, inappropriate age;
• lack of money to pay for participation in the section;
• gender stereotypes.

All the above-mentioned obstacles are nothing more than reservations caused by an erroneous style of thinking.

How to get rid of limiting beliefs?

Tips from psychologists:

• Many women combine parenting, household responsibilities, full-time jobs, but don’t find time for themselves. Be sure to take a break and exercise. Three ten-minute warm-ups throughout the day will have the same health benefits as a continuous thirty-minute workout.
• Some people say they don’t feel motivated because there is no company to exercise with. Join a local hiking club that does hikes. Don’t limit yourself to thinking about gyms. You can have fun by taking dance classes or rollerblading.
• Often women feel responsible for cooking, shopping, cleaning. Divide the responsibilities. Every member of the family can take care of household chores. Include self-care in the routine.
• Lack of strength, fatigue – a consequence of a busy lifestyle, lack of balance between physical and mental stress, lack of adequate rest. Regular exercise will provide energy to better cope with workloads, everyday household demands.
• Older women often have a chronic illness that limits their participation in certain sports. However, with any illness, there is always an acceptable range of exercise. Talk to your doctor about appropriate forms of exercise.
• Women with poor financial status are less likely to exercise than well-to-do people. They do not take into account that to get enough exercise does not require expensive things, a season ticket to an elite gym. Useful forms of exercise are walking, walking on a bicycle, swimming in a body of water.
• Ladies who believe that the meaning of life is to raise children and provide a household, do not make efforts to maintain health. They feel guilty if they take a break. Change your beliefs about role allocation. Remember, to properly care for others, you need to respect and love yourself.

How not to make mistakes when choosing loads?

Before making changes in the level, physical activity regimen, consult a therapist if:

• there is a chronic disease;
• obesity has been diagnosed;
• Age over 45 years;
• regular exercise has not taken place in the previous 2 years.

Screening before choosing a sport is used to identify conditions that may aggravate with complications from excessive exertion. Medical screening is a filter to determine whether the potential benefits of exercise outweigh the likely risks.

How do you motivate yourself to exercise?

Psychologists suggest following steps:

• Exercise is more likely to happen if it is scheduled in advance. Build time into your daily routine to warm up.
• Identify emotional and financial obstacles. Consider options for overcoming them.
• Recognize personal limiting beliefs. Challenge dysfunctional attitudes. Correctly let family members know that your needs are as important and relevant as theirs.
• Find company. Invite your spouse, buddies, coworkers to get on the path to a healthy lifestyle.
• Find a sport that feels good to play. You’re more likely to stick to your exercise regimen if you choose a useful, interesting activity.
• Set achievable goals. Don’t take an all-or-nothing attitude. If you currently manage to do one workout a week, praise yourself for the accomplishment. Even a small approximation of regular exercise is better than no exercise at all.
• Make small changes to your daily activities. For example, for short distances it is better to walk rather than drive.
• Remember that the range of free activities is limited only by imagination. Physical activities include walking, cycling around the neighborhood, swimming in the river, playing table tennis on the sports field.

What physical activities are recommended?

WHO guidelines provide detailed information on how much physical activity is needed for different age ranges.

Girls under 2 years of age:

• should spend at least 3 hours doing any vigorous movement;
• should not stay in a static sitting position for more than 1 hour;
• it is not recommended to watch TV, play computer games, use a computer.

Children from 3 to 4 years old:

• should allocate at least 3 hours for moderate exercise;
• distribute warm-up time evenly throughout the day;
• limit the use of gadgets to 1 hour.

Girls and young women from 5 to 17 years old should:

• exercise for more than 1 hour a day;
• choose exercises with a gradual increase in load;
• Favor aerobic sports;
• perform muscle and bone strengthening exercises at least 3 times a week.

Women 18 to 64 years of age should:

• get at least 150 minutes of aerobic exercise;
• perform muscle strengthening exercises at least 2 times a week.

Women over 65 years of age should receive a variety of multi-component physical activities. Moderate-intensity strength training is recommended 3 times a week.

What sport is best for women?

There are no restrictions for women’s participation in sports. Representatives of the fair sex excel, achieve success in many sports fields. The choice of discipline is determined by natural talents, character traits, personal preferences, time and material resources. The only condition is to avoid activities that carry the risk of injury, mutilation.

