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Continuation of extracurricular sports activities contributes to higher physical fitness and maintaining academic performance

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Abstract

Improving physical fitness and academic performance is an important issue for youth internationally. Few studies have examined the longitudinal relationship between extracurricular activities, physical fitness, and academic performance by gender, including not only sports clubs but also culture clubs. This study examines the longitudinal relationship between extracurricular activities, physical fitness, and academic performance in adolescents. A total of 847 adolescents (443 boys and 404 girls) participated. They were classified into four groups (culture or sports club to nonparticipants, continue nonparticipants, continue culture club, and continue sports club) based on their affiliation with extracurricular activities in Grades 7 and 9. The longitudinal relationship between extracurricular activities (independent variable) and physical fitness or academic performance (dependent variable) was analyzed using binomial logistic regression. For both boys and girls, being in the “continue sports club” group was more related to high 20 m shuttle run in Grade 9 than being in the “culture or sports club to nonparticipants” group was. In addition, for both boys and girls, the “continue sports club” and “continue culture club” group had higher academic performance in Grade 9 in Japanese language, social studies, mathematics, science, and foreign languages when compared with those in the “culture or sports club to nonparticipants” group. In conclusion, extracurricular sports activities in adolescence contribute toward higher cardiorespiratory fitness and maintaining academic performance. Educators need to recognize the importance of extracurricular sports activities as an option for the favorable growth and development of adolescents.

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Data availability

The data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Abbreviations

OR:

Odds ratio

CI:

Confidence interval

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Funding

The authors declare that no funds, grants, or other support was received during the preparation of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Mie University, 1577, Kurimamachiya-cho, Tsu, Mie, 514-8507, Japan

    Kensaku Sasayama

  2. Sanyo Gakuen University and College, 1-14-1, Hirai, Naka-ku, Okayama, 703-8501, Japan

    Keiko Nonoue

  3. Faculty of Sciences of Human Life, Chugoku Gakuen University, 83, Niwase, Kita-ku, Okayama, 701-0197, Japan

    Takayo Tada

  4. Graduate School of Education, Okayama University, 3-1-1, Tsushima-Naka, Kita-ku, Okayama, 700-8530, Japan

    Minoru Adachi

Authors
  1. Kensaku Sasayama
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  2. Keiko Nonoue
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  3. Takayo Tada
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  4. Minoru Adachi
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and analysis were performed by Kensaku Sasayama, Keiko Nonoue, Takayo Tada and Minoru Adachi. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Kensaku Sasayama and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kensaku Sasayama.

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Ethical approval

The present study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Okayama University of Science (Number: 30–8).

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This study procedures were explained to all participants and their parents prior to participation and they were provided with the opportunity to opt out.

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Sasayama, K., Nonoue, K., Tada, T. et al. Continuation of extracurricular sports activities contributes to higher physical fitness and maintaining academic performance. Sport Sci Health (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11332-024-01200-0

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