Tuesday, April 8, 2014

The Multiple Health Benefits of Tennis



Tennis affords an opportunity to augment your fitness routine while bouncing your fitness level upwards. Changing the activities you participate in a few times a week can help in not only improving your health but also your skill level in sports.  Tennis is a well rounded sport that does much of the same thing as sprinting and coordination exercises but is much more fun.

I’m an advocate of using multiple sports and activities to improve health. Engaging exclusively in a single sport will use the same muscles repetitively can cause an injury. When a change in the activity occurs there is also a change in the type of muscles used, the skills learned, and ultimately the fitness level. Change produces healthy stress on the body and requires an adjustment in fitness to master that stress.

Tennis is a greater overall fitness sport that provides multiple benefits to health. According to Doctor Ralph Paffenbarger those who engage in tennis at least 3 times a week reduce their risk of death from nearly any cause by half (based on 10,000 people over 20 years)(1).  Tennis not only improves your health but also generates connections between nerves in the brain and therefore also promotes mental health (2).

If you’re seeking to lose weight tennis is a great sport for doing this with as much as 272 calories being burned in a half hour (3).  This puts tennis on the same level as swimming, sprinting, jogging, mountain climbing, biking, and other heavily involved cardiovascular activities. The greatest aspect of tennis is that it also encourages interest in fitness through healthy social engagement.

Tennis Maps is one way to help you find the type of tennis court you are looking for. They break their map into public/private access, backboard, lighting, center and indoor/outdoor.  This will help you find the right tennis court near your neighborhood for easy access and playing. Each of the locations can be clicked for a satellite map and additional information. 

Tennis Maps for San Diego

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