The Origins of Sport Training

Sport training today has come a long way to become an essential part of not only elite athletes’ lives, but also that of the common man. In Peter G. Mewett’s article, “From Horses to Humans: Species Crossovers in the Origin of Modern Sports Training”, he examines the history of sport and its crossover from horse training, and the influence of humours on developing training techniques.
Mewett begins his article by identifying the birth of sport. He traces modern sport to, “the prizefighters competing at Figg’s Amphitheatre”(Mewett) beginning his theory that sport leading to sport training has stemmed from pugilism. He argues that these types of sport lead to the association of expertise in a sport with national character. Through boxing and pedestrianism, it was discovered that a trained participant could easily defeat an untrained one. Through this discovery of the need for training comes the distinction of its two-part outcome, technique and “wind” (or fi...