What sport to choose, or how to get into IT and stay healthy

In the health boom hub , you can learn all about vision, healthy sleep, gadgets and the latest research in the field of medicine and health. But this rubric is very poor in materials about physical education and sports. Recently, an article appeared in which various sports were compared from the point of view of science, and there were several articles about running, pulling and push-ups in bearded null.

Very sorry. for the sedentary, inactive way of life that we lead slowly kills us. Moderate physical exertion is necessary for our brother IT, like no one else.
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Why do you play sports? Wouldn't it be better to spend your valuable time on something else? For example, work.

Yes, sport takes time and effort, but, in return, it can offer excellent health, a sea of ​​additional energy, enhanced immunity, good sleep and appetite, powerful strength, a healthy heart and blood vessels, a reinforced psyche and a beautiful figure. In addition, he will not bad pump your moral and volitional qualities, sense of purpose, and will teach him not to be afraid of difficulties.

If you work at a computer, but still do not do physical exercises and sports, I hope this article will encourage you to take the first step to a new life. And if you do - you can discover something new.

I will try to share with you my impressions of various sports that I have tried to do, as well as how they affect the quality of life. Everything written below is subjective. Everyone has their own preferences and physical abilities, so your impressions may not coincide with mine.

Under the cut a lot of pictures for clarity and motivation.

There will be no references to statistics and research, only personal subjective experience. I think it makes no sense to choose a sport based on purely pragmatic considerations. The best sport is the one you do. And the data on how much the runner lives on average, and how much the swimmer lives, does not matter if you do not do either.

The main criterion that you should be guided in choosing - the pleasure of the process. No matter how useful it is for health, say, swimming, sooner or later you will abandon it if you do not enjoy training. This is exactly the case in which the final need to make a choice with the heart, not the mind.

A little about terminology
The word sport in this article would be better replaced by physical education . But the latter concept is too general and will not allow us to draw the line between one or another type of sports activity. Therefore, let's assume that it is written about competitive sports that mere mortals can practice.

And yet, no matter how trite and boring it was, consult with your doctor before classes begin. Many exercises have contraindications, so do not be lazy. Do not use to harm what should make you healthier.

Gym

The most popular place for men. If you want to become strong and beautiful as quickly as possible - you are here, because in terms of the ratio of effort to the result here is the best. Perhaps this is the most universal option: here you can become more beautiful, stronger, lose weight, develop your heart and much more. But you can not embrace the immensity, and will have to focus on one thing in order to achieve tangible results.

By and large, the gym personifies 2 sports: bodybuilding and powerlifting, which are responsible for beauty and strength, respectively. In practice, most people do something average (I call it athleticism).

A typical representative of the gym may look different. It all depends on the nutrition and training format.


<sub>Typical Powerlifters


Typical bodybuilder</sub>

How does this affect life?

What is the "rocking chair" able to give the average person? A feeling of strength and confidence, an attractive figure, strong bones and a healthy posture. You will discover a whole new world of shells, exercises, training programs, methods, food additives, diets and much more. It is very interesting to understand all this, but it is even more interesting to observe what result this knowledge yields (of course, with diligence). After training you will have a pleasant feeling of tiredness in the muscles and relaxation throughout the body.

But it is important to understand that if you want to achieve more or less impressive results (both in terms of beauty and in terms of strength), you need to take the issue of nutrition very seriously. Eating pizza, burgers, dashiraks with mayonnaise and other junk food, you can not see under the fat of the very muscles for which so much energy is spent and shed so much sweat. On the other hand, not getting enough calories and nutrients, the muscles have nothing to grow.


_{Something like this is typical training in the hall for most of the visitors.}

Pros:

• muscles grow very quickly;
• universality: you can develop and strength, and appearance, and endurance;
• building the body of your dreams is a very exciting experience;
• accessibility: fitness clubs and gyms are in almost every city.

Minuses:

• in spite of the huge number of exercises, projectiles and simulators, with time the training begins to seem monotonous and boring;
• a subscription costs money;
• injuries are possible with large weights.

Gym classes will suit you if:

• first of all, from the class you want to get a great appearance and (or) strength. And as soon as possible.
• you've never worked with iron before and want to be taught how to do it right

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Run

Perhaps the most accessible sport, because apart from a pair of sneakers, no equipment is needed. Running invigorates, perfectly strengthens your cardiovascular and respiratory systems, and also brings the whole body to tone. If you want to improve your health, first of all, try running. And lose extra weight, and you will become healthier, and improve your mood. Your hungry heart will thank you.


<sub>The figure of a typical runner may look different. But, as a rule, one thing unites everyone: slimness


Short-distance runners training explosive power often look quite muscular.</sub>

How does this affect life?

While running, you can escape from the hustle and bustle, ponder over something or just listen to your favorite music. Immediately after jogging rolls a sense of euphoria. The body is hot, energy boils in it, and it begins to seem that everything is within your means. In everyday life, you will become more energetic and you will feel lightness and increased tone throughout your body.

