Sports
"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!" These were the famous words said by Muhammad Ali after his first title fight against Sonny Liston ( Rummel 57 ). Muhammad Ali was one of the greatest boxers known today. Although Ali was a great boxer, he had to overcome many obstacles to get to where he wanted to be, like segregation, racism, the selective service, and being a Muslim. Cassius clay was born on January 17, 1942 in a working class family in Louisville, Kentucky. His father, Cassius Clay Sr worked as a sign painter and his mother, Odessa Clay was a house cleaner ( Tessitore 62 ). The black workers were never paid very much, but his father always kept food on the table. The extended Clay family was a big one, and at family gatherings Cassius was the beautiful child, always laughing, making jokes, demanding, and winning everyone's attention ( Remnick 34 ). " He always was a talker," Odessa Clay said. " He tried to talk so hard when he was a baby. He would talk so fast like lightning." As a child Cassius grew up where segregation was a big and important issue ( Remnick 45). Everywhere he went he saw bus drivers, drugstore men, and grocery store cashiers were al white, and he was confused of this. He would often ask his mother why there were so many white people running the businesses, and not any blacks. On an afternoon in 1954, when Cassius was only twelve, Cassius had been riding his bicycle, which had been given to him by his father for Christmas ( Rummel 37 ). Cassius stopped at the Columbine auditorium, there had been a show going on and he went in to watch. When he went to leave he noticed that...
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added: 12/27/2011
It is amazing what athletes will do to achieve higher levels of performance and to sometimes get the extra edge on the competition. Most of the time people do not realize the long-term effects that result from the decisions they make early in life. This resembles the use of steroids in a person's life. Steroids became an option to athletes in the Olympics and other major sporting events during the 1950's. But this use of steroids among athletes only became widely apparent when Canadian sprint runner Ben Johnson tested positive for steroid use after winning the gold medal for the one hundred-meter dash during the 1988 Olympics (Francis, 45). Now a skinny fifteen-year-old can just walk down to the local gym and find people who either sell or know how to get in contact with those who sell the drug that will make him envious of his friends. Steroids are an attractive drug. While steroids seem harmless to the unaware user, they can have a risky effect. Most of the time whether the users are new or experienced, they do not know the dangerous consequences steroids can have on their bodies and their minds. Though steroids cause a relatively insignificant number of deaths in our society, the banning of steroids is justified because steroids have a lot of side effects not known to the uninformed user. Even though steroids are known as a somewhat dangerous substance, they are legal to have and to consume. There are those who have pointed out several cases where someone has died and an autopsy showed that the person was using steroids, but some professionals claim this does not mean that it is a deadly drug (97). Some advocates of steroids believe that steroids should be kept legal, because it is the decision of the...
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added: 11/12/2011
The principles of physical therapy have been around since the dawn of man. When people think of physical therapy they think of someone who is trying to relearn how to walk after a debilitating car accident or some circumstance like that. When in reality the act of physical therapy can be as little as rubbing a bruise or scratching an insect bite. Physical Therapy is as the American Physical Therapists Association defines a form of Health care that prevents, identifies, and alleviates acute or prolonged movement dysfunction of anatomic or physiologic origin. In the past Physical Therapists helped war victims overcome pains of injuries sustained in war. They would move the limbs in certain patterns to get the muscles used to doing it. Physical therapy was officially introduced into the U.S. by the Surgeon Generals office in 1917.Way before that though Peter Hanley ling developed the First scientific basis for therapeutic massage. In the times of Homer hydrotherapy was used. Now physical therapy is used for all kinds of things like helping young children overcome crippling birth defects, help stroke victims restore movement in their limbs or it can help post operative patients to a speedy recovery. But most importantly in can help prevent those things. It teaches techniques to relieve pain and avoid it. Some other fields you may find Physical therapists include: Neurology: it is the science of the nerves of the nervous system Sports medicine: a field of medicine concerned with the functioning of the human body during physical activity and with the prevention and treatment of athletic injuries. Orthopedics: the medical specialty concerned with correction of deformities or functional impairments of the skeletal system, especially the extremities and the spine, and associated structures, as muscles and ligaments. Pediatrics: the branch of medicine concerned with the development,...
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added: 01/15/2012
Swimming is the act of moving through water by using the arms and legs. There is no way of telling how long the sport has been around. Pictures and drawings show men swimming in a dog stroke. The first known race happened in the year 1844 in London, England and was established by the England's Swimming Society. In this race, American Indians won using windmill strokes. The sport of swimming was introduced in 1896 in Athens, Greece. It was later split into the following events: the backstroke (in 1900), the breaststroke (in 1908) and the butterfly (in 1956). There was also a time when people were afraid of swimming because they thought the bubonic plague and other diseases were spread by water. Swim meets are held in long-course and short-course pools. The long course measures 164 feet, and the short course is 75 feet long; both have 6-10 lanes. In races, 8 lanes must be used. Wall targets, lane lines and lane markers are used as a guide to swimmers. There are five kinds of races-freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, butterfly, and individual medley. In freestyle races, swimmers can choose any of the four main strokes (the front crawl, the backstroke, the breaststroke, or the butterfly. Swimmers usually choose the front crawl swimming stroke because it is the fastest and most efficient. In traditional swim meets, swimmers must compete just for qualifying times. Then they may enter larger events. Large meets have many officials, or judges. The chief official is the referee. The referee supervises the other officials and makes sure that all rules are followed. Once feared and now an Olympic sport, swimming grows more popular as decades go on....
