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The workout can be intense, but you can get a lot from playing a few rounds of tennis.
Tennis is a physically demanding sport and that should be clear to anyone who observes a game, whether it’s professional or otherwise. From the constant movement, split-second decision making, and raw power needed to serve, it’s a real full body workout.
Of course, putting yourself through the paces like that comes with a number of physical benefits. So if you’ve been looking for a surefire way to get you in shape, here’s five reasons why tennis should be your next sport of choice.
Weight Loss
This one’s the most obvious benefit to playing tennis. Considering the constant running, pivoting, and stretching you’re doing while playing a game, you can lose a lot of calories in a short amount of time.
A study made by Harvard shows that playing tennis can burn around 200-300 calories in 30 minutes. Stretch that out in longer sets and you’ll be cutting your weight down in no time.
Heart Disease Prevention
Playing a sport that keeps you this active also means that your heart is getting an intense workout. Sprints, lunges, and all the sudden bursts of movement in tennis are great at strengthening your heart muscles, making it able to pump blood more efficiently.
This increase in aerobic activity helps prevent stroke, hypertension, and other cardiovascular issues. Not only that, strengthening your heart rate reduces cholesterol and even aids with muscle growth.
Agility and Flexibility
All the moving around you’re doing here will naturally make you more agile and improve your motor skills. Those pivots and stretching you see top athletes do are no joke and you’ll be doing them constantly in a game of tennis.
You make full use of your entire body when playing tennis. From hand-eye coordination to balanced legwork, you’ll find yourself becoming more dextrous the more you play.
Quick Thinking and Reactions
It’s not just your physical strength that’s getting worked on when you play but your mental strength as well. Tennis promotes alertness and tactical thinking as keeping up with a small, fast moving ball and quickly deciding what to do afterwards can really stretch your brain’s capabilities. And just like when you’re strengthening your muscles, new neural connections are made when you really get your brain working.
The Ultimate Stress Reliever
This one’s a bit nebulous but it’s been proven that high intensity workouts lead to the release of positive endorphins. This in turn leads to the development of positive personality traits and higher self-esteem while lowering anxiety.
All that is to say that tennis is a great stress reliever as it pushes your capabilities to their limit. Plus, there’s nothing better than playing a few sets to unwind and take your mind off of things.
Images from Magnific
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