"There Is No Medicine As Beneficial And Cheap As Sports"
Sport is like love: "The crucial thing is that the relationship never ends", claims the best base of Spanish basketball and expert in sports medicine. Juan Antonio Corbalán. What does that name remind you of? To one, to two and to ... Basketball! There is a high percentage of probability that it is the first idea that comes to mind. Because Corbalán marked an era as an icon of the courts. He was a Real Madrid basketball player between 1971 and 1988, conquered, among other trophies, 3 European Cups, 7 Spanish Cups and 12 Leagues and, already with the National Team, he was silver in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and in Eurobasket from France of 1983.But it is part of the past.
Although it is something very present in the memory of Corbalán - "it is as if he had finished high school yesterday or if he was still playing a final final" - that record is his past in the calendar sheets. He writes this in Vithas Internacional, where receives EXPANSIÓN as director of the Medicine and Physical Activity Sciences Unit.The first question is obvious. Everyone wants to know about their conversion: going from being the best Spanish base to a prestigious medical expert. "I always combined my life with the university, not like now, that there is an obsession, as if sport and studies were different worlds."
And does the passion for sport come from the cradle or does it develop later?
It was a coincidence ... I was fortunate to go to a magnificent school that was premiered in my time and the minibasket was invented. The children who were more gifted for the sport got into that and won the Madrid championship. From there we continue training, playing on weekends ... and at those ages, if you are well endowed for the sport and have good coaches, a regularity, because the hobby ends up being devotion. We went up the categories, until I signed Real Madrid.
With the value attached to this experience, the concern of many parents to try to get their children to play sports will be logical.
I consider it vital. The sport should not be the alpha and omega of everything, but it has to be one of the letters of the alphabet without any doubt. Training in values, music, plastic sciences ... anything should have the same value as sport. Before there was a concern in all schools about the need to add sport to the educational process and now everything has become much more commercial and those schools do not want to bear the costs of having teams, uniforms, coaches, balls, facilities, staying in a competition ... So I am one of those who think that the Education Administration should subsidize schools that are capable of assuming those expenses, since all private cabbages should understand that part of the benefit they have must be reinvested in physical activities, recreational, formative ...
How many hours should a child devote to sports?
No rules. It is what a child can and feels like playful. That the child plays until he falls, it is entertainment, he will have time to be a professional or athlete of high competition if he comes to that.
And in adults? Now it has imposed a fashion of 'running', marathons, mountains ... Is it perhaps a very demanding physical jump for those who are not accustomed?
Physical activity has gained popularity. Now it is perceived that regular sport is the best medicine. In fact, there is no medicine as beneficial and cheap as sports.
But there is a step from that to obsession ...
There are passionate people in their hobby. But you always have to know that not always is better, there must be a progression consistent with the ability to assimilate. It's about knowing what our limitations are and understanding that physical activity should be an ally.
And in that union ... What is your necessary sport recommendation?
Healthy sport is the one that is closest to playful feeling. People want to progress suddenly but you have to go slowly to have that pleasant feeling inside.
But after that playful feeling, it can be frustrating not to experience improvements.
As you look at it. The pleasure is on the road, not on arrival. It's like love: the secret is that the process of falling in love never ends. In the same way, the desirable exercise would be the one that never ends the improvement process. But we are limited beings: the bones, the heart or the lungs make you see how far we have come. You can't be the best and everyone experiences their challenge at the level they can.
A final question with a melancholic touch ... What values has sport taught you?
I will answer with three adjectives: sport is early, fast and cruel. Precocious because a child learns very soon that in life he does not win, because it may be that no one wants to play with you. It is an education that helps to live in frustration, such as when one thinks why the boss does not have him. It is also fast because you can be good or bad for just one play and one is your friend at the start of a game but your enemy at the end. And, at the same time, it is cruel: you see that in the end someone always appears better than you ... For one to win there must always be someone to lose. There are three things where natural selection is always seen.
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