pages: 2 (words: 279)
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added: 11/26/2011
In the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, sprints and jumps were on stage. United States sprint dominance was as evidenced by world records and medal counts. Bob Beamon (US) long jumped past 28 and 29 feet. Dick Fosbury (US) also gathered attention for his medal performance. He took off in the high jump with his back to the bar and landed on his back. Although others claim to have been using this style as far back as the early 60's, his name is forever linked with the Fosbury Flop. Next we will breakdown the key elements in the high jump and put together training plans for a couple different weeks. The high jump has an Approach that contains a transition from linear to a curve. It has a Takeoff that is similar to the long jump, employing a penultimate and takeoff step. Lastly, it has Bar Clearance and Landing in the pit. Let's begin by taking a closer look at the Approach. THE APPROACH To keep the approach simple we will discuss it as having 5 steps on the straight and 5 on the curve including the penultimate and takeoff steps. Most athletes will take their first step with the same leg they takeoff with. The drive phase will be two steps. Athletes should be moving into an upright running posture by the third step. The athlete will continue to accelerate in a straight line until they reach the fifth step. Watch for deviations to the outside, which slow the athlete down. Athletes will also tend to slow down as they approach the transition to the turn. The athlete should have two measurements for their approach, one parallel to the pit (between 8'-14' depending on speed) from the inside standard and another directly back on the apron from that point. The...
pages: 6 (words: 1647)
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added: 01/18/2012
Judo is different things to different people. Simply translated, Judo means "the gentle way". To most people, that's all it means. To some, they know it simply as an Austin Powers' lethal maneuver, but to many others around the world, it means so much more. It is a fun sport, an art, a discipline, a recreational or social activity, a fitness program, a means of self-defense or combat, and a way of life. There's an ancient history behind Judo and many misunderstood beliefs about the art, some of which will be addressed. Jujitsu is the source of modern Judo. Medieval Japanese Warriors practiced many forms of unarmed combat, some of which were grouped under the general name "Jujitsu " for "the gentle practice." The object of all these martial arts forms was to avoid an enemy's superior strength and to use that strength to his disadvantage. Since Jujitsu was strictly a combat technique, contests were rare and were decided only by the death or crippling of one of the contestants. When Japanese society began to change structurally in the 1860's, feudal lords no longer had their private armies; the martial arts, including Jujitsu, began to die out. In the early 1880's, Professor Jigoro Kano, a teacher from Tokyo and an expert in many types of Jujitsu, decided to save some of this ancient knowledge. He modified or eliminated the most dangerous of the Jujitsu techniques and created a new discipline, which he called "Judo" or "the gentle way." Judo is "the gentle way" because the end result is the accomplishment of a goal with maximum efficiency and minimum effort. As an art, Judo enables its practitioners to gain self-respect, self-confidence, and self-expression; as a science, it involves a mastery of such basic natural laws as gravity, friction, momentum, weight transmission,...
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added: 08/25/2011
VIOLENCE IN SPORTS "…Steeler running back Rocky Bleier, whose war time experiences, not so oddly, offer some insights. To Bleier, there are interesting parallels between survival in war and survival in the NFL. 'The experiences with war injuries and football injuries are quite the same,' he said." (Casay) The injuries that are accumulated during sports are rapidly increasing to the point that there are injured players on every team in each game that is played. This is especially true in the most physical professional sports, i.e., NFL and the NHL. Most of these injuries are directly related to the increasing violent nature of pro athletes. "`The cost of the aggression -- the punishment -- has to be greater than the benefits,' said Dr. Brenda Bredemeier, sports psychology consultant at the University of California-Berkley. The latest outbreak of violence occurred in Bredemeier's back yard, Oakland, where (Latrell) Sprewell attacked Coach P.J. Carlesimo during practice and, according to published reports, threatened to kill him if he wasn't traded."(Detroit Press) Pro athletes are committing criminal acts and the law for the most part is letting them get away with crimes. Another case of violence by a pro athlete happened recently. Ray Lewis was initially charged with murder along with two of his friends for an altercation that happened in Atlanta after the Superbowl on January 31, 2000. The three men got into a fight with two other men and killed them. "Lewis pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and Superior Court Judge Alice D. Bonner sentenced Lewis to 12 months' probation, the maximum sentence for a first-time offender."(CNNSI) This case made me think to myself, "Would a man facing murder charges with two of his friends be able to walk a free man with no jail time at all and still be accepted...
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added: 04/06/2012