What are the special sports?

At present, the core of specialized sports generally recognized in the domestic sports field are sports with independent training systems, mature official competition rules, and exclusive skill logic, covering hundreds of subdivisions in track and field, ball games, water sports, fighting, ice and snow, competitive sports, automobiles, etc. The familiar football, basketball, badminton, sprinting, swimming, boxing, figure skating, freestyle skiing, and rowing are all very mature special sports.

I used to work as a team medical assistant at a provincial team youth training camp for two years. When I first went there, the most confusing thing was that the athletes who competed in the 100-meter hurdles and those who competed in the 5,000-meter long-distance running were on the same track and field team. Even the catering standards in the cafeteria were different. Only later did I understand that even if they belong to the same category, each subdivision is completely independent and special, and the training logic is completely different. The daily core training required for short span training is explosive power, and the weight requirements for bench press and deep squat are higher than those of athletes in many combat sports. The daily aerobic endurance training for long distance running athletes, and the carbohydrate ratio of daily meals is 20% higher than that of short span athletes. It is really like a mountain apart.

However, there is still no completely unified standard in the industry regarding the demarcation of the boundaries of special sports. In recent years, the "special qualifications" of many emerging sports have been controversial. For example, Frisbee, which exploded in popularity in the past two years, now has national formal events and unified competition rules. Many colleges and universities have also opened special elective courses for Frisbee. Many practitioners believe that it has fully met the standards of a special sport. However, many researchers in the field of traditional competitive sports feel that its competitive system and skill barriers are not perfect enough. For the time being, it can only be classified as a leisure sport, and it does not meet the threshold of a special sport.

Many parents around me who send their children to practice sports have also stepped into related pitfalls. Previously, a friend was deceived by a training institution into signing up for the so-called "children's physical fitness special class". He spent tens of thousands of dollars and said that he would be able to join a professional team and take the competitive route. In fact, it was just a play on the concept - physical fitness is all professional classes. The basic ability of a sport itself is not considered a specialty at all. If they really want to take the professional competitive route, children usually have to finalize a specific specialty and start systematic training around the age of 12. If they keep practicing general physical fitness, they will simply not be able to keep up with the specialized training rhythm of professional teams when they get older.

Speaking of choosing a major, it's a bit like choosing a sub-major in college. It seems that the general direction is sports, but the content is completely inconsistent. If you ask athletes who practice rhythmic gymnastics to practice weightlifting, it is really the same as studying Chinese language and literature to take the computer level 2 exam. You will not know the way.