Playing Sports Doesn’t Make You Lose Weight
Because you need to train harder and smarter when you’re not consistently guaranteed to lose calories in every performance.
Losing weight can be a challenge for many even if they love to play sports.
Sports such as baseball, American football, basketball, and soccer exercise the heart. However, they don’t exercise the body entirely. That’s where extra training comes in.
And much of that extra training is done in the gym.
Because without the gym work most of what the athletes are doing involves running and that’s mostly running at a slower pace.
Think about it.
If you’re a baseballer you spend a lot of downtime between plays. The vast majority of time is spent waiting around, walking, or just standing still. Sure the batter has to sprint from base to base now and then and the outfielders need to run and jump high for the ball, but most of the time there is a lot of stationary play.
Just ask Babe Ruth how much weight he lost playing professional baseball?
Or better still,
Check out a picture of him, and then you’ll realize he wasn’t exactly trim.
The same is true for basketball.
Although most of the players are more active than baseball players they’re barely sprinting or moving to their utmost most of the time. Because most of the running they do is trotting up to the halfway line with the ball before being put under pressure just outside the paint. That’s when they have to move faster, sprint, duck, swivel, turn, and jump but that too is more a cardiovascular exercise.
Don’t get me wrong you rarely see a professional basketballer who is overweight but these guys are playing most nights of the week and for the average athlete playing in the NBA is not possible.
And they have personal trainers and people to check on their diet all of the time.
American football demands running and it’s a more physical sport than baseball or basketball.
But similar to baseball there is a lot of downtime.
Short sharp bursts of energy occur once the long snapper pops the ball into play. Then there is a flurry of movement on both sides of the ball. As well as sprinting there is a lot of pushing and pulling and this takes a lot of energy and force because the men who play the game are all mostly over 6 feet tall and close or over the 200-pound mark.
That type of play will help the pounds drop off but it only takes a few seconds before the ball is downed again or a rough tackle catches the referee’s eye and the play is halted.
And then the players take a rest.
In soccer, although the game is played over 90 minutes much of the movement is jogging to get in and out of positions. Sure if the ball is kicked over the top of the defense defenders are sprinting back to defend their goal and strikers are on the front foot trying to shoot but most of the time there are short sprints by most of the players.
Don’t get me wrong short sprints are great for working the body.
And when players are under pressure they’ll move as they’ve never moved before in practice.
This will force the fat to burn for sure but for most people who play a casual game of soccer, it's not going to be the only way of slimming down.
Because most of the areas on our bodies that carry fat have underlying muscles that require a heavier workload.
And until you use the muscles in several ways you’ll find it difficult to minimize the percentage of body fat in all areas of the body.
Unless you’re a genetic freak that is, and let’s face it most people aren’t.
That’s where other types of training come in. And even professional athletes use extra forms of training to prepare, prevent injury, and look good for their professional sporting performance.
One way of preparing the muscles of the body is to use weight lifting.
As many of the areas where lots of weight is stored tend to show up in mass on the thighs or quadriceps muscles squatting is a popular exercise that many professional athletes do. The quads are also the strongest muscles in the body and are capable of a lot more weight lifting than most others. If a consistent dedication to squatting is kept to lots of body fat can be burned so long as the athletes know what they’re doing and when they should be doing it.
Then there are the abdominal muscles. Because let’s face it everyone loves a six-pack.
And strong abs is required to avoid injury for athletes who play a long series of games in a given season. Because the abdominal muscles support the posture of the body and when athletes are running, bending, twisting, turning, or colliding with another player these muscles need to be strong to carry the force of the tackle and keep the upper body upright and supported.
And many people who disregard exercising the abdominals properly have a belly.
And that’s where fat loves to live but with skillfully designed abdominal workouts athletes can control their weight and their body’s overall movement.
Then there is the butt.
Many people worry about the size of it and if it’s seen as being too fat or out of shape. When in reality the butt can be exercised quite easily as a secondary muscular area when many other designed exercises in the gym are consistently kept to.
Playing a sport will keep you fit but because you’re reacting to opponents’ plays in many instances you can’t guarantee how many calories you’ll be losing in every game. That’s why you need to have set sessions in the gym or at home where you work hard repetitively to keep your body’s muscles strong and lean.
And that’s when as a professional sportsperson you’ll be glad to have a crowd watch you play when you’re looking fit and trim.
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