Anyone watching the grueling U.S. Open men’s final tennis match last Sunday between Novak Djokovic and Daniil Medvedev will attest to the players’ elite fitness and endurance levels. The second set alone lasted a sweat-inducing full hour and 44 minutes. But experts say that tennis may be more than a physically challenging sport. It could be the best choice for living a longer, healthier life.
Researchers followed 20,000 people in Denmark for 25 years, and found that compared to a sedentary lifestyle, playing tennis lengthened life expectancy by 9.7 years, says Forbes.
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The study also examined tennis, badminton, soccer, jogging, cycling, calisthenics, swimming, and health club activities that included using treadmills, ellipticals and weights. Their results showed the increased life expectancy of the sports as follows:
• Tennis: 9.7 years gain in life expectancy.
• Badminton: 6.2 years.
• Soccer: 4.7 years.
• Cycling: 3.7 years.
• Swimming: 3.4 years
• Jogging: 3.2 years
• Calisthenics: 3.1 years
• Health club activities: 1.5 years
The authors said they didn’t expect to see tennis at the top of the list. “Surprisingly, we found that tennis players had the longest expected lifetimes among the eight sports,” they wrote, explaining that “belonging to a group that meets regularly promotes a sense of support, trust, and commonality, which has been shown to contribute to a sense of well-being and improved long-term health.”
The authors of the study also noted that it could also be the repeated, short bursts of higher intensity exercise that may be superior to continuous moderate intense physical activity for improving health outcomes.
According to the Mayo Clinic, while exercise is the best medicine and the closest thing to the fountain of youth, the Denmark study proved that some sports are superior to others when it comes to life extension.
“The study actually found that team sports, the sports where you had some social connectivity, actually produced a greater longevity than those individual sports,” said Dr. Ed Laskowski, co-director of Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine.
But even among social sports, racket sports like tennis seem to extend life the longest. Laskowski believes it is the interval training that offers the most benefit.
“If you’re playing a point, you may have 30 seconds of very intense activity followed by a recovery period,” he says. “So, we’re finding that that type of activity is very efficient at training the body, and a lot of times those short bouts of more intense activity produce greater efficiency and actually a greater training benefit.”
But the expert says that if running or swimming are your favorite forms of exercise stick with it, and you will still live longer. But if you want more bang for your lifespan buck, pick up a racket and head to the courts.