Protective sports equipment might feel like a hindrance, but they exist to help you play better and avoid serious injuries. While sports are a great way to have fun, stay in shape, and make new friends, they can also be dangerous. No one wants to end up getting benched because of an injury, so wear your protective equipment for the following reasons!
Play Better
Believe it or not, but protective equipment helps you play better. No matter how tough you are, it is instinctual to protect yourself from harm. Without protective equipment, you are more likely to hang back and engage a little less. When you are protected, you feel like you can go all out. One example of this is wearing knee pads in volleyball. Without knee pads, you are far less likely to dive for the ball and risk major road rash. Another example is safety pads and guards for inline skating and skateboarding. Wearing the proper equipment allows you to push yourself further and take more risks in these high-risk sports.
Prevent Injury
A third of all teen injuries are sports related. Every year, almost 4 million kids in the United States are injured playing a sport. Fractures, sprains, strains, concussions, cuts, and bruises are common. Many of these injuries can be prevented by wearing the right protective equipment, such as pads, guards, and helmets. One important area to protect is your mouth. The American Dental Association recommends wearing a mouthguard for any sport that poses mouth injury risks, such as martial arts, lacrosse, ice hockey, rugby, wrestling, football, basketball, and more. A mouthguard can protect your teeth, especially if you wear braces.
Save Your Life
While sports injuries leading to death are rare, there are some sports that pose far greater risk than others. Using the proper protective equipment can decrease those odds even more. Most of the time, sports related deaths occur because of brain injuries. You should never go without a helmet where head injuries are likely. This includes cycling, BMX biking, freestyle biking, skateboarding, inline skating, horseback riding, football, hockey, baseball, softball, skiing, snowboarding, rock climbing, and more. With these sports, the choice to wear a helmet or not really could be a matter of life or death.
You might feel like a weird kid wearing protective equipment when you play sports. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Professional athletes would never risk life or limb by not wearing their protective equipment. You love your sport too much to risk never being able to play it again because of a serious injury!
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