1 . When I tried out for the football team during the summer before 9th grade, I never imagined how important this sport would become in my life. Football is a _____ sport, at times almost painful, and practices really _____ a team’s physical and mental limits. Without trust in my own ability and a strong sense of commitment, I would never have managed to continue after years of hard work as a player, and with countless _____.

In the first year, I played on the defensive line. This was an amazing _____ that gave me a great sense of achievement. But in the last game of the season, I was seriously injured. I was prohibited from any physical activities for six months. After going _____ a series of physical treatments, I returned to the field as a team captain. I practiced harder than ever to make up for my _____ time.

In September, during my junior year, my name was mentioned in the local newspaper as the key defensive lineman on the team. After playing a fantastic season, I was given the _____ of the Most Valuable Player.

_____, my skills in football do not magically extend to other sports. During the winter break, I went on a snowboarding trip and seriously injured my right shoulder. I had to have four _____. Since I could not use my right arm for two months, I had to learn how to write and eat using my left hand.

______ life must go on. I knew that my own present efforts would decide my future, so I ______ the strict training program to build up strength and improve flexibility in my ______. After an eight-month recovery, I was back to the field playing football, the sport I ______.

In this sense, the world of football has taught me an important life lesson: ______ and commitment make what seems impossible ______. This lesson from football is the one that can be applied to every part of life.

2 . Exercise and I had never had a good relationship due to my fear of sports. From a young age, my dad _______ me into a dozen sports. I didn’t like any of them, _______.

When I entered the University of Regina, my dad _______ telling me “You have to find a way to stay _______.” or “You don’t want to get the Freshman 15, do you?” So I _______ to give swimming a shot, but I _______ managed to go to the pool twice during the fall semester (学期). Worse still, I was _______ to convince myself that’s OK.

The spring semester came. A friend of mine _______ me if I wanted to try Zumba (尊巴) with her. All I knew about Zumba was that it was basically a kind of exercise: dancing to Latin pop songs. It didn’t sound too bad, but I couldn’t be _______.

I went, and that was it. Zumba became my ________ of tea. The instructor would always say, “Don’t worry about the steps. Have fun. Do your own thing.” That removed my ________ of sports. I didn’t have to be ________. I didn’t even have to be good. I just needed to ________ the music and move. Zumba did ________ me from the Freshman 15, and it also did so much more. It let me make ________ with my unpleasant past about physical exercise, and enjoy staying healthy.

3 . At 81 years old, Jeanne Daprano is still pushing her body to the limit. She’s still running competitive races, breaking world records and taking on new challenges.“The thing I’m learning about aging is that it’s inevitable,” Daprano said.“I’m not going to escape it. There are two ways to go:You can either press on or give up.”

Daprano grew up in Iowa. Then, she moved to California. As a primary school teacher, she began running in order to keep up with her student.“I was known as a running teacher,” she said.“I had my students do fitness before we studied in the morning and then throughout the day.”Then she began running competitively with 5K and 10K road races before moving to the track. She is now the world record holder in the women’s 75-year-old age group 400 meters and 800 meters. “When I get to the final fi nish line, I want this body to be worn out. I’m not doing this to live to be 100. I’m doing this to be the best I can be today.”

After moving to Atlanta about a decade ago, Daprano met fitness trainer David Buer. Ever since, she’s been coming to his gym, where he tailors workouts for Daprano’s specifc needs.“When she came to me, she was pushing 70 years old,”Buer said.“I’ve worked with other individuals of Jeanne’s age, but she came to me with different goals. She had a unique drive and passion—not just a passion for fitness or athletics but for life in general.”

Last February, Daprano took on a new challenge: her first indoor rowing competition. In classic fashion, she broke the world record in the 80-to-84 age group, rowing 2,000 meters in 9:23:7. For those hoping to either start getting in shape or stay in shape for a long time, she offers this advice: Listen to your body. What are you passionate about? How are you going to keep physically fit and mentally fit? Start where you are. Don’t look ahead or compare yourself to somebody else.

4 . The health benefits of staying active are already well-known. It can help you manage weight, keep blood sugar levels down and reduce risk factors for heart disease.

Now, a new study suggests that regularly playing sports, especially badminton or tennis, is not only healthy but also reduces your risk of death, at any age, by approximately 50%. This is a big scale population study to explore the health benefits of sports in terms of death rate. The study evaluated responses from 80, 306 adults aged 30 and above in England and Scotland, who were surveyed about their health, lifestyle and exercise patterns.

After adjusting factors such as age, sex, weight, smoking habits, alcohol use, education and other forms of exercise besides the named sports, the researchers compared the risk of death among people who took part in a sport to those who didn’t. The percentage of reduced risk of death was found to be: 47% for racket(球拍)sports, 28% for swimming and 15% for cycling.

In addition to this, the study didn’t find any significant reduction in the risk for sports like running and football. The findings also exposed that over 44% of the participants met the guidelines for the recommended exercise levels to stay fit and healthy, which amounts to 150 minutes of moderate(适度的) physical activity in a week.

Does this mean you stop running or playing football and switch to tennis instead? Every kind of sport and physical activity has different physical, social and mental benefits attached to it. The apparent lack of benefits of running and football could result from several variables (变量) that were not taken into account.

