Outline the range of precautions that can and should be taken to reduce the risk of accidents and injuries when participating in a sports activity. Give examples from your chosen sports.

GCSE Physical Education (Sport & Coaching)

There are various precautions that must be considered when undergoing any physical activity. Different sports may require different precautions to be taken, for example certain protection may be required for sports such as football wear shin guards must be worn to protect the shins from injury.

Most sports require a warm up beforehand to loosen joints and stretch muscles, this is essential as failure to do so could result in injury. Specific clothing may also have to be worn to for protection like football boots to stop you from slipping or in extreme sports such as skiing it would be vital for keeping you warm. In sports such as Rugby there needs to be communication between team mates because there could be collisions etc which could result in serious injury. Also fitness is a factor to be considered as if a person runs competitively and is not fit either physically or mentally it not only affect their performance but could cause further injury.

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In any sport you should make sure you are prepared for what you are going to do. In activities like bike racing or rock climbing equipment is used to ensure your safety, but if the equipment is not safe then this is useless. The ropes and harnesses for rock climbing should always be checked as should the bicycle for instability. Fluids should be taken before sports as when you are exercising you are losing water all the time. A good example of this is during the world cup where the England players had to consume huge amounts of liquid to ensure they didn’t become dehydrated due to the extreme heat. The conditions for playing in should be reviewed before any sporting event as poor playing conditions can and probably will result in injury. If a football pitch is waterlogged players may slip and hurt themselves, or in contrast if a pitch is too hard for a sport like Rugby then players will injure themselves falling on it and will also get blisters from running around on it with rugby studs. The weather is also a key factor as it would not be safe to send cricket players out to play in rainy weather or bad light because all it takes is for someone to not see a ball coming and it could hit them. It is also important to know what your limits are before you partake in any sport, if you try and do something that you cant you are likely to injure yourself. It is particularly dangerous in sports such as weightlifting or gymnastics where equipment is being used that you could easily injure yourself on.

If you are new to or improving at an activity like trampolining or rock climbing you must be supervised at all times by someone who knows what they are doing as you could not be doing something right which could cause injury. In a combat sport such as boxing it is important that competitors are put into there own weight class because if a heavyweight is pitted against a lightweight it could result in serious damage being inflicted. Rules are made to prevent injury, the idea of a free kick in football is to stop people from making dangerous challenges this can be followed up by a yellow or red card depending how bad the foul is. There have been many cases of serious injury in the past due to players not following the rules. The ability of players/participants in sport has to be noted for example, boxing, if an experienced fighter is placed in the ring with a beginner then the beginner would be in danger of being hurt badly. Also a football team like Tottenham Hotspur would not play against a pub team as the pub team is likely to cause injury to the professional players due to the fact that they will mistime tackles and may resort to playing dirty in order to win.

All the points mentioned are considered to ensure a safe environment for participants in sporting activities.