Abigail Susec

English 1201
Professor Loudermilk
18 November 2020
Literature Review

Sports are a huge part of the lives of students and young people and are always portrayed as

having positive effects on participants’ lives for years to come. How true is this claim? Some studies,

such as those done by Zhao and Choi, prove positive results from years of sports. According to their

studies, athletes physically showed improvements in muscle tone, immune health, and overall physical

fitness throughout the rest of their lives. Mentally, athletes benefitted long term from their close

relationships with coaches and teammates. On the negative side, Engle, Fort- Vanmeerhaeghe, and

Sunset Sports discuss long term injury, growth restraints, and a hyper-competitiveness that persists

in athletes long after their athlete career. These ideas of mental and physical impacts, both positive

and negative, appear again and again throughout these articles.

At its core, participating in a sport is an intense physical activity. This is bound to have a

long-term effect on the bodies of athletes. In Kewei Zhao’s two-year study of elite athletes in china,

he concludes that athletes experience many physical changes, such as a marked increase in hand-

eye coordination and decrease in resting heart rate, that persist past their athletic participation. This

study was completed in order to study the difference that different sports have on physical

characteristics, both groups of participants showed the same results but one to a more marked

degree. While Zhao saw these results as positive impacts on athletes, Azahara Fort-

Vanmeerharghe’s study concluded that intense training only led to unavoidable imbalances between

limb strength that can lead to further injuries in the future. Fort-Vanmeerharghe’s study was carried

out in response to complaints from ex-athletes. The study had negative connotations from the

beginning, which undoubtedly affected the results.

While sports are physical activities, living in that sort of high stress environment will

undoubtedly have an effect on the psyche of athletes at such a pivotal point in their mental

development. Hunhyuk Choi’s study on the athlete-coach relationship claims that the closeness that
Abigail Susec
English 1201
Professor Loudermilk
18 November 2020
athletes share with the strong authority figure of a coach helps them with intrapersonal skills. They

wrote this article to assess if athletes became dependent on the validation of a coach. While this

became a factor of their motivation, it only served to increase their performance and motivation and

did not seem to negatively affect them. Engel’s article on the competitiveness of youth sports

claimed otherwise. His article claims that the increased pressure put on these athletes by coaches

caused them to become hyper-competitive in future endeavors such as future jobs. Much of his

claims were based off his own experiences in sports, and while these add credibility to his claims, it

also makes them biased to his own experiences.

Sports can occasionally lead to injury, and some argue that that risk is to high. In Sunset

Sports’ article, they interview Stanley Doughty, a former collegiate athlete, who injured himself and

then lost all athletic prospects and his chance at a degree. This is a risk all athletes are aware of.

Sunset Sports’ article claims that these injuries have a high chance of completely altering athletes

lives years into the future, and while this is true, the number of athletes who experience these

injuries is small compared to the number of athletes who compete in sports every day. This article is

from a pro-sports publication, and is contributed to by major athletes with years of experience. Fort-

Vanmeerharghe’s study concluded that the imbalance created by sports in competitor’s muscles

opened them up for injuries in the future. This is a negative impact of sports, imbalances are

unavoidable no matter how conscientious you are in your training and one limb constantly having to

pick up the slack from the other will lead to injuries. But those injuries are rarely more than an

inconvenience and not life changing.

When people discuss the long-term effects of sports, it is usually in a positive way in terms of

time management. This is not truly measurable. The most measurable impacts of sports are physical

tells, such as heart rate, size, and other physical fitness indicators. Fitness wise, sports seem to

always have overwhelmingly positive impacts, the more aerobic the sport the better. But with more

aerobic activity comes increased chance of injury. Injury can happen at any point in an athlete’s
Abigail Susec
English 1201
Professor Loudermilk
18 November 2020
career, either during competition or later in life as a result of high activity levels. A common

misconception is that all impacts of sports are positive, but these studies have shown otherwise.

Sports can have a negative effect long term on the stability of athlete’s bodies based off of the

athlete in question.

Although sports can increase mental independence and development in athletes, along with

physical fitness and sport related skills and specialties, it can also cause injuries and metal ruts that

can affect athletes throughout the rest of their lives. This all depends on the athlete and how

involved in the sports and the processes involved. A healthy coach athlete relationship can help

disparage the negative results, but athlete’s sport participation will follow them for the rest of their life

no matter what.
 Abigail Susec
English 1201
Professor Loudermilk
18 November 2020

Works Cited

Choi, Hunhyuk, et al. "The association between the perceived coach-athlete relationship and athletes' basic

psychological needs." Social Behavior and Personality: An International Journal, vol. 41, no. 9, 2013,

p. 1547+. Gale In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A352491008/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=127ae6d7. Accessed 13 Nov. 2020.

Engle, Jeremy. "Are Youth Sports Too Competitive?". The New York Times, 2020,

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/learning/are-youth-sports-too-competitive.html. Accessed 13

Nov 2020.

Fort-Vanmeerhaeghe, Azahara, et al. "Inter-limb asymmetries are associated with decrements in physical

performance in youth elite team sports athletes." PLoS ONE, vol. 15, no. 3, 2020, p. e0229440. Gale

In Context: Opposing Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A616129527/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=13a39cbf. Accessed 13 Nov. 2020.

 Abigail Susec
English 1201
Professor Loudermilk
18 November 2020
“The Long Term Effects of College Athletics – Sunset Sports." 05 Nov. 2020,

http://sunsetsportsworldwide.com/posts/the-real-price-of-student-athletics/joey-and-charles-look-into-

some-of-the-negative-lasting-effects-college-sports-can-have/. Accessed 13 Nov. 2020

Zhao, Kewei, et al. "A 2-year longitudinal follow-up of performance characteristics in Chinese male elite

youth athletes from swimming and racket sports." PLoS ONE, vol. 15, no. 10, 2020, p.

e0239155. Gale In Context: Opposing

Viewpoints, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A638185326/OVIC?

u=dayt30401&sid=OVIC&xid=0d38da6d. Accessed 13 Nov. 2020.