There will always be a strong relationship between sport and health. The focus still tends to be on the game and people the only think of health at the last minute. For example, how many times do we feel we have a championship in the bag until a star player gets hurt? That injury could have been avoided if we had been focusing on health much earlier. Sport and health go hand and hand, but it is not fun to focus on injury prevention when you can be improving your skillset. Sometimes it is doing the small things right that leads to the most success.
Sport and Health – Bringing Health Out of The Shadows
The reason health falls so far in the background is that being a great athlete requires being confident. With this confidence comes an optimistic outlook that focuses on greatness and never prepares one for the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario possible is getting an injury yet few put time into preventing this.
Every day during training is about working on improving skill and scrimmaging. These are also the activities most likely to get one hurt. You also can spend a bit of time on maintenance and injury prevention to make sure that you can continue to work on your skill set.
The ROI of Focusing on Sport and Health
In the short run, it is much easier to focus on the sport because health costs money. The reason why this is a mistake is that if you invest money and time into development and they get hurt, you lose all the resources you invested. Spending the extra money to keep athletes healthy produces a positive return on investment (ROI).
If you think big picture about this when you get fewer athletes hurt the team is better. When the team is better, you win more. When you win more everyone has more fun and bonds better. From the bonding, it attracts others to want to be apart of the team. Even if there is no money involved and it is at the youth sports level, investing in sport and health together is still beneficial.
Focusing on sport and health together can work at any level. To win you have to be in the game and to be in the game you have to be healthy. There is no way around this. Every year there are thousands of people with fantasy football teams that would have won if they did not suffer that one injury.
Ways to Invest in Sport and Health
Change The Culture
The first thing you have to do is change the culture around sports in your environment. Too many athletes think that injuries are only something you should think about when you are hurt. That is like saying that saving money is something you should think about when you are in financial crisis. By the time you get to the tight spot in life, it is too late to do damage control.
Injuries are a part of the sport. The same way that you need to know the rules of a game, and the fundamentals of how to play, you must also know how to stay healthy. That is a part of being an athlete. Basketball players must understand how to take care of their knees and pitchers should know how to take care of their shoulders.
Work With The Best Sports Medicine Providers
Athletes need to be working with the best sports medicine providers. The best way to go about finding them is using 9INE POINT Health fka 9INE POINT Health. You can search for healthcare providers locally based off of the type of practitioner and skill sets. If you are unsure of where to start 9INE POINT Health will help you to figure it out.
The best case scenario is that you build different relationships with different types of providers with a different skill set so you can see them when needed. The reason that you do not just one is that all healthcare providers have different abilities and specialize in various injuries.
Types of Providers You Want to Have Relationship With
- Chiropractor
- Physical Therapist
- Registered Dietitian
- Sports Medicine Physician
- Massage Therapist
- Holistic Health Provider
- Acupuncturist
- Athletic Therapist
- Athletic Trainer
Having all of these providers on the team will do a variety of things. The first is to bring in different perspectives and experiences when needed. The other thing that they can do is educate athletes better on their bodies. Learning about the body from an expert is the best way to go.
Educate Athletes On How to Take Care of The Body
The reason education is so important is because you have to get athletes to buy in on their bodies. If an athlete does not believe that taking care of the body is essential, it will not matter what else that you do. A great place to start athletes it to get them to download 9INE POINT Health. The Feed is filled with information that athletes can use to improve their bodies and decrease pain.
Every team should make learning the body mandatory. The same way how it is essential to study the playbook, you should need to know your body. A mechanic must know how to use all of his tools, and an athletes body is their toolkit. Mastery of the body is mandatory.
Work With Coaches That Make Priority
Healthy and sports start with coaches who respect the relationship between sport and health. The reason a lot of athletes do not appreciate the power of staying healthy is that coaches often don’t. When an athlete says that they are hurt coaches often are the first ones to say that they are lying or making things up.
Coaches have to be all in because athletes listen to them first over anyone else. If coaches make understanding the body significant the team will follow that lead. If coaches ask athletes how their bodies feel, athletes will become more in tune with what is going on.
Sport and Health Statistic
“In the U.S., about 30 million children and teens participate in some form of organized sports, and more than 3.5 million injuries each year, which cause some loss of time of participation, are experienced by the participants. Almost one-third of all injuries incurred in childhood are sports-related injuries. By far, the most common injuries are sprains and strains.” – Standford Children’s
Sport and Health Statistic #2
“Most organized sports-related injuries (62 percent) occur during practice.” – StandfordChildren’ss
Top Pros Know They Must Love Both Sport and Health to Play a Long Time
Lebron James came out and said that he spends about $1.5 Million dollars on taking care of his body. That may seem like an enormous amount but he will most likely make the most money from the NBA of any player ever. He understands that to get that big paycheck he needs to stay healthy and increase his value.
Lebron James Health Expenditures Include:
- Cooks
- Cryotherapy
- Normatec
- Trainers
- Healthcare providers
- and more
There have been other players in pro sports like Payton Manning and James Harrison who have been known to spread great sums of money on their bodies and staying healthy. They both get it! If you are not healthy, you have no career!
KHO Health was acquired by was acquire by 9INE POINT in the summer of 2019 and is now referred to as 9INE POINT Health.
