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When sport get deeply ingrained.
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Dans article about sporting backgrounds got me thinking about something I'm wondering for a long time. When you are very active from a youn age, does that get ingrained into your body?

Growing up I was an alpine skier and so I was always very active. In the winter our team spent Saturday and Sundays on the skis from 9am-4pm. We had two afternoons off from school so that we could get three more hours on the snow on both Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesday evening (and sometimes Thursay as well) we spent 90 minutes and did conditioning stuff (running, strength, jumps, coordination etc.)

That was in the winter. In the summer we spent 4-5 days a week just doing conditioning stuff. I always found it interesting how my soccer friends trained like two times a week and we, as winter sport guys, did more than double from what day did. Holidays were always an occasion to go to the glacier summer skiing for some days or we did a conditioning training camp. This was when I was around 10 years old and it was quite a lot of sport we did. But I always enjoyed it and the training was very variable. We did climbing, hiking, strength training, balance drills etc. along with the skiing.

I quit skiing when I was 13 and then hat some 4 years where I did sports only for fun and enjoyed all the other parts of the life. Then I got into heavy endurance sports and I think I just need to do a lot of activity everyday to be satisfied. And when I look at my former skiing teammates, nearly everyone is still quite active. Some are into mountainbiking or triathlon, others do extreme sports and one guy is even into wrestling.
When I look at my other friends, like those who did soccer for example, none of them is very active.

I always get the impression that have a sporting background that required them to be very active from a young age (swimming, gymnastics) very often stay active for their whole lifes or they get back into sport after a little break. You also see it in Triathlon. The sport requires a lot of training and a lot of guys come into the sport with a background in another demanding sport.

I always wonder if that is because you are getting used to being active from a young age.

10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40
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Re: When sport get deeply ingrained. [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]
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I don't know. I played little league as a kid but stopped that after 6th grade and never did anything past that. I graduated college very overweight and went for my first run about a year after I graduated. So I don't come from any sort of background in running, but decided I liked it and worked my tail off to be sorta kinda ok at it and now it's basically part of my identity.

I know lots of athletes who stopped and are no longer active. Maybe there's a correlation there, but I don't know.

https://markmcdermott.substack.com
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Re: When sport get deeply ingrained. [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]
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I think it completely depends on the individual. People who have a "serious" sporting background (in the sense that they were serious about it, not that it was necessarily at a high level) can go one of three ways:

1. Never leave the sport and push themselves to the limit/their full potential.
2. Burn out on the specific sport they had a background in and look for "new scenery" with another sport.
3. Burn out on or choose to no longer take part in athletics in general.
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Re: When sport get deeply ingrained. [ToBeasy] [ In reply to ]
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ToBeasy wrote:
When I look at my other friends, like those who did soccer for example, none of them is very active.

I always get the impression that have a sporting background that required them to be very active from a young age (swimming, gymnastics) very often stay active for their whole lifes or they get back into sport after a little break. You also see it in Triathlon. The sport requires a lot of training and a lot of guys come into the sport with a background in another demanding sport.

I always wonder if that is because you are getting used to being active from a young age.

Perhaps the difference is team sport athletes tend to drop off based on your experience and mine. Those who had activities that did not require a team (of course you could it with or without others) seem to stay active.

Maybe it's personality. Maybe it's logistics. I just like the fact that I don't have to count on someone else to do my thing. Although company is usually appreciated. Per Dan's article on training partners.

Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.
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