Lecture
Sport – is a component part of physical culture - a set
of physical exercises for developing and strengthening the
body, competitions in such exercises and sets, as well as the
system for organizing and holding these competitions. An
athlete is a person who engages in some sport systematically
or professionally and possesses high achievements in it [18].
45 Sport differs from physical culture in that it necessarily
includes a mandatory competitive component. An athlete and a
person practicing physical culture may, in their activities
and training, use the same means (physical exercises), for
example, running. Modern sport is divided into mass sport and
elite sport. Mass sport is the part of sport aimed at the
physical education and harmonious physical development of a
person through organized and/or independent activities, as
well as participation in physical-culture, sporting and mass
events. The purpose of engaging in various types of mass sport
is to strengthen health, improve physical condition, and
increase physical fitness. It is precisely mass sport that is
most widespread in student communities. Usually, at the
country's universities, from 10 to 25% of students engage in
regular training in their free time. Elite sport, or big-time
(Olympic) sport, involves systematic, planned, long-term
preparation and participation in competitions in a chosen
sport with the aim of achieving the highest possible results
and victories at the largest sporting competitions. Any top
achievement of an athlete has not only personal significance
– it becomes a national asset, since records and
victories at the largest competitions contribute to
strengthening the country's authority on the international
stage. It is precisely the many-sidedness of modern sport that
has made it necessary to introduce these additional concepts,
which reveal the essence of its individual directions and
their fundamental differences. The peculiarities of academic
work and everyday life, age, and the conditions and
opportunities for systematic engagement in physical culture
make it possible to single out such a category as student
sport. Student sport represents a generalized category of
student activity aimed at 46 achieving the highest possible
results in the form of competitions and preparation for them
in a chosen sporting specialization. Student sport occupies
its own special place in the sporting movement of young
people. It certainly possesses all the social functions listed
above without exception, but it also has its own specific
tasks that must be taken into account. The curriculum for the
discipline «Physical Culture and Sport» provides
for the independent freedom to choose types of sport after
theoretical-methodological and general physical training of
students in their first year, for systematic engagement in the
course of study at the university. Classes in the elective
course of physical education are mainly aimed at increasing
motor activity (from among those proposed by the department),
and therefore chess, checkers and the like are not included in
the working program; the free choice of a sports group places
certain obligations on the student. Sport in free time is
conducted independently and is an integral part of a student's
physical education. Students may take part in sports sections,
training groups for individual sports, including chess,
shooting, and technical sports. The initiators of organizing
such sectional classes and determining their sporting profile
are most often the students themselves. In the elective course
of the academic discipline «Physical Culture and
Sport», students may be offered for selection not only
individual sports, but also the most popular systems of
physical exercise, such as athletic gymnastics, rhythmic
gymnastics (aerobics), shaping, martial arts, and sets of
physical exercises from Eastern systems such as karate, wushu,
and yoga. Many years of experience show that many students do
not display clear and conscious motivation when choosing a
sport or some system of physical exercise for their further 47
self-improvement. A random choice most often leads to loss of
interest and reduced activity and effectiveness of such
classes. As a rule, students note five variants of motivation
for engaging in physical culture and sport: - strengthening
health, correcting physique deficiencies; - increasing the
body's functional capabilities; - psychophysical preparation
for future professional activity and the acquisition of
vitally necessary competencies; - active recreation; -
achieving the highest results in sport. Conventional
characteristics of the main groups of sports, which allow them
to be combined into systems of physical exercise (according to
the leading feature), are necessary for a student's
independent and individual choice of sporting or physical-
culture activity. At the initial stages of systematic physical
exercise, beginners, as a rule, show improvement in the
indicators of all physical qualities when using a
comprehensive training method, i.e. general physical training
(GPT). However, with the gradual increase in fitness at a high
level of preparedness, the development of one physical quality
reduces the development of another. To achieve significant
working capacity, which is based on the stability of the
central nervous system and a number of the body's functional
systems, the development of endurance is one of the effective
means. The physiological processes of this mechanism are
extremely complex and are ensured through diverse adaptive
shifts in the body. The sports that purposefully develop
general endurance include all cyclic sports (race walking,
running at medium, long and ultra-long distances, cycling, 48
cross-country skiing, swimming and many others), in which the
physical load lasts fairly long against the background of a
predominant increase in aerobic (oxygen) metabolism. With
regular engagement in cyclic sports, it is possible to
significantly increase chest excursion indicators and vital
lung capacity, reduce the fat component of body composition,
increase overall working capacity, strengthen the
cardiovascular and respiratory systems, and resist fatigue.
