Athletics is a term encompassing the human
competitive
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
sports
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, th ...
and
game
A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...
s requiring physical skill, and the systems of training that prepare
athletes
An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance.
Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-develo ...
for competition performance. Athletic sports or contests are competitions which are primarily based on human physical competition, demanding the qualities of
stamina,
fitness, and
skill
A skill is the learned ability to act with determined results with good execution often within a given amount of time, energy, or both. Skills can often be divided into domain-general and domain-specific skills. For example, in the domain of wo ...
. Athletic sports form the bulk of popular sporting activities, with other major forms including
motorsports
Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of two ...
,
precision sports
Precision, precise or precisely may refer to:
Science, and technology, and mathematics Mathematics and computing (general)
* Accuracy and precision, measurement deviation from true value and its scatter
* Significant figures, the number of digit ...
,
extreme sports
Action sports, adventure sports or extreme sports are activities perceived as involving a high degree of risk. These activities often involve speed, height, a high level of physical exertion and highly specialized gear. Extreme tourism overl ...
and
animal sports
Animals in sport are a specific form of working animals. Many animals, at least in more commercial sports, are highly trained. Two of the most common animals in sport are horses and dogs.
Types of animal sporting events
There are many types o ...
.
Athletic contests, as one of the earliest types of sport, are prehistoric and comprised a significant part of the
Ancient Olympic Games
The ancient Olympic Games (Ὀλυμπιακοὶ ἀγῶνες; la, Olympia, neuter plural: "the Olympics") were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of city-states and were one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. ...
, along with
equestrian events. The word "athletic" is derived from the grc, άθλος (athlos) meaning "contest." Athletic sports became organized in the late 19th century with the formation of organizations such as the
Amateur Athletic Union
The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It has ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
and the
Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques
The Union of French Athletic Sports Societies (french: Union des sociétés françaises de sports athlétiques (USFSA)) was a former sports governing body in France. During the 1890s and early 1900s it organised numerous sports including athleti ...
in
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. The
Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the United States
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges and ...
(later the
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
) was established in 1906 to oversee athletic sports at
college
A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offering ...
-level in the United States, known as
college athletics
College athletics encompasses non-professional, collegiate and university-level competitive sports and games.
World University Games
The first World University Games were held in 1923. There were originally called the ''Union Nationale des ...
.
Athletics has gained significant importance at educational institutions; talented athletes may gain entry into
higher education
Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...
through
athletic scholarship
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university or a private high school awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport. Athletic scholarships are common in the United Stat ...
s and represent their institutions in
athletic conference
An athletic conference is a collection of sports teams, playing competitively against each other in a sports league. In many cases conferences are subdivided into smaller divisions, with the best teams competing at successively higher levels. Confe ...
s. Since the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, people in the developed world have adopted an increasingly
sedentary lifestyle
Sedentary lifestyle is a lifestyle type, in which one is physically inactive and does little or no physical movement and or exercise. A person living a sedentary lifestyle is often sitting or lying down while engaged in an activity like socia ...
. As a result, athletics now plays a significant part in providing routine
physical exercise
Exercise is a body activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health and wellness.
It is performed for various reasons, to aid growth and improve strength, develop muscles and the cardiovascular system, hone athletic ...
.
Athletic clubs worldwide offer athletic training facilities for multitudes of sports and
game
A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...
s.
Etymology
The word athletics is derived from the Greek word "athlos" (ἄθλος), meaning "contest" or "task". The
Ancient Olympic Games
The ancient Olympic Games (Ὀλυμπιακοὶ ἀγῶνες; la, Olympia, neuter plural: "the Olympics") were a series of athletic competitions among representatives of city-states and were one of the Panhellenic Games of Ancient Greece. ...
were born of war and featured various forms of athletics such as
running
Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This is ...
,
jumping
Jumping or leaping is a form of locomotion or movement in which an organism or non-living (e.g., robotic) mechanical system propels itself through the air along a ballistic trajectory. Jumping can be distinguished from running, galloping and o ...
,
boxing
Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...
and
wrestling
Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...
competitions.
In the modern
English language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
the term athletics has taken on two distinct meanings. Its meaning in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
broadly denotes human physical sports and their respective systems of training, the sense described in this article. The other, narrower principal meaning of the word comes from
British English
British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...
and variants within the
British Commonwealth
The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...
; this meaning of athletics refers solely to the concept of the
sport of athletics
Athletics is a group of sporting events that involves competitive running, jumping, throwing sports, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and racewalking ...
