Factors Affecting Sporting Performance

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Factors Affecting Sporting Performance

Several factors affect our sporting performances, some of which are ‘natural’ factors, and some of which we cause.

An example of a natural factor is our gender. We do not choose to be male or female and therefore it is something that occurs naturally.

An example of a factor caused by ourselves is our diet- what we eat and drink. We can decide what we want to eat be it healthy or not healthy, the decision is ours.

Age is a natural factor affecting performance.

When you are very young, your bones and muscles are still growing and because your bones are still growing they are a lot softer than a fully-grown adults are. This helps young children to be very flexible and very supple, which in turn affects their performance. But being fully-grown in some sports is better than young and supple. Because adults are fully-grown, they are a lot stronger than a child is. All the muscles are developed properly and so in a sport such as cycling it would be an advantage to be a fully-grown adult than a developing child, whereas in gymnastics it would be an advantage to be very supple because of the certain exercises involved.

Our gender affects our performance a great deal.

A mans frame is generally wider and taller than a woman’s is.

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Women after they reach puberty develop wider hips which hinders their running ability, whereas a man develops larger muscles due to the increased level of testosterone in their bodies.

Women generally have muscles smaller than a mans, so men have a head start already in any power sports such as weightlifting or sprinting which require a lot of physical strength.

The size of your internal organs affects performance, in that if you have for example larger than average lungs, you can inhale an awful lot of air which contains oxygen, and so more oxygen can be sent to ...

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