Gary Fixter - Health benefits of soccer

Various and current studies are demonstrating the excellent capacity that this sport has to improve physical condition, reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as improve not only physiological but also psychological and social parameters, even superior to traditional moderate and continuous.

But this is not everything, recent investigations observe what happens when people suffering from pathologies such as hypertension, obesity or type II diabetes begin to practice this sport with no other objective than to enjoy its practice. The results are promising, soccer could be an alternative treatment based on physical activity, very important for these conditions or pathologies, so much so, that there are many health benefits of soccer. Let us analyze in depth this new vision on soccer.

In our society, soccer is a very popular team sport with more than 400 million active players worldwide, due to motivational and social factors, it may contain great potential as a health promotion activity for inactive people passionate about this sport

In soccer, many actions take place such as sprints, sudden accelerations and decelerations, maximum jumps, quick blows with the foot and many other situations. This integration of different types of actions and exercises that occur in football, seem to have a great impact on the three main areas of fitness (metabolic fitness, cardiovascular fitness, muskuloskeletal fitness), which leads to a significant positive impact on risk. suffering from diseases derived from our current lifestyle

Short and long-term studies have shown that regular participation in soccer training recreationally has a wide range of benefits in physical condition, as well as favorable effects on cardiovascular risk factors such as maximum oxygen consumption, cardiac function or mass. body fat in sedentary young men and women

In addition to short-term benefits, people who have played soccer permanently throughout their lives are associated with better left ventricular systolic function, better physical fitness, microvascular function, and healthier body composition than adults. healthy of the same age, but who have been most of their sedentary lives. What could reduce cardiovascular mortality and morbidity

The benefits of this sports practice in a recreational way have not only been examined in physiological parameters, recreational soccer is also an activity that promotes social interaction, the creation of social capital and networks between people.