(a category of sporting competition that comprises
track and field
Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...
sports and various forms of
foot racing
Pedestrianism was a 19th-century form of competitive walking, often professional and funded by wagering, from which the modern sport of racewalking developed.
18th- and early 19th-century Britain
During the late eighteenth and nineteenth cen ...
), rather than physical sport in general.
Biological factors
Gender and
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...
play major roles in athletic
body types. Significantly fewer
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
leagues exist for women; however, women have been active in
martial arts
Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; a ...
for centuries, and sports like
figure skating
Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, pairs, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport to be included in the Olympic Games, when contested at the 1908 Olympics in London. The Olympic disciplines are me ...
and
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
tend to favor women in terms of spectator popularity.
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
,
high jump
The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat f ...
, and
volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...
favor taller athletes, while
gymnastics
Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shou ...
and
wrestling
Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat ...
favor shorter ones.
Long distance runners tend to be thinner, while competitive
powerlifters
Powerlifting is a strength sport that consists of three attempts at maximal weight on three lifts: Squat (exercise), squat, bench press, and deadlift. As in the sport of Olympic weightlifting, it involves the athlete attempting a maximal weight ...
and
American football
American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...
players tend to be stockier. Athletic development often begins with athletic parents.
Physical conditioning is a primary athletic function for competition. Most often, trainers utilize proven athletic principles to develop athletic qualities; these qualities include coordination, flexibility, precision, power, speed, endurance, balance, awareness efficiency, and timing.
While
physical strength
Physical strength is the measure of a human's exertion of force on physical objects. Increasing physical strength is the goal of strength training.
Overview
An individual's physical strength is determined by two factors: the cross-sectional are ...
is prized over most other qualities in Western athletics,
it is forbidden in the physical conditioning of
T'ai chi ch'uan
Tai chi (), short for Tai chi ch'üan ( zh, s=太极拳, t=太極拳, first=t, p=Tàijíquán, labels=no), sometimes called "shadowboxing", is an neijia, internal Chinese martial art practiced for defense training, health benefits and medita ...
.
Sports medicine
Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness and the treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise. Although most sports teams have employed team physicians for many years, it is only since the ...
not only treats injuries with
medical procedure
A medical procedure is a course of action intended to achieve a result in the delivery of healthcare.
A medical procedure with the intention of determining, measuring, or diagnosing a patient condition or parameter is also called a medical test. ...
, but attempts to prevent problems such as
trauma
Trauma most often refers to:
* Major trauma, in physical medicine, severe physical injury caused by an external source
* Psychological trauma, a type of damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a severely distressing event
*Traumatic i ...
and
overuse injuries
A repetitive strain injury (RSI) is an injury to part of the musculoskeletal or nervous system caused by repetitive use, vibrations, compression or long periods in a fixed position. Other common names include repetitive stress disorders, cumula ...
. Sports medicine can also include the use of
massage
Massage is the manipulation of the body's soft tissues. Massage techniques are commonly applied with hands, fingers, elbows, knees, forearms, feet or a device. The purpose of massage is generally for the treatment of body stress or pain. In Eu ...
,
glucose test
Many types of glucose tests exist and they can be used to estimate blood sugar levels at a given time or, over a longer period of time, to obtain average levels or to see how fast body is able to normalize changed glucose levels. Eating food for e ...
ing,
Rolfing
Rolfing () is a form of alternative medicine originally developed by Ida Rolf (1896–1979) as Structural Integration.
Rolfing is marketed with unproven claims of various health benefits. It is based on Rolf's ideas about how the human body's " ...
,
physical therapy
Physical therapy (PT), also known as physiotherapy, is one of the allied health professions. It is provided by physical therapists who promote, maintain, or restore health through physical examination, diagnosis, management, prognosis, patient ...
, and
performance-enhancing drugs
Performance-enhancing substances, also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans. A well-known example of cheating in sports involves doping in sport, where bann ...
like caffeine and
anabolic steroid
Anabolic steroids, also known more properly as anabolic–androgenic steroids (AAS), are steroidal androgens that include natural androgens like testosterone (medication), testosterone as well as synthetic androgens that are structurally related ...
s.
Sports nutrition
Sports nutrition is the study and practice of nutrition and diet with regards to improving anyone's athletic performance. Nutrition is an important part of many sports training regimens, being popular in strength sports (such as weightlifting and ...
is the study and practice of nutrition and diet as they relate to athletic performance. It is concerned with the type and quantity of fluid and food taken by an athlete, and deals with nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, supplements and organic substances such as carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Although an important part of many sports training regimens, it is most intensely applied in strength sports (such as weight lifting and bodybuilding) and endurance sports (for example cycling, running, swimming).
