If you want to stay healthy, it is more beneficial to partake in sports than going to the gym. Handball, soccer, and other forms of ball-games are in fact better for your health than exercising by running or lifting weights. There are numerous studies devoted to the subject.
Why is it healthier?
The reason is that the type of running and movement, one performs when playing soccer or the like improve almost every aspect of the body’s physique. Soccer improves fitness as much as high intensity interval running and more than long runs in a steady pace. An American study has proven that, if you are used to playing soccer, you can improve your maximum oxygen intake by 8 to 18 %, by playing for 40 to 60 minutes twice a week. Meanwhile, the increase in muscle strength in the legs is comparable to a round of training strength at the gym. However, training strength does not improve your fitness. Thereby, you can have the best of both worlds by playing soccer.
Soccer prevents osteoporosis
Another argument for playing soccer and the like, over other forms of exercise, is their effect on the bones. If you have played soccer a couple of times a week during a large part of your life, there is a greater chance that your bones will be stronger when you are 70. This was concluded in a study performed by scientists from the University of Southern Denmark and the University of Copenhagen in 2017. In fact, the study showed that people in the age of 70, whom have played soccer for the better part of their life, had bones as strong as those of a normal 25-year-old.
Strengthening the bones means less risk of breaking bones or developing osteoporosis – a disease that is especially common in people at, or above, the age of 70, which makes the bones more susceptible to breaking.
Keep playing as an adult
Aside from stronger bones, elderly soccer players have better balance, heart functions, fitness, and faster acting muscles, than their age mates, who do not play soccer. From a health point of view, there isn’t any reason why you should stop playing soccer just because you are getting older.
Soccer also provides other benefits to the health. For example, older people can, by playing soccer, reduce their risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. This was shown in a study on the health in elderly men between the age of 63 and 75. Researchers form the University of Copenhagen asked the elderly men to play soccer for one hour three days a week. After only four months, their fitness had on average improved by 15 %.
Soccer can protect our muscle mass
When we get older our muscle mass decreases. However, a study showed that elderly who play soccer preserve more of their muscle mass. After a year of playing soccer three times a week, the participants had reduced their BMI by 3% - according to the researchers, they had almost exclusively lost fat.
It is not only soccer but similar types of games that have a greater impact on your health than normal running and strength training.
