Tennis is the Most Beneficial Sport, According to Study

Whether it's baseball, cycling, swimming or running, participating in sports is a great way to burn calories and prevent disease. Most people fall short of achieving the weekly exercise as recommended by the American Heart Associates (AHA), and participating in sports is a great way to supplement these efforts.

But some sports offer more health benefits than others. In an effort to determine which sports offer the greatest health benefits, researchers from the U.K. conducted a study. For the study, researchers analyzed data from more than 80,000 adults over the age of 30, comparing their sports and physical activity to their health. Researchers found that participants who engaged in certain sports had a lower risk of early mortality, with the greatest benefits coming from tennis. 

According to the study, people who engaged in tennis had a 50% lower risk of early mortality when compared to their counterparts who did not engage in any sports. This doesn't necessarily mean that playing tennis is going to automatically cut your risk of death in half. Rather, the study suggests that playing tennis on a regular basis (several times per week) can protect against heart disease, more so than engaging in other sports.

"It is the first big scale population study to say ‘is participation in sport protective in terms of your long-term mortality?’The answer is yes, it does appear to be,” said the study's co-author.

Of course, other sports are still beneficial, just not to the degree of tennis. Dancing, for instance, offered a 27% lower risk of death, while swimming was linked to a 28% lower risk of death. The least beneficial sport, according to the study, was football, which offered little-to-no benefit.

Why is tennis such a beneficial sport? This is something that researchers were reluctant to answer. However, we can speculate that tennis is beneficial for several reasons, one of the most notable being its positive impact on heart health. Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, taking the lives of nearly 600,000 people each year. Cardio exercise, such as tennis, protects the heart from disease.

Even if tennis isn't your preferred sport, there are other ways to reap the benefits of a healthy lifestyle and protect against early mortality. Going for long walks or short runs, for instance, is something that we can all do. Swimming is another beneficial sport that can protect against disease and early mortality.