Perform at your best thanks to fresh air

If a sports field is planned, which rarely happens anyway, there are definitely a few cubic meters of fine sand for the long jump facility. If there is enough space, a 400m circular track with an elastic surface may even be created. In any case, 50m lanes will be designed for faster running. And a ring for shot put is apparently indispensable, because we have long known that children and young people love nothing more than shot put in physical education lessons. And they love long jumping because the sand can spread so beautifully in the fashionable sneakers that you also wear for sports. Yuck. Exactly. Welcome to athletics, a sport that consists of so many different and exciting disciplines, but the pillars are always the same. Running, jumping, throwing, as we just saw again over three days at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow. Despite some role models, it's not easy to spark enthusiasm for sports, because kids of both genders don't necessarily have a strong enthusiasm for exercise. And sport is also an important building block in life from a social perspective, in fact it is life itself with its complex structures. After training as a sports teacher, I worked at a private school. The students didn't want to do sports, even if the timetable called for it, but instead wanted to consolidate their positional battles from the class in sports. This became really clear to me when I set up two teams for a small football match and deliberately separated the groups. The result was a disaster for me. They simply ignored the line-up and scored a bunch of own goals. They felt responsible to their group and not to the team I intended them to be. They couldn't be separated. What the teachers couldn't do in the usual subjects stuck with me. I was supposed to ensure a sensible structure in the classes again, which was of course a pointless undertaking in one hour a week. After half a year, I gave up in frustration. Afterwards I asked myself what went wrong, what did I possibly do wrong? Was the fun not enough? Or did I simply not have the necessary teaching skills? In this case, sport was of course also the outlet for consolidating the group dynamic processes in the class. As a teacher, I was just in the way. Sport as a health program It is undisputedly clear that sport is extremely important for society. Especially because regular exercise can have a preventive effect against many health problems. Prevent, prevent. You should read it like a mantra. But we all know that too: Then comes the phase in which things should finally start to improve professionally. Appointments, appointments. “I don’t have time” is probably the most common excuse. Two or three hikes a year serve as a cover for the many omissions during the year. Sport at school should therefore include more than just physical compensation for the many hours at the school desk. Perhaps even the word “sport” is wrong, misleading and potentially off-putting. Health training might be more appropriate. Just like a hospital should actually be called a health center. That sounds much more pleasant, even tempting, when something pinches and scratches somewhere. Unfortunately, a possible reorganization of physical education lessons is hardly to be found on the agenda of any ministry of education and it is still common practice that sport is the first thing to be canceled in the flu phase when there is suddenly a shortage of teachers again. Maybe the shot put ring is a relic from another time, maybe the long jump facility is too. Maybe all it would take is the encouragement to get some fresh air. We often wonder why the few Norwegians are so successful in sports compared to many other more populous nations. The basic recipe for this is probably relatively simple and even inexpensive. Just go out. Get out of your four walls and into nature. She is always somewhere. The Norwegians even have their own word for it. “Friluftsliv”. Translated it means “outdoor living”. There is even a subject at a university for it. With the broom style over the sofa Of course, we can still enjoy the many sports programs on television and watch with fascination how top performances are achieved by athletes at the World Indoor Championships. This can inspire us and sometimes also confuse us. It always happens to me when I measure eight meters and then think to myself that a person will simply jump over this mark in one leap. Yes, almost nine meters now. Or crossing a bar that is twenty centimeters higher than my door frame. But that's the tip, that's the circus-like effects of high-performance sport, which at some point had its basis for everyone in the simple, pure urge to move. The world's best pole vaulter, Armand Duplantis from Sweden, jumped over the sofa at home with a broomstick as a child. He is now an Olympic champion and world champion. Of course, most people don't have to and can't achieve this and it's not necessary. Any level is sufficient because sport can be really easy. As I said, you don't need much. Just the willingness to overcome your inner weakness every now and then. I know that. About the author: Sigi Heinrich The award-winning sports journalist (including winner of the German Television Prize and the Bavarian Sports Prize), book author and Eurosport commentator from the very beginning (since 1989) devotes himself to the entire diversity of sport in his regular column “Sigi's Spitze” and also likes to poach foreign realms. Sometimes with a smile and a wink, sometimes serious and thoughtful or deliberately provocative. There should be something for everyone.

Football

Italy

International leagues

International

Winter sports

Hockey

Tennis

Other sports

Motorsport

Cycling

Watersports

Events

Favorites

Perform at your best thanks to fresh air

Physical education does not have to be the basis for later top performance. Rather, our columnist Sigi Heinrich believes, it should promote an understanding of one's own health. A good example of this are the Norwegians, who even have a field of study called “outdoor living”.

Suggestions

Comments (0)