The ideal option for women of any age – water sports disciplines:

• swimming;
• aqua aerobics;
• synchronized swimming.

For the female body suitable exercises from athletics, such as running and sports walking. Communicative, active, energetic ladies correspond to mobile team games: tennis, volleyball, basketball. If you need to discharge negative feelings, the best way – to master the art of creating and staging dance (choreography). To get a boost of energy for people who prefer to communicate with nature, you can take long bike rides. Useful for health activities – fitness, gymnastics, dancing, figure skating. From an early age (from the age of 3) you can devote yourself to studying choreographic disciplines – ballet and modern dance.

What kinds of sports are suitable for girls up to 12 years old?

Physical activity before the age of twelve pursues the goal of developing motor skills, learning to concentrate on the movement performed, developing basic motor skills. Sports activities should bring pleasure, strengthen self-confidence, develop positive qualities of character.

For girls up to 12 years old will be suitable:

• walking;
• gymnastics;
• swimming;
• table and big tennis;
• acrobatics;
• dancing, ballet;
• choreography
• cycling;
• athletics.

Interest in sports during childhood is great. If a girl dreams of a sport discipline, which is traditionally seen as masculine, parents should encourage interest, provide opportunities for training. For example, a passion for martial arts will help gain important self-defense skills. Any teamwork, such as playing soccer, will contribute to mental, physical, social development. Adults should not forbid the child to make personal choices. The task of parents is to control the level of load, to make sure of the competence and experience of the coach, to make sure that the training is safe.

What kind of sport is suitable for a teenager from 12 to 18 years old?

The choice depends on the goals and preferences of girls. Sports discipline should solve certain tasks, such as: to develop smooth movements, flexibility, self-confidence. To improve physical fitness, to maintain good health of the young body, it is suitable:

• amateur cycling;
• fitness, dance, gymnastics;
• running;
• modern dance, choreography, ballet
• swimming;
• skiing.

Young people like mobile team games such as basketball, volleyball, table tennis and table tennis. Many girls are interested in shooting, bench shooting. Archery is gaining popularity. Swimming and aqua aerobics will help to keep in tone muscles. For concentration, calming thoughts in the period of hormonal restructuring girls should consider participating in dance therapy (using dance to integrate the emotional and physical state).

What sports should women avoid?

Excitement, adrenaline release, popularity, anticipation of a record, associated with extreme sports, attract some women. Some ladies prefer the peace and tranquility of meditation, others are attracted by risk, danger, excitement. However, the thrill, exciting moments, bright feelings from sports often turn into problems in women’s health.

Doctors do not recommend the following sports disciplines for girls:

• basejumping;
• windsurfing;
• streetlagging;
• rafting;
• mountaineering;
• cave diving;
• motorcycling;
• boxing.

Which sport is easy to learn and easy to perform?

All sports or games performed at a professional level cannot be called easy. Any physical activity requires knowledge and skills, resilience, discipline, commitment, and determination to achieve a goal. Becoming a successful athlete is impossible without time commitment, dedicated labor, and a strong motivation to win.

Simple variants of team activities are game types that do not require elite athleticism from a woman. At the first stage of a girl’s sports career, she needs basic motor skills, an understanding of the basics of teamwork, mental ability to memorize the rules, the availability of time to practice technical techniques.

For individual or group activities, running is a good choice. Running tracks are provided at stadiums with free admission. A worthy solution is to jog in forest, park areas. In quarantine conditions, in bad weather, you can perform the activity at home, buying a treadmill.

More demanding in the technical aspect – cycling, tennis, volleyball. These sports require certain skills, a clear understanding of the position of the body and the movements performed. For amateurs, swimming and aqua aerobics will be successful options for physical activity. Training can be carried out at any time of the year, choosing the appropriate age group in the pool, where safe conditions are created.

Which sport will bring maximum health benefits?

Any physical exercise performed regularly, with a gradual increase in loads favorably affects the physical and mental health of women. Numerous clinical studies have been conducted using various methods of assessing the body condition of athletes. The results allow us to attribute to the most beneficial sports disciplines:

• swimming;
• athletics;
• tennis;
• cycling;
• gymnastic sports;
• branded crossfit system;
• beach volleyball.