Working as a Sport and Exercise professional, it can be extremely valuable to have knowledge across disciplines. Here are my top three reasons to try new sports/fitness programs throughout your degree.
By Lara Ralph, UTS Sport and Exercise student
1. To know what it is like to be a rookie/novice at something
As sport and exercise students, we all have certain sports or fitness activities that we excel in. However, throughout your career you will likely come across people who are new to something and only just at the beginning of their learning.
This could include an older adult attending a gym for the first time, a young person undertaking a new sport or a rehabilitation patient learning (or re-learning) a new skill. In each of these cases, to better empathise with the client it is critical that the practitioner understands themselves what it is like to be a rookie.
The only way to experience this – challenges, failure, persevering with a smile, and a couple laughs – is by throwing yourself into something new every now and then, so why not have a go?
2. Better relate to future clients, due to the widespread experiences you have acquired
The more you experience, the more you learn… and the more you learn, the more you know! By expanding your own scope of sport and fitness, you will be able to relate to a greater number of people throughout your career.
As a practitioner, your future patients may come from a range of sporting backgrounds and the best way to tailor your treatment is to know more about their sport and the demands it places on the body.
Never tried CrossFit before? Try out a CrossFit workout. Not only will you gain a greater understanding of what it entails, but you will also get a great workout along the way!
3. It is a great way to see your course content in action and enrich your understanding
Throughout your sport and exercise degree, you will learn about an extensive range of concepts around movement and training. With this, each concept will vary with what areas of sport/exercise it best applies to.
By expanding your sporting and fitness experience, you will get to see how concepts arise in different contexts – thereby improving your understanding of course content overall. So, whether you are Team Anaerobic or Team Aerobic when it comes to fitness, have a go at something from the opposite discipline.
Swap your morning run for a morning resistance training session or vice versa – at the end of the day it’s all about increasing the scope of your learning as wide and far as you can!