Why you should play sport as an adult 💫

It’s kind of a rite of passage to play sport as a kid if you grow up in Australia. It’s pretty standard practice to play netball or Auskick in Winter, and probably cricket, tennis or swimming in Summer. Saturday mornings in our house was chaos - kids climbing over each other to find netball skirts, hockey sticks, tennis racquets, or swimming goggles. Full transparency though, my favourite part of Saturday was the dim sim my dad would get me from the canteen to keep me distracted during my older sister’s netball game.

Me, aged 9, absolutely demolishing a dim sim at 10am on a Saturday

As seems to be the case with a lot of our childhood passions, our participation in sport tends to drop off as we grow into teens and then adults. Our focus shifts to other things - study, work, travel, relationships.

But why do we stop playing?

Parents get their kids into sport for many reasons, such as improved academics, socialisation and development of communication skills, stress relief and emotional regulation - plus it’s just a fun and engaging way to exercise. Sadly, as kids enter their teens the focus seems to shift to honing skills as an elite athlete. This emphasis on competition and winning often results in teens losing passion and becoming disengaged. After all, why would you want to spend hours a week training for a sport that’s not even fun anymore?

I’ve seen way too many “motivational” gifs like these

Those above reasons are still applicable to adults, you know. There are so many benefits to playing sport as an adult, but if you still need convincing, I’ve put them in some easily digestible bullet points for you:

⚡️The social connection and sense of belonging associated with being in a team. Plus, it automatically expands your social network (great film, if you can get past the Armie Hammer of it all).

⚡️Builds trust and dependancy on others - they do say teamwork makes the dream work 😉

⚡️Ongoing development of communication skills, which is always a good thing if you ask me

⚡️Losing a game is an exercise in resilience and self-awareness, and it can teach you to take constructive feedback, learning perspective

⚡️Your motivation to exercise is boosted by others in the team keeping you accountable. You wouldn’t let your teammates down, would you? Also joining a team for a designated 8 week season gives you a clear, achievable goal (we’re all across SMART goals, right?)

⚡️Confidence boosting when your skills improve - which they definitely will 😎

Basically, you get all the benefits of regular exercise with the added benefits of social interaction - lucky you!

Well? Have I convinced you yet? Find your dream team over on our explore page now 🎉

Still need a bit of convincing? Check out our sign up guide to get your head around the process, or see what some of our players have to say about joining Just Play 🙌