Being active helps you feel happier and live longer. So, the most important step is to take part in any kind of sport that you are likely to enjoy and follow in the long term.

Be Sporty, Be Healthy

Hello, everyone!

I feel honored to be here to talk to you on exercise.

6 . Playing sports offers you more than just physical benefits (好处).     1     The benefits are the same whether or not you’re good at sports. If you are not good enough to play competitively on a school team, you can play sports with your friends.

Making new friends.

Playing sports enables you to create friendships you otherwise might not have formed.     2     You play together happily and gradually know each other. Many times, the friendships you create on the field remain strong when you are not playing sports.

Understanding the value of health.

Taking part in sports improves your health in many ways.     3     This gets you thinking about what to eat and how to treat your body so as to achieve the highest performance levels. Thus, playing sports can lead to better eating habits and prevent you from becoming too fat.

Building team spirit.

Sports provide children with the important lesson of learning how to work in a team.     4     By working together they will learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses and will be better able to decide and work out the best plan for the team. This will without doubt help them in their future lives and jobs as well.

    5    

Playing sports requires a lot of time and energy. Some may think this would take students’ attention away from schoolwork. However, the opposite is true. Sports require memorization, repetition and learning — skills that are directly relevant (有关的) to schoolwork.

7 . A fresh and gentle wind on your face, soft sand under your feet and blue waters as far as the eye can see. Is there any other Olympic sport that is played in such pleasant conditions as beach volleyball？

“I’ve gone to a lot of beautiful places, and met a lot of beautiful people. That wouldn’t have happened if I had been playing another sport.” said Randy Stoklos, America’s most famous beach volleyball player.

The sport began as a four-a-side game on beaches in Southern California in the 1920s. The first recorded two-man game took place there in 1930, and the first tournament (锦标赛) was held in Los Angeles 18 years later. The winners were awarded a case of Pepsi. In the 1950s, women started playing and the sport soon spread to Europe and South America. Yet at that time, beach volleyball was more an entertainment show than a sport, with beauty contests included. The Association of Volleyball Professionals was founded in 1983 and beach volleyball developed into a fast, athletic sport. Its world-wide popularity won beach volleyball a place at the 1996 Olympics in Atalanta, where 24 male teams and 16 female teams took part. At present, the US and Brazil are the best in the world at beach volleyball.

The game came to China in the early 1990s and there have been national tournaments since 1994. It became an official event at the Eighth National Games in 1997. China’s You Wenhui and Wang Lu finished ninth in the women’s beach volleyball world championships in Brazil.

9 .     1    . The legendary volleyball coach Lang Ping gave the answer in the recent documentary (纪录片) The Iron Hammer.

The documentary displays Lang’s inspiring journey from her gold medal victory as a volleyball player in the 1984 Olympics to her amazing career as a successful coach for both Team USA from 2005 to 2008 and China since 2013. She was the first person to win Olympic volleyball gold as a player and coach. Lang Ping revealed the secret to such remarkable achievements in the documentary. As she said, “    2    ”.

    3    . Troubled by severe injuries to her cervical vertebra, back, waist and knees, caused by intense exercise and hard work, the 60-year-old has undergone more than 10 surgeries. “No parts of my body function well,” she joked.

But illness is certainly not the only difficulty Lang has faced. In 2005, she struggled with balancing raising her daughter Lydia Bai Lang, who lived in the US, and her coaching career. She eventually decided to work for USA Volleyball that year.     4    “I’m proud of being Chinese”   Lang responded in an interview. Later she returned to head the Chinese women ’s volleyball team in 2013, leading the team successfully defending its World Cup crown with a perfect record of 11 straight wins last year.

There is no doubt that Lang is one of the greatest players and coaches in history. As an American athlete commented in the documentary,     5    .

10 . Many of us know about Russia’s Lake Baikal from our textbooks, or by listening to Chinese singer Li Jian’s hit song, Lakeside of Baikal. But over the years, the world’s deepest freshwater lake has been a focus for an extreme sport.

Each March, about 150 people from around the world sign up for the Baikal Ice Marathon. The 26-mile journey starts on the lake’s eastern shore. In March, the ice is a metre thick and iron-hard. Runners cross this frozen surface, finishing on the western side of the lake.

It’s believed that Lake Baikal’s beauty is incomparable. Particularly known as “the Blue Eye of Siberia”, Lake Baikal has extremely clear waters. This means that its ice is almost perfectly transparent (透明的).Seen from above, a runner on the ice looks as if he or she were jogging through space.

The scenery might be beautiful, but strong winds blow across the lake and frostbite (冻伤) can happen within half an hour. Runners say the cold climate is what attracts them and that running in such condition is a test of their limits.

“When you are in such an environment, you don’t have cars around you, and you don’t have the noise around. I think these extreme races push you to be alone,” Alicja Barahona, a 64-year-old runner from the US said.

The place offers some strange and unique features for this marathon. Tourists crowding the ice arc mostly addicted to taking pictures and just ignore the runners.

For runners, without people watching and cheering for them, the race becomes more challenging and lonely. They must fight with themselves. “You are alone on Baikal. It is your race. You are alone with yourself. All you need to do is defeat yourself,” Veronique Messina, a French runner, told The Telegraph.