A team sport is a sport that requires the cooperation of teammates for successful performance. It is inherently impossible or highly impractical to execute the sport as a single-player endeavour. Examples of team sports include basketball, baseball, football, field hockey, soccer, rugby and water polo.
Team athletes learn to collaborate with their teammates in order to achieve the team’s objectives, and as a result they develop valuable social skills like mutual respect, selflessness and a collective approach. Additionally, team athletes often have to manage multiple obligations such as training, team meetings, and academics commitments. In this way, they learn how to effectively prioritize and manage their time.
In addition to working together for a common goal, team athletes also engage in a healthy competition with external opponents. This helps them stay in shape, maintain a high level of discipline and develop self-confidence. However, it is essential for team athletes to keep the excesses of in-group/out-group rivalries in check, as they can undermine group cohesion and serve as a source of stress.
Another unique attribute of team sports is that they involve periods of intense, repetitive activity interspersed with short recovery intervals. This leads to muscle soreness and increased risk of injury. It is therefore important for team athletes to develop strategies for coping with post-exercise muscle soreness and to minimize the risks of injury by following proper training practices and by wearing protective equipment when playing contact or full-contact sports.