Remember that running also has a correct and non-straight technique. Running without equipment is accelerated wear of the knees and permanent micro-shocks for internal organs. At first, you can not bother and run, as it turns out, but if running tightly enters your life, I advise you to walk into special schools or sections where you will be taught to run efficiently and without harm to health. Try to run more on a special elastic coating (this is usually the case in stadiums), and less on asphalt. And of course, responsibly approach the choice of shoes.


_{This is how your first run will look.}

Pros:

• simplicity and availability;
• excellent general healing effect;
• is free!

Minuses:

• without the equipment supplied, the body will wear out;
• not everywhere you can run with comfort all year round. You can run in the winter, but few are ready for such an extreme;
• if you have a lot of excess weight, it is better to wait a little with running. Instead, it is better to walk a lot.

Running is right for you if:

• health is your priority;
• you want to be slim and agile, instead of carrying kilograms of beautiful muscles, but unnecessary for life;
• you do not want / can not spend money on a lesson in the hall.

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Crossfit

Fashion trend, a few years ago, rapidly gained popularity around the world. The creator describes his program as “constantly varying functional movements performed with high intensity in various time intervals and modal domains in order to increase fitness”. The key word in crossfit is functionality. It includes exercises from almost all disciplines listed in this article, as well as weightlifting, gymnastics, weight-lifting, plyometrics, strongman and others. Being engaged in a crossfit, you will be able to lift, press, pull and push large weights, run quickly and for a long time, pull up a lot, push out, make technically complex elements.

It is not for nothing that the world champion in crossfit is called the most physically trained person in the world. Here is an example of a complex from Crossfit Games (the main crossfit competitions of the world):

Run with a 9 kg vest:
Running 1600 meters
100 pull-ups
200 pushups
300 Squat
Running 1600 meters

Impressive, isn't it? Yes, you will not be as strong as a powerlifter and not as resilient as a marathon runner. But many of you in life need to press 200kg lying down or run marathons?


_{The appearance of a crossfitt athlete is something between a runner and a jumper. Thin, but rather muscular.}

How does this affect life?

First of all, crossfit is endurance. You will forget about shortness of breath. Catch up the bus or run up the stairs to the desired floor, bring packages from the store or dig up a field of potatoes without straining. And you will very quickly get rid of excess weight, because an incredible amount of calories is spent on such trainings. Also crossfit will make you much more energetic. From training you will crawl out exhausted, but the next day you will feel rejuvenated by 10-15 years.

The trainings themselves are very exciting: almost every set of tasks is a mini-competition with those around you and yourself. In addition, these complexes are practically not repeated, which eliminates training from monotony. Crossfit is often compared with physical conditioning and circuit training in martial arts. But in fact, it is much wider and more varied.


_{Something like this: a crossfit training session (at least, the second half of it)}

By the way, the crossfit cleans your head perfectly. During the training session you will forget about all your problems and concerns. You simply can not think about anything other than the complex that you are doing.

Watching the videos with the competition of top athletes, people often say that the crossfit “acidifies myocardium”, ruins joints and so on. In fact, this is a scalable sport. You need to work at your own pace, and, preferably, with a heart rate monitor. Yes, such training suggests that you have to do your best, but a normal trainer will never drive you to death.

Pros:

• the fascination of training;
• brutal endurance;
• not prohibitive, but still a great power;
• increased tone and energy;
• excellent, strong figure (assuming more or less proper nutrition).

Minuses:

• on courage while working on speed you can forget about the technique. Because of this, the trauma increases significantly;
• very intense and hard workouts that are not suitable for everyone.

CrossFit for you if:

• you are tired of monotonous and boring workouts from other sports;
• you want to be comprehensively developed;
• you like to train in the company;
• you want to lose weight quickly.

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Street workout

So now called training on athletic fields. Along with running, it is the most accessible sport. There are horizontal bars and parallel bars near each school, and from the inventory you will only need clothes.

A workout will not replace the whole variety of projectiles and “simulator” exercises, but it is quite enough to put your body in order and be in excellent shape. Pull ups. push-ups on the uneven bars, lifting the legs to the crossbar and squats (preferably on one leg) - so you pumped the whole body. especially when working with additional burdening.

How does this affect life?

Feels like a workout like a light version of training in the gym. The same increase in strength and muscle mass, pleasant fatigue, only to a lesser extent. After a workout, you will feel less tired. Perhaps it is in the fresh air, and maybe - in smaller loads.

Such workouts tend to last less than in the gym. Besides, exercise in the fresh air is much nicer.


_{Typical workout workout}

Pros:

• availability;
• training does not require much time;
• getting injured is pretty hard;
• is free!

Minuses:

• You can practice on the street with comfort for 6-7 months a year. Not everyone will agree to winter trainings, and it is simply impossible to pull up during the rain. On the other hand, no one forbids you to pull up and push-ups in the room (although this is not exactly Tru);
• muscle growth may be insignificant, especially if you are young or lean by nature.

