Athletics Blog

Whenever engaging in any form of sport, it’s always best to warm up first as warming up helps your mind and body prepare to engage in strenuous activity. Warming up helps the blood flow to the various parts of the body, warming both the body’s core temperature and muscle temperature, which minimizes the chances for a sprain of injury to happen.

It is suggested to first do some light exercises like before the main event. These general warm up exercises will make your body be more prepared to handle whatever sport through elevating the heart and respiratory rate and facilitates the muscles of the body in receiving the proper nutrients. Stretching then follows, with various light tension exercises to even prepare your muscles more. Stretching gives you a bigger range of movement.

They have come and gone with records that are still to be broken, much has been gained by the many impoverished African states that have produced some of the best runners in the world. Why then does the continent produce some of the best runners if they have more pressing issues to address such as war, famine and many more in the war-torn continent? The people are more on the lean side of humanity with more muscle pound per pound compared to people from other nations. Africans have evolved into some of the best runners in the world not only to show off their raw and pure talent at sports but to show off the prowess of their nation and the continent whom they represent. They want to hear their fellow athletes on the top instead of the dismal news of conflict here and there which makes them proud of being who they are.
Compared to other athletes, these people train under the most extreme environments that would cause many of our own people to quit long before they have ever gotten warmed up. The extreme temperature may have cooked out the fat in their body leaving tough and powerful tissue that is well suited for the sport. More power to you people as you carry your countries into the record books becoming heroes of your people and the world.

With the Olympics a few month’s past, scandals and intrigue still plague the winners and losers. There were straightforward cases of banned substance use and there were muddled cases of mistaken identity whereas drugs were seen as another. These events have stripped many athletes of their medals in history but these medals being hard-earned, cheated or not are not always returned. As it turns out, the results of these contests are rarely revised once they have gone into the record books and the medals that are sure to come with them as well. Many deserving track and field athletes have lost pride and face due to accusations of wrong though they have denied all accounts and evidence has never been actually been sound.
A case with the sprinters of the past Olympics where two of the top athletes were stripped of their final scores due to erroneous steps, their stories have gone up and down as they go down in history as disqualified, their honor and hard-earned medals with the deemed winners. One case had an athlete disqualified then re-awarded the medal, not by the Olympic committee but by the opposing athlete who was given the medal who admits also having committed the same error as him. The damage is done, the medals are lost and the official record books not corrected.

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Rafael Nadal, Spain’s pride disappointed his countrymen when he announced that he would not be able to compete in the Davis Cup finals against Argentina because of a knee injury. He received the test results from his tendinitis on his right knee. It was a difficult decision to make for him as he knows that the two events, namely the Davis Cup and Shanghai Masters are the two most important objectives for this year. He said, he did all possible things to make it but he just could not make it. The Davis Cup will be held on this week in Mar del Plata, Argentina. This came as good news for Argentina as it was hoping to win this year’s title. It is really a point in their favor according to skipper Alberto Mancini.

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General manager Jim Hendry will continue to serve the Cubs for another four years til 2012 long after the Cubs’ new owners take over the club. The news came at the time of the Cubs’ best season in more than 60 years. They recently won their 2 NL Central title and scored the league’s best record ever before they lost in the play offs for two straight years. The decision to invite Hendry back to the club was a very easy decision to make, apparently, inspite of the fact that it is on sale. It was quite an odd situation, as the Cubs’ chairman Crane Kenney recalls. But the decision of the club owner, Sam Zell, to get Hendrey was the turning point. Amidst the pending sale, the Cubs brought in Rich Harden and Carlos Zambrano. It is always about the long term consequences that we are all concerned about thats why these important decisions were made, says Kenney.

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They say the best time to start a sport is while you’re young and fit. For Dara Torres, she out did the saying. For her age doesn’t matter and to be fit is a choice we have to make.

Torres is now 41 and the mother of a 2-year-old daughter, is an Olympic swimmer of the 50-meter freestyle, known as “the flash and dash”. Being both competitive and compulsive, her latest effort built on an obsessive attention to her aging body. She treats her body the way a motor head treats his car: obsessively tuning it up. Her proportions more closely resemble the long inverted triangle. The broad shoulders, long torso, slim hips, long arms, and the more tightly muscled curves. If you study Torres’s face and neck, you can see some faint signs of her 40-plus years. But barring the 13 small surgical incisions on her knees, elbows, shoulders, hands and fingers, her physique looks nearly flawless.

Among the seven other women she was competing with, who were between 12 and 20 years her junior, Torres looked taller and fitter.

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Athletes usually begin competing in their sports while in elementary or middle school and continue through high school and sometimes college. They play in amateur tournaments and on high school and college teams, where the best attract the attention of professional scouts. Most schools require that participating athletes maintain specific academic standards to remain eligible to play. Becoming a professional athlete is the culmination of years of effort. Athletes who seek to compete professionally must have extraordinary talent, desire, and dedication to training.

Irregular work hours are the trademark of an athlete. Athletes often work Saturdays, Sundays, evenings, and even holidays. Athletes usually work more than 40 hours a week for several months during the sports season, if not most of the year. Athletes who participate in competitions that are held outdoors may be exposed to all weather conditions of the season; those involved in events that are held indoors tend to work in climate-controlled comfort, often in arenas, enclosed stadiums, or gymnasiums. Athletes, frequently travel to sporting events by bus or airplane.

Boxing is a sport that most people cannot resist to watch because of the back to back thrill and excitement it offers. It is a fighting combat between two participants who punch their opponent with their fists, and its main goal is to knock out their opponent. Although many people enjoy watching this sport, many don’t realize the danger these contestants are risking. Even though these athletes have helmets and pads, it cannot fully protect them, every hit they make especially on the head of their opponent can actually lead to brain damage which is very dangerous and when they get old, they‘re much likely prone to Alzheimer’s disease.

For people who love the taste of water adventure, surfing is one of the most exciting and extreme water sports ever. If you happen to check out the movie Blue Crash you will actually find that surfing is really cool. It might seem easy at first; like riding on a skateboard but actually surfing needs guts and focus. First thing that you need to consider before surfing is the fact that you know how to swim because drowning is mainly the reason of water accidents. So if you’re really into it, try to go down under… Australia is one of the best places in the world to surf.

One of the favorite basketball movements of all time is dribbling. It is also the most entertaining skills to learn. Dribbling is such an easy skill that you can be good at it in a small ample of time. Want to know how to start learning? Just start dribbling and presto! You are now a good player!

As cheesy as it sounds, dribbling makes you know your ball better as you get the chance to spend more time with it. Through continuous repetition, you will soon develop the skill without exerting much effort. You can also practice the skill almost everywhere as you don’t really need a basketball ring.