Playing sports can ease transition into retirement

New study examined how sport impacts quality of life of adults’ continued development

Researchers have found that participating in sports enhances the development of children and adolescents. Now a new study from a University of Houston researcher has found that the dynamic that comes with sport also may be beneficial to the development and well-being of adults as they age.

David Walsh, clinical assistant professor in the UH Department of Health and Human Performance, interviewed more than 250 individuals in a Texas retirement community with the overarching question: Does sport have the capacity to influence the development process of a person later in life?

“Retirement can set us on a positive or negative trajectory, depending on how we adapt,” Dr. Walsh said. “Sport can play a positive role in adults’ continued development.”

Participating in sport in this context ranges from doing informal sporting activities, such as walking playing shuffleboard, to joining organized individual and/or team sport competitions, such as training for a marathon or playing in a tennis league.

“In my work, people shared experiences of when sport played a significant role in life-events, such as changes in careers, going away to college, growing families or the death of a loved one,” Walsh said. “These significant transitions required a positive response in order to deal with them, and applying this theory that sport serves as a positive response made sense when a person retires.”

His study found that when sport was applied to these challenging transitions, particularly during retirement, the adjustments were smoother. Participants felt as if they belonged to a community, were escaping perceived chaos or given more control in their lives.

“Transitions brought tangible and intangible losses to participants, particularly to their sense of self,” he said. “Sport was found to be a resource-rich system they sought out because of what they thought it could do for them—bring self-confidence, social interaction and physical activity. This can be applied to the transition of retirement.”

Walsh will present his findings at the 2015 Conference of the North American Society for Sport Management in Ottawa.

He says the study can inform sports managers to design sport for a targeted population with the intent of enhancing their quality of life.  Additionally, he’s hopeful this research will be the starting point for additional studies on the relationship between sport and its impact in easing the transition into retirement.

-        By Marisa Ramirez