Street workout will suit you if:

• you are just starting to train. It is not necessary to go in for gym, horizontal bar and bars will be quite enough;
• you do not have extra money and time;
• You do not need a large muscle mass and strength.

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Swimming

Like running, swimming perfectly develops endurance, tones, improves blood circulation, cardiovascular and respiratory systems. But, unlike running, swimming does not burden joints and bones, and also involves more muscles. This is the most gentle sport listed in this article.


_{Swimmer's figure}

How does this affect life?

Swimming will allow you to stretch your whole body and strengthen your muscles. And this is what is needed for people leading a sedentary lifestyle. Cool water in the pool tones and invigorates. Probably, this is the only sport in which you will feel more cheerful after training than before. It feels like the effect of training is less than running, but they are more benign and will definitely not harm your health.

In terms of appearance, the effect will not be very noticeable. Swimming contributes to weight loss, but not as much as other sports. It strengthens the muscles, but does not add them a large amount.


_{Typical training in the pool during running time}

Pros:

• minimal risk of injury;
• excellent general healing effect;
• development of muscles of the whole body;
• swimming relaxes and relieves stress.

Minuses:

• others will not soon notice changes in your figure (if they notice it at all);
• sometimes in the pool is cramped due to the large number of people.

Swimming will suit you if:

• in training for you the main thing - health;
• you have an injury or problems with your bones, your spine, or your joints.

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Bicycle

Many bike rides seem the most fascinating and non-stress type of physical exertion. Speed, fresh air, ever-changing views around. Romance! During these trips, you train your heart, endurance, blood and respiratory systems, significantly strengthen the muscles of the legs.


<sub>Looked enthusiastic cyclists, as a rule, thin and lean


Top track cyclists may have slightly swollen legs.</sub>

How does this affect life?

The effect of regular cycling is almost the same as for jogging: weight reduction, payload on the heart and respiratory system, increased muscle tone. Ideally, you can ride a bike to work. The effect will be great. In addition, time on the road is combined with training. Double benefit! Also cycling can be a great addition to other sports.

On the one hand, the bicycle improves blood circulation in the pelvic organs. On the other hand, the whole weight of the body falls on the groin area. Therefore, a bad seat, on the contrary, can cause blood stasis, which can lead to unpleasant consequences. So, do not abuse the duration of trips and responsibly approach the choice of the saddle.

In addition, prolonged pedaling creates a heavy load on the knees. In order not to injure them, watch the fluid level in the body, because during the ride we sweat, which means we lose fluid that protects the joints from friction.


_{Bad weather is not a hindrance for cycling}

Pros:

• pleasant and fascinating process;
• good general healing effect;
• not bad promotes weight loss;
• You can engage in the contemplation of the world and see a lot of new things.

Minuses:

• improper seat can harm;
• in the cold season to ride is not too comfortable.

A bicycle will suit you if:

• you do not need hard training, or, conversely, you do not have enough load in other sports;
• You have the opportunity to use it as a transport, and not just as a sports simulator.

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Martial arts

Severe, tough, exciting sport for real men. If you want to become the strongest of all and without fear to walk in your favorite area, you are here. The choice of disciplines is very diverse, but all of them are united by quite serious physical training. The trainings are similar to crossfitt in terms of intensity and, partially, in structural terms. But, of course, the main focus here is on applied combat skills.

The figures of the fighters, as a rule, slender and muscular. Although, of course, it all depends on the sport and a particular person.


_{The figure of a typical fighter}

How does this affect life?

In addition to giving you excellent physical shape, martial arts cool self-pumping confidence. The trainings are heavy and exhausting, but at the same time very exciting and exciting.


_{The first time in training you will look like this}

Pros:

• excellent physical training;
• exciting workouts;
• obtaining applied skills that can ever save you in a difficult situation.

Minuses:

• The training is very intense and hard, so not everyone is suitable;
• in the heat of labor it is quite easy to get hurt;
• can anything and repel.

Martial arts will be the best choice if:

• you want to be stronger than all, and not seem;
• you lack the thrill;
• you love hitting people.

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In order to somehow concisely draw conclusions about everything I’ve scribbled here, I tried to evaluate the main indicators of the disciplines on a 10-point scale. The result is in the table below.

	Strength	Endurance	Appearance	Energy (in normal life / during exercise)	Interest	State of health (during / after training / next day)
Exercise machine	ten	3	ten	5/3	7	7/8/6
Run	2	eight	10/7	7	eight	6/10/8
Crossfit	eight	ten	eight	10/8	ten	3/9/9
Street workout	eight	five	eight	5/5	6	7/7/8
Swimming	four	eight	four	7/6	five	8/7/7
Bicycle	2	6	6	3/8	ten	9/7/3
Martial arts	7	9	eight	8/9	ten	5/5/10

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I hope you learned something useful for yourself. If this article inspires at least one person to change his life, it means that it was not written in vain.

Is your favorite sport missing here? Write about it in the comments. You can also expand you can write me a personal message about what you do, and this description will be added to the article.

Successes you and good health.