Most families are usually unaware of the exceedingly great benefits of playing baseball. While this may mostly be because of ignorance, most people presume that baseball is not the active sport. However, this is not true as playing baseball engages most of the muscles in the upper and lower body. As such, playing the sport contributes greatly to living a healthy lifestyle. Here are some of the top health and fitness benefits of playing baseball:
Burning fat
Playing baseball involves a lot of activities from swinging, catching, running, and walking across the pitch. Each of these exercises increases the rate of metabolism in the body thereby prompting the body to burn fat to supplement the high energy requirement necessitated by the increase in metabolism. According to research studies, baseball players can burn up to 365 calories every hour while playing the sport. This goes a long way in enabling you to develop a lean body and curb obesity.
Kills stress
Stress usually comes about due to excessive thinking and concentration on things that are troubling you. When you get into a baseball pitch, you develop a new mental focus and concentrate on enjoying the sport. This refreshes the mind and drifts the mind away from the things that are stressing you. Consequently, playing the sport helps the mind to avoid everyday distractions thus making great progress towards killing the stress. Additionally, when playing baseball, you can also find potential solutions to your problems through the creative and critical thinking involved in the sport.
Teach your kids
It is every parent’s responsibility to teach valuable life skills to their children. Playing baseball is one of the greatest lessons you can teach your child. This is because in addition to enabling the kids to live a healthy lifestyle, baseball also instills crucial life skills in players. For instance, teaching baseball to your kids will help them understand the concept of teamwork and working together for a common goal. The sport also teaches players on handling failure and winning in a healthy and focused manner.
Family time
Spending time together as a family playing baseball helps consolidate bonds and brings about better communication and understanding. While your family may not be big enough to field an entire team, even just grabbing some baseball gloves and playing a game of catch can give families a golden opportunity to spend time together and have great fun. Since baseball is a sport for everyone, it can even be played by kids who are as young as 5 years old. All you need to do is ensure that the kids put on the right safety gear to prevent injuries and accidents.
Cardiovascular training
Cardio exercises are very important in the body as they strengthen heart muscles and improve the capacity of the lungs. These exercises include running around the pitch and swinging to hit the ball. For batters running across the bases and outfielders pacing the pitch to catch fly balls, these exercises result in great cardiovascular training. These exercises are very important for kids and adults alike as they make it easy to promote healthy living and a well functioning cardiovascular cavity.
Strong legs and arms
Baseball involves nearly all the major muscles in the arms and legs. From moving laterally to squatting down and throwing, the sport engages your hamstrings, calf muscles, quadriceps, and glutes among other muscles. Running helps in toning and building your leg muscles thus making it possible to have strong legs. On the other hand, swinging the bat and throwing the ball go a long way in building arm muscles. Additionally, these exercises also improve joint flexibility thereby making it easy for you move the arms swiftly while playing.
Increased mental activity and sharpening the mind
For you to be a pro in baseball, you need to make great decisions within split seconds. This promptness in engaging the mind results in increased mental activity. This in turn leads to mind sharpening thereby making it possible for the players to make quick life-saving skills in real life. Consequently, it also helps learners to understand their studies better and have the better memory. Additionally, engaging the mind while playing also helps in keeping the mind alert thereby preventing any likelihood of being caught off guard particularly when in the pitch.
Playing baseball for the family is not only a way of having fun and enjoyment but is also an avenue of learning important skills to use in life. Not to mention, playing the sport a great way of maintaining a healthy and fit body. In addition to this, playing the sport exposes you to sunlight since it is an outdoor sport. This in turn supplements vitamin D in the body. Read http://www.baseballeagle.com for more reliable information and ideas on how playing baseball can benefit your life wholly and as a family.