Sport Fun And Enjoyment

Sport, Fun and Enjoyment explores the pleasurable aspects of sport within the context of everyday recreational and competitive physical activities. While much recent work has focused on the relationships between physical activity, health and wellbeing, much less attention has been paid to pleasure and fun, key aspects of our engagement with sport but not so easy to measure in terms of specific outcomes. By offering a critical exploration of what can be constituted as ‘fun’ in a sporting context, this book reveals the complex ways in which individuals approach sport and engage with it throughout the life course. The book considers the importance of pleasure and fun as a factor in our initial, formative experiences of sport activity, and as a factor in participation and continued participation. It explores the nature of fun as an embodied experience which incorporates a multitude of social, psychological and physiological components, and as a subjective experience which cannot be fully explained through simplistic binary formulations of pleasure and pain. Drawing on a wide research literature and original empirical research with children and adults, the book outlines a new theoretical framework for thinking about pleasure and fun in sport, highlighting the contrasting ways in which sport and physical activity is experienced and the interplay between individual and social contexts. Sport, Fun and Enjoyment is important reading for anybody with an interest in physical education, youth sport, the sociology of sport, physical activity and health, sport development or sport policy.

Sport, Fun and Enjoyment explores the pleasurable aspects of sport within the context of everyday recreational and competitive physical activities. While much recent work has focused on the relationships between physical activity, health and wellbeing, much less attention has been paid to pleasure and fun, key aspects of our engagement with sport but not so easy to measure in terms of specific outcomes. By offering a critical exploration of what can be constituted as ‘fun’ in a sporting context, this book reveals the complex ways in which individuals approach sport and engage with it throughout the life course. The book considers the importance of pleasure and fun as a factor in our initial, formative experiences of sport activity, and as a factor in participation and continued participation. It explores the nature of fun as an embodied experience which incorporates a multitude of social, psychological and physiological components, and as a subjective experience which cannot be fully explained through simplistic binary formulations of pleasure and pain. Drawing on a wide research literature and original empirical research with children and adults, the book outlines a new theoretical framework for thinking about pleasure and fun in sport, highlighting the contrasting ways in which sport and physical activity is experienced and the interplay between individual and social contexts. Sport, Fun and Enjoyment is important reading for anybody with an interest in physical education, youth sport, the sociology of sport, physical activity and health, sport development or sport policy.

This text covers an array of methods needed for undertaking qualitative data collection & analysis. It includes 30 chapters, each focusing on a specific technique including chapters on traditional methods, analysis techniques, intervention methods & the latest developments in research methods.

Dictionary of Sport Psychology: Sport, Exercise, and Performing Arts is a comprehensive reference with hundreds of concise entries across sports, martial arts, exercise and fitness, performing arts and cultural sport psychology. This dictionary uses a global approach to cover philosophical and cultural backgrounds, theory, methodology, education and training and fields of application. Each entry includes phenomenon, subject description and definition, related theory and research, practice and application across sports and related performance domains. An authoritative, balanced and accessible presentation of the state-of-the-art in key subject areas, this dictionary is a must-have reference for anyone studying or practicing sport psychology. Provides a diverse cultural perspective to ensure the broadest coverage of internationalization Covers a broad scope of terms and concepts Includes extended performance domains, such as music, dance, theater arts and the circus Utilizes an alphabetical approach so entries are easily found and quickly referenced Contains entries written by leading researchers and scholars across the globe

Improve long term athlete development (LTAD) and teach children fundamental physical skills with this great resource This workbook is a detailed introduction to the FUNdamentals concept. Developed by experts at sports coach UK it covers the first three stages of Long-term Athlete Development and focuses on the importance of play, fun and enjoyment in sport. The work also: maps the fundamentals of movement across the bigger picture such as the National Curriculum and how different agencies work together provides practical ideas and advice on the application of the three core principles (agility, balance and co-ordination) in kids exercise explains how to coach FUNdamentals and how to plan a programme for coaching young athletes that incorporates the key concepts The underlying theme throughout this resource is for young people and adults to take part in sport and physical activity; they need to learn the FUNdamentals of Movement at an early age. FUNdamentals is about FUN and PROGRESS - taking young people from playground to podium!

This ground-breaking book provides a fascinating insight into the relationship between sports (and leisure), religion and disability. In the shadow of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, at which athletes that were both able-bodied and disabled, provided an extravaganza of sporting excellence and drama, this text is a timely and important synthesis of ideas that have emerged in two previously distinct areas of research: (i) ‘disability sport’ and (ii) the ‘theology of disability’. Many of the elite athletes at this global sporting mega-event often explicitly displayed their religious beliefs, and in turn their importance in the context of sport, by observing different religious rituals, and or, utilising the multi-faith sports chaplaincy service. This raises a whole range of unanswered questions with regard to the intersections between sports, religion and disability, which to-date has been under- researched. Examples of subjects addressed in this text include: elite physical disability sport--Paralympics; intellectual disability sport--Special Olympics; reflections on the illness narrative of the cyclist Lance Armstrong through the lens of the theology of ‘radical orthodoxy’; the application of biblical athletic metaphors in understanding modern conceptions of disability sport; the role of sport and spirituality in the rehabilitation of injured British Military personnel, and; the importance of sports and leisure in L’Arche communities. This book begins a critical conversation on these topics, and many others, for both researchers and practitioners. This book was based on two special issues of the Journal of Religion, Disability and Health.