Sessions conducted at low intensity (at a pulse of up to 130
beats/min) for a long time are an excellent means of restoring
working capacity and active recreation. In individual
manifestations of strength qualities (absolute strength,
relative strength, strength endurance and speed-strength
qualities), certain sports stand out. In weightlifting,
exercises are performed with maximum muscular and mental
effort. For example, kettlebell sport requires prolonged
performance of a strength exercise and outstanding strength
endurance. The grip strength of non-athlete men averages 36-38
kg, and of women 20-22 kg. In qualified athletes, the average
grip strength indicators for men are at the level of 60-70 kg,
and for women 50-55 kg. In developing strength, the following
methods are used: maximal efforts, repeated efforts (or the
«to failure» method), dynamic efforts, and, as an
auxiliary method, the isometric (static) method, in which
muscle tension occurs without a change in their length. The
use of the isometric method allows maximal tension of various
muscle groups for a duration of 4-6 seconds. With the help of
such exercises it is possible to affect any muscle groups,
however they are less effective than the dynamic method.
Athletic gymnastics is a system of exercises with various
resistances for improving physique. Track-and-field throws,
jumps and shot put are associated with the development of
speed-strength qualities. Strength training is an inseparable
part of the training process, which includes a large volume of
exercises with a barbell and other 49 resistances. Speed
should not be confused with speed of movement. High demands on
reaction speed and the speed of cyclic and acyclic movements
are placed in certain disciplines of track and field, speed
skating, cycling, fencing, boxing, martial arts, and a number
of sports games, but each case has its own specifics. The
physical quality of speed has no significant importance in
strengthening health or correcting physique, but its
development is a necessary element in preparing
representatives of a whole range of sports disciplines.
Agility and good coordination of movements aid in learning
professional skills and abilities. Exercises should be varied
and novel while remaining accessible, which creates a reserve
of complex coordination motor abilities. This is aided by
exercises from sports acrobatics, diving, trampolining, figure
skating, slalom, sports games and other sports. The base of
complex-coordination movements is formed in childhood and
requires many years of regular training. The group of martial
arts includes boxing and all types of wrestling, including
national and Eastern styles, which are characterized by
contact physical and psychological confrontation between
opponents in a bout. In the training process, special and
general endurance, strength, speed and sensory-psychic
qualities are developed and improved. Playing sports games
contributes to the harmonious development of all the main
physical qualities and addresses health-improvement tasks.
All-around events form a group of sports distinguished by a
broad range that shapes psychophysical qualities and motor
skills and abilities in comparison with other sports. This
group includes track-and-field all-around events, the modern
pentathlon, all-around events from national sports, and the
triathlon. Such a many-sided and sequential effect on all the
body's systems leads to overall fatigue. Under 50 conditions
of many hours of mounting fatigue, sporting activity can be
continued only through moral and volitional qualities.
Questions for self-check: 1. Give definitions of the concepts
«mass sport» and «elite sport», and
characterize their goals and objectives. 2. Consider what
modern student sport represents. 3. What are the peculiarities
of organizing and planning sports training at a university? 4.
Describe the system of student sports competitions. 5.
Consider which systems of physical exercise are especially popular among young people, and why?
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