With many sports to choose from it can be confusing and difficult to find one to suit you. We’ve tried to make this easier by developing a profile for each sport. You can use profiles to weed out unsuitable sports.
The profile lists some key factors for each sport - for example, whether you can play it by yourself, or in a team, with your family; whether it is expensive; how fit you have to be and so on.
This sample profile shows all the options:
take part? just you | small group | with family | in a team
where? inside | outside
energy/fitness level? relaxed | you’ll sweat a bit | full on
sociability? usually able to talk | can talk some of the time | too full on!
disability access*? limited | ok with help | on equal terms
can be played? competitively | as friends
contact sport? non-contact | some collisions | full on
try it cost? low | moderate | high
play it cost? low | moderate | high
* Individual circumstances vary hugely, and this affects participation in any sport. This guide is necessarily general in nature and may not suit your situation.
Important:The “ | “ means “or”. For example, ”where? inside | outside” means the sport can be played inside or outside.
First work out your individual player profile, by looking at each factor and asking yourself questions: Do you want to be able to do the sport by yourself? Perhaps sometimes with friends or family? Do you want a very energetic sport, or gentle exercise? How competitive are you?
It may help to print this page out and then cross out the things that you don’t want on the sample profile above, to record your profile. Doing this will help you clarify just what you are looking for in a sport.
Then when looking at each possible sport, see how well its profile matches yours. The better the match, the more likely that you’ll find the sport enjoyable.
We plan to eventually develop a automatic way of searching all sports and listing the good matches - but for now you have to do it…
Sociability factor: All sports have opportunities to socialise, even if only in the changing room or in the pub afterwards! This factor shows whether you are likely to be able to get to know people during the sport. For example, when walking you can nearly always talk; when playing soccer you can’t.
Disability access factor gives an indication of whether someone with a disability can take part. Obviously this depends on the disability as much as the sport, so this is a very rough guide. For example, someone in a wheelchair may be able to fully compete at archery or shooting, but couldn’t try taekwondo.
A surprising number of sports can be played with some assistance or special equipment - for example quadraplegics can sail competitively in special sailing dinghies, and paraplegics can play an extremely fast and agressive version of ice-hockey.
Inside | outside factor: whether the sport can be fully enjoyed inside and/or outside. For example, you can ‘walk’ long distances inside - on a treadmill - but you lose so many benefits that walking is said to be ‘outside’ only.
Many outside sports are played for part of the year only, especially water sports.
Cost factors: we’ve separated ‘try it’ from ‘play it’ cost, as beginners’ courses often supply equipment, making it possible to try a sport at low cost.
Like other factors, these are only a very rough guide. ‘Low cost’ sports have minimal equipment and ongoing costs - for example walking. ‘Moderate cost’ sports require more spent on equipment and/or ongoing tuititon or facilities hire - eg taekwondo. ‘High cost’ sports have expensive equipment or high ongoing fees - eg sailing or skiing. Costs do not include travel costs.
There are often ways to reduce costs. For example, sailing can be expensive if you buy a new or very competitive boat, but only moderate if you buy a second hand boat, and almost no cost if you sail as crew for someone who owns a boat.