This post was last Updated on January 16, 2019

We’ve all noticed it. There isn’t a single nudist club without any opportunities to do some sports. Doing a couple of laps in the swimming pool might be one of the most favourite activities, but often you’ll also get the chance to play some tennis or volleyball, maybe some jeu de boule or at least there’s a table tennis table or two.

Some nudist clubs have even grown to be real sports centres, a wet dream of many textiles.

But why is that?

Why are nudists that attracted to sports?

Some history

In the beginning of social nudism as we know it, it was all about health. The average nudist back then truly wanted to live a healthy lifestyle. They ate healthy, often home grown food, they knew that they had to expose a lot of skin to absorb as much sunlight as possible in order to get some vitamin D and they tried to stay fit… indeed… by doing sports.

But actually this goes much further than social nudism. A couple of thousands of years ago, when the ancient Greeks ruled the place, sports were done in the buff by default. For two very obvious reasons. The human body was considered a piece of art and art has to be seen by the public. Next to watching the sports act itself, people also came to the events to get a glimpse of the muscular bodies of the sportsmen in all their glory. This has been the inspiration for many paintings and sculptures.

The second reason was of course comfort. If you’ve ever practiced sports in the nude you know why. The only thing clothing does is restricting your activity. It’s really holding you back. Swimmers can swim faster naked, runners can run faster and you don’t want to know how much time and money has gone into creating suits for gymnasts that have the same flexibility as… skin.

By the way, the word gymnasium literally means “place where they practice naked”. This is a great fun fact to tell in every textile gymnasium. Just saying.

Back in those days the body was something to be proud of. During the ancient Olympic Games, all sports were practiced naked except for horse racing. The price was often a nude statue of the winning athlete in a nearby temple.

Nude sports are more healthy

Even though the Greeks were right when it comes to their sport habits and even though the early social nudists roughly based their ideas about sports on the Greek tradition, there’s more to it.

It has been proven that practicing sports nude is actually more healthy than doing so clothed. As we already said, the body creates vitamin D by absorbing sunlight. Well actually by absorbing the UVB radiation in sunlight (which by the way, and here’s another fun fact, is also what’s blocked by sunscreen. But that’s another story). So it really is common sense that the more skin is exposed to the sunlight, the more vitamin D can be created. If you practice sports twice a week for an hour, think about how much more vitamin D you could get into your system if you’d practice naked.

By the way… yes, here’s another fun fact… Since the 1930s, vitamin D is added to our food, especially to milk products. If people would spend more time with their naked asses in the sun, that wouldn’t be necessary.

And there’s more. Our body has a perfect system to regulate its temperature: sweating. When the heat goes up, your body spits out some liquid and you cool down again. Works perfect… unless you cover yourself with fabrics that absorb the sweat even before it can do anything. When you practice sports naked, not only won’t your body heat up easily because also the wind and the outside temperature will have a cooling effect, but when it gets too hot it will regulate its temperature by itself.

But there is a side note to this. For the Greeks it was easy, they have perfect temperatures for naked sports, here in Belgium on the other hand we do have to be a bit careful not to catch a cold.

Nude sports are more fun

We’re not Greek athletes, we don’t feel the need to show our… ahum… “muscular” bodies to the world and neither do we practice that intense that our body heat reaches dangerous heights. And vitamin D? Well that can also be absorbed while lying lazy on the beach too, right? So why do we like naked sports. Because it’s FUN!

Not being restricted by a sticky t-shirt, pants pulling in your ass or swollen feet in those tennis shoes is really an excitement on its own. And then there are the bouncy parts. Truth to be said, in the beginning they were a source of embarrassment but soon that made place for another feeling. Pure freedom. This body is who you are and feeling the different parts move from one side to the other is feeling how it’s supposed to move. No more clothes to keep everything in place. Let it all out!

Next to the feeling of freedom, this also causes more body awareness. When you see how your body moves and which muscles are used, you get better in positioning yourself, which actually makes you better in sports.

How cool is that?

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