Passion and Addiction in Sports and Exercise

Attila Szabo, Zsolt Demetrovics

• Verlag: Routledge
• Jahr: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000595468
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Psychology
• Thema: Sports Psychology

Passion and Addiction in Sports and Exercise is about the bright and dark aspects of sports and exercise behavior and revolves around two closely related yet distinct concepts. Passion is a joyful and healthy reflection of one's enjoyment and dedication to an adopted sport or exercise. At the same time, exercise addiction is an obligatory and must-be-done training regimen. This book is the first to attempt to explain the significant differences between passion and addiction in sports and exercise, as well as the relationship between the two.

This book presents an overview of three dimensions of passion and offers a new frame to contextualize exercise addition. The work also addresses the misinterpretation of certain aspects of training (e.g., intensity, frequency, and commitment) often related to the risk of exercise addiction. After introducing the health benefits of exercise, the book looks at the passion for sports and exercise training and the transition into maladaptive practice. Then it presents definitions and theoretical models for exercise addiction. It then examines exercise addiction cases while also illustrating how excessive or high exercise volumes could be beneficial instead of problematic. The last chapter offers a new approach for a better understanding of exercise addiction.

Passion and Addiction in Sports and Exercise is helpful for students, researchers, and clinicians interested in sport and exercise psychology, athletic training, behavioral addictions, and physical education. As well as being valuable reading for all regular exercisers and physically active individuals, including athletes competing at various levels in different sport disciplines.

1 Sports and exercise for healthy living

DOI: 10.4324/9781003173595-1

1.1 The need for physical activity today

The information age has changed the human way of life and fostered a significant decrease in work-related physical activity. Consequently, the evolutionary adaptation unfolding over millions of years to prepare the ancestors for a physically active lifestyle such as hunting, fishing, fighting, escaping predators, or building a shelter has suddenly been challenged by the fast-evolving information technology-driven transformations in people’s lifestyles. These changes render contemporary living increasingly sedentary (Freese et al., 2018). A sedentary lifestyle characterized by prolonged sitting and physical inactivity is associated with many health risks (Blair, 2007). For example, low levels of physical activity were associated with increased incidence of all-cause mortality, various forms of cancer, type 2 diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, hypertension, immune deficiency, metabolic syndrome, neurological disorders, osteoporosis, obesity, oxidative stress, and sarcopenia (Knight, 2012).

Sitting, associated with most modern occupations, is the most hazardous component of physical inactivity. There is substantial evidence for the ill effect of prolonged sitting. For example, long hours of sitting could trigger premature aging and chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, substantial weight gain, cardiovascular disease, blood clots, cell death, inflammation, osteoporosis, and many other ailments (Lurati et al., 2017). Moreover, even increased leisure-time physical activity cannot compensate for the ill effects of prolonged sitting (Patel et al., 2010). Indeed, a large Canadian study showed that there appears to be a dose–response relationship between the length of sitting and all-cause mortality as well as cardiovascular disease, which is independent of the leisure-time physical activity (Katzmarzyk et al., 2009). The authors of the study have suggested that ‘in addition to the promotion of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and a healthy weight, physicians should discourage sitting for extended periods’ (p. 998). Therefore, both sitting and physical inactivity may independently contribute to morbidity and mortality.

Figure 1.1 The ill effects of prolonged sitting and sedentary lifestyle on health and their behavioral means of prevention.

Shorter bouts of daily exercise episodes can counteract the ill effects of extended sitting. Sitting episodes should be interrupted by frequent brief pauses involving movement that raises the heart rate and favors blood circulation. Preset reminders from smart device applications could be helpful. The well-planned active pauses could buffer some ill effects of the sedentary lifestyle. Additionally, regular physical activity – planned exercise or sporting activity – should be incorporated into people’s daily lives (Bushman & American College of Sports Medicine, 2017). Figure 1.1 illustrates this general principle.

1.2 The role of regular physical activity in health

Scholars agree that in addition to physical work, household activities, and active commuting, only regularly planned sports and exercise could compensate for the lost physical activity that was part of the earlier survival activities (Péronnet & Szabo, 1993). This scholastic point penetrates the mass media too (Berry et al. 2020). Consequently, most people realize and agree with the need to incorporate sports and exercise into their lifestyle. However, still, a large proportion of the world’s population is not sufficiently active (Guthold et al., 2018).

Physical activity is conceptualized as all forms of movement which require energy expenditure to sustain work performed by the skeletal muscles. Primary examples are sports and exercise (Caspersen et al., 1985). While all movements are physical activities based on this definition, they may be categorized as planned and unplanned forms that serve different goals. Unplanned but necessary-for-living movements such as buying groceries, washing dishes, climbing the stairs, shoveling snow, or merely walking to work all help in mundane survival activities. Yet sports and exercise are planned physical activities aimed at benefiting people’s health while mastering physical skills. These movements have a relatively stable pattern and volume, characterized by frequency, duration, and intensity. In addition to purposeful and planned skill practices, sports also involve ‘rules’ and ‘contest,’ making them more mastery-oriented compared to freely planned or self-organized forms of exercise, which are most often health-oriented (de la Vega et al., 2020; Szabo et al., 2019).

Research confirms that regular physical activity has numerous health benefits (Malm et al., 2019; Reiner et al., 2013). A literature review, including studies only with moderate and strong evidence (Powell et al., 2019), showed that regular physical activity in adults is related to lower risk of various cancers, lower risk of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality, reduced risk of weight gain, better cognitive function, improved quality of life, and improved sleep. Other studies connected habitual exercise with ameliorated cellular glucose upt...