• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Human Movement

Injury Rehab and Sports Performance Training, City of London

  • About
  • Process
    • Our Process
    • Muscle Activation Techniques
    • Resistance Training
  • Programmes
    • In person programme
    • Online programme
  • Resources
    • The Little Book of Injury Rehab
    • How to get strong and healthy past 50
  • Blog
  • Contact

Is sport healthy?

October 13, 2014 by Paul

Sport should be about life not death. About beauty and health.
Tonina Pantani.

Is sport healthy

Tonina Pantani is the mother of Marco Pantani (above) who passed away in tragic circumstances aged just 34. Marco was the greatest Italian cyclist of his generation, winning both the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia in 1998.

He was expelled from the 1999 Giro d’Italia due to irregular blood values that suggested EPO use. It was from this that he never truly recovered.

Whilst he came back to challenge Lance Armstrong in the 2000 Tour de France, the stigma of that 1999 test haunted him and led to a cocaine abuse problem that eventually killed him in a hotel room in Rimini 2004.

A recent documentary about his life and tragic death discusses the problem of EPO use in cycling which was endemic at that time. It seems that Marco couldn’t live with being called a cheat however and having the validity of his victories called into question.

Drugs aside, is sport beauty and health?

Should we encourage our children to participate as Tonina did with the thought that it will build healthy, strong individuals?

If you have read the opening chapter of Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open then you will know the effect that professional sport can have on the body.

Towards the end of his career Agassi required cortisone injections in his spine just to get out of bed.

Most professional sports people have to make a decision to stop at some stage. This decision is usually governed by how much more punishment their bodies can take.

Amateur sport differs only in the fact that the athletes are not being paid. The toll it exacts on the body can be just the same.

I’m not suggesting that sport is bad for one minute but it’s not necessarily healthy and should not be sold as such.

Society holds sports people up as examples of health but they are not healthy. They are great examples of what dedication, courage and focus can achieve. Most however are in chronic pain with a list of injuries that they have to manage day to day.

Exercise can have health benefits if applied in the right way, but exercise and sport are not the same thing and should not be confused.

Filed Under: Life, Training

Latest Muscle Activation Techniques testimonial from Injury Rehab.
Can you feel the tension?

Primary Sidebar

The Little Book of Injury Rehab

Not making progress with your rehab?

Subscribe below and find out how to get moving with our FREE 21 page guide.

The Little Book of Injury Rehab pdf

Get strong and healthy past 50

Everything you need to know about exercise at 50 and beyond.

Subscribe and receive our 60 page guide FREE.

How to get strong and healthy past 50 pdf

Categories

Recent Posts

  • The German approach to back pain with an 88% success rate. February 2, 2023
  • Why most people aren’t strength training effectively (even if they think they are). January 22, 2023
  • Allostatic load and chronic injury rehab: Strategies for recovery. January 4, 2023
  • Rehab exercises causing you pain? Try this. December 2, 2022
  • Why the future of musculoskeletal health care must include resistance training. November 17, 2022

Footer

CONTACT

Human Movement
30 Cannon Street
London, EC4M 6XH

+44 020 7183 1164
paul@human-movement.com

BLOG

  • The German approach to back pain with an 88% success rate. February 2, 2023
  • Why most people aren’t strength training effectively (even if they think they are). January 22, 2023
  • Allostatic load and chronic injury rehab: Strategies for recovery. January 4, 2023

FOLLOW

SUBSCRIBE

Privacy | Cookies | Terms