Hi all
just wanted to say that if you are like me and cant motivate yourself enough down the gym to truly get a good work out, why not join a team sport....
I joined a netball club in 2000 and whilst I am still overweight my fitness level has really increased! plus when its a cold winters night and if I was going it alone I would think nah because my team members are relying on me turning up I cant make any excuses.
anyway just thought I would share that thought with you!

Hi Samigb - thanks for that, it's a good idea. To be honest at the moment I don't think I'm good enough at any particular sport to join anything but I will hold it in mind for the future.

Well done on the netball samigb... and welcome to UKfatchicks.

Welcome to 3FC!!

LOL Samigb (and welcome!)

Got to say it probably depends on yer personality. Like many people, I hated PE at school and the whole thought of 'team sports' conjures up the misery of those grim lessons, being picked last for everything because I 'let them down', etc etc. Yet oddly, I was very sporty - would play tennis 5 hours a day! (Even payed doubles if forced - but only with nice people!) And I always won the cross country - precisely because it wasn't a team sport - but me against the rest of them and their 'team spirit' made me determined to race every last one into the ground!

After a while I got wise to it and deliberately threw anything that was 'team' - am not a joiner. I know it's different with adults than kids, but I'd imagine the whole concept of being in teams brings back miserable memories for many! Some people really hate the whole 'team' thing - afraid I'm one of them! Love running - because I'm on my own. Is peace and quiet. Of course, we're all different. The thought of others depending on me would have the opposite effect - I'd get resentful, bored or both!

When I became a teacher, I was always sensitive to this and would choose the teams myself, not let the kids - and also clamp down on any bullying. But my kids tell me that nothing has changed - team sports often seems a trigger for trouble, as the other kids perceive any 'failure' as them being let down - and get revenge! Better to scrap the lot, in schools, I think!

Me, too. I was slim as a kid but, even so, I still learned to hate anything that involved being part of a team. I moved schools when I was 13 and, although I loved my new school and got on well with the girls, my home class was divided in to two distinct groups (the 'swots' and the 'flirts'). I got on well with both groups of girls but they had been together since they 'went up' to senior school at age 11 so by the time I got there it was an established fact that the two groups divided in to teams or pairs as required - which meant that for four or five years I was ALWAYS the one on my own. Its left me with a total hatred of anything team related that I'm not in charge of, ESPECIALLY sports.

I walk a lot for exercise - the look in my dogs' eyes is enough motivation!

LOL Sarah

What gets me is that because I hated the whole 'team' concept - and was quite spirited about it too, the PE teachers saw me as a trouble-maker... (In fact I was one of the softest kids in the school, and the ones who liked PE were thugs!) And so they never bothered getting to know me - didn't even know I was in the tennis club, or that I walked all the time, or that I loved cross country. (They'd only do it once a year because the girls would moan about it so much). So I look back now, and from a teaching point of view, think how unprofessional they were not to spot a kid who actually did like sport (just not their sports!) They also treated me like a thicko even though I came top in my year in every other subject (except PE). And they treated the dense kids - who liked PE because they didn't have to work - as gods! In the 6th form, one of the PE teachers who'd taught me for years saw something I'd done and sidled up to me and said *We never knew you were capable of anything like that...* Which made me realise how much they'd written me off, just because I was cheeky in PE.

Like you Sarah, I was thin as well - and all the ones who liked PE tended to be the bigger girls (It would be the other way round these days, eh?) Back then I think there was a perception of thin being ugly - but also 'weak' and 'useless'. Makes me laugh how times have changed.

I'd bet anything though the girls who excelled at sport at school are not active in their 40s. So it seems that the whole PE curriculum is a waste of time, really as it didn't encourage sport for life, or for enjoyment - just that team spirit, cut throat competitiveness.

Mind you it's gone too far the other way now. I go to my kids' sports days and they're so PC and so determined to be non competitive and all inclusive that no actual 'sport' occurs...

Thats awful! Poor you I was lucky - in my school sports were not really a priority - they never complained if we bunked off sports - in fact during Wimbledon we had to get changed in to tennis gear then sat in the pavillion watching Wimbledon on TV! Fortunately (or unfortunately) I went to a school who's aim was to churn out 'young ladies' - basically we were being taught to be wives. Academic success (except in languages) and sports came a very poor second and third to Getting A Rich Husband. The Old Girls who gave the prizes on prize day were always married to important men, never successful in their own right. Bizarre!

