Here’s Exactly How Playing Tennis Improves Your Health
Why should you play tennis? What do you stand to gain? In this post, you’ll learn about the health benefits of playing tennis.
Tennis is a popular game, suitable for all, regardless of age or gender.
Playing tennis involves putting in a lot of physical and mental abilities. And it offers quite a wide range of health benefits.
It’s not surprising that in the US alone, about 17.68 million people participate in the sport.
Let’s dive in and look at exactly how playing tennis improves your health.
1. You’ll develop your cardiovascular health
Tennis involves different activities, such as jumping, running, smashing, and more.
The activities are considered aerobic workouts which will help strengthen your heart and increase your heart rate.
One study shows that professional tennis players have increased heart size and increased performance capacity regardless of their gender or age group.
Playing tennis is more beneficial in your mid-life.
There is always an increased blood flow throughout the body when your heart rate rises and your breathing becomes deeper and faster.
When playing tennis, your heart constantly beats, allowing you to examine your heart fitness.
Playing tennis reduces the risk of a decline in your fitness level as you grow old.
2. You’ll burn excess calories and body fat
Tennis can be a real workout with a competent opponent, and this is one of the key health benefits if you want to stay in shape.
A series of running, swinging, reaching, and dribbling activities can be a real workout exercise that helps you burn excess calories and body fat.
It is quite easy to burn more calories as you are constantly in motion.
According to research, veteran tennis players have significantly lesser amounts of body fat than other men of the same age group who do not play tennis.
People who partake in playing tennis have a higher tendency to burn more calories than those who partake in other sporting activities such as dancing, running, weightlifting, golfing, or even playing baseball.
3. You’ll become more alert
Tennis enables you to develop the ability to think fast within split seconds and create lasting solutions to problems as they occur.
Tennis requires mental alertness and tactical thinking at all times.
Being a tennis player, you must be creative with your brain and tactical with your thinking.
Tennis feeds your brain with the ability to improve your creative thinking, mental alertness, and tactical thinking.
The more you play tennis, the better and stronger your brainpower gets.
Study shows that tennis enhances mental toughness in youth players.
Tennis gets your senses fired up with a faster and clearer vision, sound hearing, and touch recognition.
4. You’ll get a full body workout
Tennis is an all-in game; it puts the whole body in motion. It is a brilliant workout exercise that requires you to use your whole body parts.
The lower body part is used to stop and start, running, jumping, and crouching.
Whether using a single hand or both hands, hitting the tennis ball shows that your upper body part does its part in the exercise too, particularly the shoulder and the upper back.
5. You’ll become more flexible and balanced
Tennis requires eye-hand coordination. The eye will send signals to every part of the body.
The eye provides you with a distinct vision as it is always on the ball.
On the other hand, the feet get you in the right position for the incoming ball while the arms and hands position the racket to help you hit the ball.
The torso and legs provide you with the power to send the ball over the middle net to the opponent’s corner.
All sections of the bodywork together each time you play tennis.
Each successful shot takes flexibility, balance, and overall body coordination.
Body flexibility allows you to make sleek movements and gives access to a wide range of motion.
Tennis playing enables you to exhibit improved balancing skills, flexible movements, enhanced agility, improved vision, and cognitive functioning.
All of these help you reduce muscle strain and prevent injuries of any kind during the game or in your day-to-day life.
Related: Balance Workout Benefits Your Body in These 5 Specific Ways
6. You’ll improve bone and muscle development
Continuous playing of tennis helps with the development of the bones and muscles in your body.
Playing tennis helps you to increase the chances of having healthier bones and become much stronger.
These exercise routines help to lubricate your joints and strengthen your muscles and tendons as well.
According to research, facts have been established that tennis players display enhanced overall condition when subjected to measures of muscular fatigue during handgrip and knee extension.
But here’s where it gets even more interesting.
There is a possibility of shifts in muscle activation patterns. These activations are a result of a speed-accuracy trade-off during strenuous tennis play sessions.
This possibly contributed to the greater neuromuscular adaptations in the body.
Activities involve in tennis will significantly contribute to building up strength, endurance, and stress management both in the upper and lower body parts.
7. You’re likely to make positive lifestyle choices
Most times, when playing tennis, you are faced with life lessons that come in different forms.
For example, there are some foods that a tennis player must stay away from to keep them healthy.
Tennis players often take to a healthy diet and a discrete choice of a lifestyle.
All these will be learned as you continuously get involved in the game and add it to your routine.
It also helps you to build a competitive mentality and a winning mindset.
8. You’ll boost your body’s immunity
One of the health benefits of playing tennis is its impact on immunity.
Tennis is a game that has abundant medical advantages. A moderate amount of exercise often fosters good health.
Exercise improves the immune system cells in the body and also increases its efficiency.
Tennis is a game that requires mental and physical capabilities.
It is the perfect exercise choice that gives the body’s immune system the boost needed to deliver efficiently.
Tennis players are known to eat nutritious foods, practice proper hydration patterns, prioritize resting periods, and sleep for at least 8 hours daily.
All these practices help to strengthen the body’s immunity system hence fighting off every form of illness.
A study in American Lifestyle Medicine Journal reviewed how moderate exercise improves immunity and decreases illness rates.
The findings showed that moderate exercise training causes favorable changes in the body’s immunity system.
It also causes significant reductions in the risk of an upper-respiratory illness (URI).
9. You’ll improve your social skills
Your ability to socialize yourself with another person (your opponent) is another major benefit of playing tennis.
And here’s the thing: you cannot play tennis alone. You have to play with somebody, an opponent.
Tennis helps you attain a high degree of socialization. It facilitates interaction with different players from different walks of life.
It is a great way to meet new people, old or young, and share ideas and interests.
Also, tennis teaches you self-discipline. It helps you gain mastery of certain personal qualities such as patience, time utilization, and dedication.
It takes a lot of practice and dedication to get better at playing tennis.
10. You’ll improve your concentration level
Your concentration level gets heightened when you constantly partake in a game like a tennis.
While continuously playing tennis, your concentration level increases. Also, you can solve problems as they occur and reveals your perseverance level.
Study shows that playing tennis has significant impacts on players’ concentration.
You can use better concentration level from playing tennis in other aspects of your life too.
It can help you plan activities, learn new things, or even help you engage in other types of sporting activities.
Takeaway
Playing tennis is fun, and there is no doubt it is one of the best choices of exercises for both genders of all age groups.
Continuous engagement comes with a wide array of advantages.
These health benefits of tennis can be physical or psychological. It is indeed a great activity to add to your routine.