Training and coaching
Athletes first learn basic movement patterns such as running, stopping, jumping and throwing. Coaches help athletes refine these movements into
sport specific skills. A skill such as high jumping can then be refined into a competitive technique like the Western roll or the
Fosbury Flop. An individual's expression of a technique is often called a style; while various competitive
swimming strokes are also called styles.
Team sports
A team sport includes any sport where individuals are organized into opposing teams which compete to win or cooperate to entertain their audience. Team members act together towards a shared objective. This can be done in a number of ways s ...
often develop and practice
plays
Play most commonly refers to:
* Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment
* Play (theatre), a work of drama
Play may refer also to:
Computers and technology
* Google Play, a digital content service
* Play Framework, a Java framework
* P ...
or
strategies
Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the " ar ...
where players carry out specific tasks to coordinate a team effort of attack or defense.
Technical training may also include teaching the
rules and restrictions of a sport or game.
Elite athletes and teams require high-level coaching. A
coach
Coach may refer to:
Guidance/instruction
* Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities
* Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process
** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers
Transportation
* Co ...
is often associated only with an athlete's technical development; however, a coach will likely play all the roles of mentor, physical trainer, therapist, medical responder, technical trainer and performance facilitator. Coaches may or may not involve
sportsmanship
Sportsmanship is an aspiration or ethos that a sport, or activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. This is with proper consideration for fairness, ethics, respect, and a sense of fellowship with one's competitors. A "sore loser" refers to on ...
in their program. Coaching typically signifies a quadrennial, ongoing mentorship for athletic development, as opposed to a clinician who might only assist for a short period of time.
Not only must coaches be able to teach technical form, but recognize and correct problems with a teams' or an athlete's technique and conditioning. This is done by listening, observing and building trust with the athlete. Recent advancements in video technology can provide accurate biomechanical data to optimize the form, precision, timing, efficiency and power of an athlete's movements.
Critical to a team's or an athlete's success is a
winning attitude. Inherent in the drive to win is the ability to remain relaxed and focused under the pressure of competition. Modern athletic coaches employ the use of
sports psychologists to help athletes organize themselves through visualization, relaxation techniques, self-talk, concentration, etc.
Amateurs and professionals
Title IX
Title IX is the most commonly used name for the federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part (Title IX) of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other educat ...
of the Education Amendments of 1972 was created to prohibit sex discrimination in education programs that receive (U.S.) federal funding. The original statute made no reference to athletics or athletics programs. From 1972 to 2006, Title IX underwent a series of amendments for gender equity which became high impact on high school and
collegiate athletics
College athletics encompasses non-professional, collegiate and university-level competitive sports and games.
World University Games
The first World University Games were held in 1923. There were originally called the ''Union Nationale des ...
because it promoted maximum female participation in athletics through equal spending.
Professional sports
In professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, participants receive payment for their performance. Professionalism in sport has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larg ...
are sports in which athletes receive
payment
A payment is the voluntary tender of money or its equivalent or of things of value by one party (such as a person or company) to another in exchange for goods, or services provided by them, or to fulfill a legal obligation. The party making the p ...
for their performance. Professional athletics is seen by some as a contradiction of the central ethos of the sport since the
competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indivi ...
is performed for its own sake and pure enjoyment rather than as a means of earning a living.
Organizations
*
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
*
National Collegiate Athletic Association
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
*
Amateur Athletic Union
The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It has ...
*
Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques
The Union of French Athletic Sports Societies (french: Union des sociétés françaises de sports athlétiques (USFSA)) was a former sports governing body in France. During the 1890s and early 1900s it organised numerous sports including athleti ...
*
World Athletics
World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body for ...
*
Chin Woo Athletic Association
Chin Woo Athletic Association (also Jing Wu Athletic Association) is an international martial arts organisation founded in Shanghai, China, on July 7, 1910, but some sources cite dates in 1909. Its name is also spelled in many other ways through ...
*
National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics
The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) established in 1940, is a college athletics association for colleges and universities in North America. Most colleges and universities in the NAIA offer athletic scholarships to its stu ...
*
Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women
The Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW) was founded in 1971 to govern collegiate women's athletics in the United States and to administer national championships (see AIAW Champions). It evolved out of the Commission on Interc ...
See also
*
Outline of sports
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to sports:
Sport – a physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively, sports can be played on land, in water and in ...
References
External links
*{{Cite EB1911 , wstitle=Athletic Sports , volume=2 , pages=846–849 , short=y
Athletic Scholarships
*
Sports terminology
Lifestyles
no:Sport