In the upper fifth we got a male PE teacher (very unusual at that time for an all girls school) and he was great. Instead of the usual tennis, netball and hockey we got to try different things like fencing and athletics. I turned out to be totally useless at anything to do with running but reasonably good at fencing and throwing things - like the javellin, the discus and putting the shot.

I don't know if its a good or bad thing that modern day teachers have taken the emphasis off of winning. Surely there needs to be some competitiveness.

well sorry to hear you all had such a bad time at school sports....
when I was at school I always found it was a way for us less academic kids to excel at something and gave us a chance to shine. FYI I hated netball at school because of the teacher not the kids and my first week of playing adult netball I had a chill run down my spine when I heard the voice that had haunted the few netball games that I played at school. Yep it was that very same teacher. suddenly realised as an adult that she wasnt that scary and that I had met a lot more people to be wary of during my working career in a city brokers than her!! I would hate to see team sports totaly rejected from schools and it angers me to see so many of our schools selling off their playing fields just to add more housing estates. We are all entitled to our opinions and I actually found some of your comments to be a bit harsh as I was only suggesting that it may be an option for some people to consider.
I guess you are one of these people who dont think that it is a good thing that London got the 2012 Olympics either!!!??????

Sorry we upset you - I'm glad you've found the right activity for you but its an open discussion board so thats exactly what we did - we discussed the topic that you started! Nobody was criticising you - we were relating how our experience of team sports at school (and the people that taught them) has put off us off the idea of ever doing team sports again.

As for the Olympics - I live in Yorkshire so I couldn't really care less. Maybe if I still lived in London I'd have more of an opinion.

Ah no harshness intended - like Sarah, I'm from Yorkshire, and Yorkshire people tend to say what we think. I enjoyed this thread, thought it brought up some good questions. The whole team sports idea stirs up horrible memories for me and lots of others. I thought it was a really interesting thread though and something that's interesting to explore - especially as some of us who hated it at school were not even overweight at the time we hated it - and that's the stereotype, isn't it, that the unfit kids hate PE? So interesting to explore the whole thing.

I wouldn't discount it as a motivator - what I do know! - just saying in my case, eek, no! It's interesting though, because it exposes something we haven't talked about much, that divide between 'solitary' exercise and team effort and like anything else in life, it's horses for courses! But really worth thinking about I think, as everyone here has to find something that will keep them motivated. And for some, team sports might well do that!

Also it was interesting because it made me wonder how many of those girls who were 'good' at PE, who are my age (middle aged) now are incredibly unfit. Because if that's the case, it has implications for 'sport for life' in education. As I used to be a teacher, these questions get my interest!

But well done to you for an interesting thread. Don't assume you're not welcome because one or two here disagreed - is the sign of a good message board, IMHO!

As for the Olympics - actually, you're right! I do think it will be a royal waste of time and money. Rather put that money into sports in schools, and fitness for older people/people with medical conditions. Mysterious how the government can find money for things like that, but then not for health or education. But then, I'm never excited when we get to host Song For Europe, either...

I'd love to join a team or even a regular gym class. I hated PE at school, but only cos I was too shy to properly give anything a go, and I was always picked last for stuff, being too shy to be popular, so it all just combined to make me more shy!
But now that I'm a bit older and (hopefully) a bit wiser, I think joining a team would really give me the motivation to keep fit. I just feel like I'm not fit enough to do it now, and it would be more of a maintenance thing. Also, I'm totally skint and can't afford it, I'd have to pay for every class at my gym and I'm struggling just to afford basic membership, so it's gona have to wait till I graduate anyway.

yep I understand that everyone has an opinion, obviosly just got a bit carried away........ I like you was stick thin at school and I did an exam in sports so I was pretty active every day and truly believe that this is why I put on weight when I left. got a job sitting behind a desk and didnt carry out any activity whatsoever. I guess whilst I was at school and was keeping active I could pretty much eat what I liked and was one of those annoying people. leaving school and doing nothing still eating what I liked put on the extra stones and I was finding it incredibly hard to shift. So I guess I just wanted to get back to what I was doing... Also don't let your school experiences put you off my team is a great bunch of ladies and very social bunch in fact I am off out with them all tonight and I have made so many friends since joining.