There are so many myths involving Athletes; especially to the people that don’t know a whole lot about being an athlete and are always listening to what these so called “experts” have to say

about them. So I want to break down 5 myths that I find that are important especially if you are or even aren’t an athlete.

 

Myth #1: Athletes should stave off dehydration with Sports Drinks

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        Honestly, I find this one quite interesting because I myself use to think when I was doing physical activities whether it would be basketball, baseball, lifting weights, martial arts, etc... that I needed sports drinks to keep me hydrated throughout that time period so I would always have one or maybe even two Gatorades or something similar to keep me hydrated; little did I know that you really don’t need to do that especially if it just a short period of time. According to The American Sports Medicine Guidelines they say all endurance athletes should aggressively replace all “water lost through sweating.” Since

Gatorade and its rivals marketed their drinks to be able to do that they were making more than $8.4 billion dollars a year, according to The Washington Post. But people are only recommended to drink sports drinks if they are being very physically active for long periods of time. Which I agree with that because I know that we can go short periods of time with being dehydrated but the thing is if we aren’t careful over hydration with sports drinks and stuff can be very harmful as well. So for me I believe that anyone in general should be very careful when it comes to trying to get rid of their thirst with sports drinks because too much can be bad on you as for myself I’d recommend if you’re thirsty grab some water and save yourself some trouble in the end.

 

Myth #2: Athletes are very dumb and all they know is sports.

 

        Now this myth is nowhere near the truth for sure. I say this in a sense of that to even play sports you have to keep your grades up or you won’t even get to play. Now I know in high school you just have to have a passing grade in every class which I know some just

do enough to pass, but for those athletes that want to go to college off sports are the ones who have fairly good grades or even better than most people in their own graduating class. For example, according to the NCAA, to play college ball division 1 you have to have a 2.3 GPA and have an SAT combined score or Act sum score matching your core-course GPA on the Division I sliding scale, which balances your test score and core-course GPA. Now that is actually harder to do then what you’d think, but I’ve grew up with athletes who have kept a 4.0 GPAalong with scoring 30’s on their Act tests and finish top in their class and really in my opinion just destroys the myth of athletes are dumb because yes they may know their sport real well but they are smart to have school as their own back up plan.

 

Myth #3: All Athletes need Protein Powder to get their protein intake in.

 

        I never really understood why these sports teams invests so much money into these big protein tubs. Do they have benefits? Yes of course they do, they are good especially the whey protein that digests fast, but they necessarily don’t need that. It is very possible for Athletes to get their protein intake in just from regular food. Like from what most doctors say is that if you have a pretty well balanced diet you usually get your protein intake in.

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Myth #4: Athletes receive “special treatment”.

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        This one definitely gets around a lot really especially since so many nonathletic people get jealous and assume they get a different kind of treatment then they do. In reality, athletes are still just students as much as we are so why would they get treated differently for? It wouldn’t make any sense at all. From what I know and see teachers are actually harder on athletes because they want them to have their education as a backup plan just in case they can’t make it to the pros. Also, athletes don’t get private tutors or anything either, they get the same tutors, same everything as the people who just go to school for education.

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Myth #5: Student Athletes are too good to have/get a job.

 

        Here we go again with the people who know absolutely nothing about being a student athlete in college. When it comes down to it athletes really only have time to focus on school and their sport because their sport usually takes up about 20-25 hours a week with practice, lifting, games,etc.. So if you really think about it that is their job, as others work to pay for college athletes work in their sport to pay for their own college so just in that alone is time consuming. But some athletes go beyond that and do have a job but it isn’t common but it does happen so just to let ya know they definitely are not too good for a job.

 

        In conclusion, they are so many myths about athletes but these are just 5 that I chosen. Hopefully you understand how athletes really work now for sure. Being a student athlete is very hard and time consuming and all my respect is towards them for sure.