Health benefits of billiards
The game of billiards has a positive impact both on the formation of character, and on the strengthening, maintenance of health - physical and mental. Billiards strengthens the respiratory, cardiovascular system, improves vision, eyesight and has a beneficial effect on the player's way of thinking.
Billiards is not just a pleasant pastime and a type of sports competitions with a developed system of clubs, international and national competitions, but also a useful activity for physical and mental health. Therefore, visiting a billiard school for both children and adolescents, as well as for adults, is not only exciting, but also useful.
Benefits for vision
Obviously, billiards contributes to the development of the eye, i.e. the ability of the human brain to accurately assess the distances to objects in space and their size on the basis of data obtained through the organs of vision. With a developed eye, the risk of impaired binocular vision is reduced.
Another benefit of the game for vision is that during the game, the player with each aim and making a cue strike constantly unconsciously performs training of the muscles of the eyeball. The player has to look at the cue ball, then at other balls and their position at the billiard table, then at the pockets.
Benefits for the cardiovascular and respiratory system
Academician S.P. Mironov once remarked in one of the interviews for a specialized publication devoted to billiards that for one game in the Russian pyramid the player passes around the table about 3.5 km and at the same time performs a whole range of exercises related to rhythmic and artistic gymnastics. Accordingly, each batch can be considered as a low-intensity aerobic load, in which the main "fuel" burned by the body is oxygen. Aerobic exercise has a beneficial effect on the cardiovascular system as a whole, but there are also several points regarding billiards:
Often, players have to take uncomfortable poses to make a perfect blow - this is also a kind of load, after which the billiard player needs to instantly restore the pulse and breathing, otherwise he will not be able to make accurate strokes further.
With each sight and strike, as in the case of a shot from a weapon, the player needs to control the heart rate and breathing rhythm as much as possible, and this requires a trained cardiovascular and respiratory system, as in professional athletes.
Despite the above, billiards does not have a significant load on the heart and lungs, i.e. it helps to strengthen the cardiovascular and respiratory system, but there will be no excessive loads. This means that it is also possible to play for people with problems with respiratory function, with heart disease, the elderly.
Mental Health Benefits
At the beginning of the 20th century, one academician V.M. Bekhterev noted that playing billiards is a great way to relax. He strongly emphasized the possibility of relaxation through games at the pool table and himself until the end of his life was a devoted fan of the game.
Another authoritative opinion belongs to Professor V. Malinovsky, who for the material in the newspaper "Kommersant" of August 13, 1990 said that the sound of billiard balls hitting each other contributes to the normalization of the human nervous system. It is also worth adding here the words of the doctor of medical sciences V.K. Velitchenko that billiards helps in strengthening the nervous system.
Why is the game so useful for mental health? Here are just a few points:
The atmosphere at the billiard table contributes to deep relaxation - a person is distracted from current problems, stresses, and fully devotes himself to the party. The colors of cloth, special lighting, the sound of balls, soulful conversations, if it is a friendly party, an amateur game contribute to relaxation and recovery.
Billiards teaches patience, endurance, composure, educates strong-willed qualities in a person - people with problems with the nervous system have to overcome psychological problems and character traits willy-nilly to enjoy amateur play or achieve results in professional billiards.
Other benefits for the body
Billiards forms leadership qualities in a person, teaches him to take responsibility for each action, to calculate the situation several steps ahead, as in chess. It contributes to the formation of correct posture, but the game is not contraindicated for people with problems with the musculoskeletal system. On the contrary, during the rehabilitation period, physiotherapists recommend playing at the billiard table to patients who have undergone surgery, disabled people.
Resourcefulness, clarity and coordination of movements, the ability to manage, strictly "keep in check" their emotions at especially crucial moments - all this gives the game to both children and adults. Therefore, the positive effect of billiards on the formation of character, on the strengthening, maintenance of health - both physical and mental - becomes obvious.