{"id":237789,"date":"2025-07-04T16:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T16:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/237789\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T16:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T16:00:15","slug":"this-may-be-the-best-sport-for-longevity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/237789\/","title":{"rendered":"This May Be The Best Sport For Longevity"},"content":{"rendered":"

It doesn\u2019t matter what you do \u2013 study<\/a> after study<\/a> shows that any amount of activity is far, far better than none<\/a> for your physical and mental health. <\/p>\n

But once you\u2019ve committed to a solid workout routine, you might start to wonder whether your plan is the most efficient one. <\/p>\n

Strength training<\/a> is touted as a bone-protecting habit that\u2019ll save you from frailty in older age; while cardio, such as running, is linked to better, not worse<\/a>, joints, and improved heart and lung health<\/a>. <\/p>\n

And a 2018 Danish study<\/a> found one of the best individual sports might be the season\u2019s trendiest: tennis. <\/p>\n

Tennis has been linked to 9.7 extra years of life <\/strong><\/p>\n

In the paper, scientists followed 8,577 Danish residents aged 20-93 from 1991 to 2017. Participants were all part of the Copenhagen City Heart Study (CCHS), a population study which gave people detailed questionnaires about their activity levels. <\/p>\n

Researchers wanted to \u201cevaluate the differential improvements in life expectancy associated with participation in various sports\u201d. They found that regular tennis players lived 9.7 years longer than those who didn\u2019t work out at all.<\/p>\n

They also outperformed other sports like badminton (linked to 6.2 years of added longevity), football (4.7 years), cycling (3.7 years), swimming (3.4 years), jogging (3.2 years), and callisthenics (3.1 years).<\/p>\n

Among the participants studied, those doing \u201chealth club activities\u201d \u2013 like running on the treadmill, using a stair master or cross-trainer, and cycling on a stationary bike \u2013 were only linked to 1.5 extra years. <\/p>\n

Does that mean tennis is definitely the only sport I should do?<\/strong><\/p>\n

No \u2013 as the scientists themselves note, \u201cbecause this is an observational study, it remains uncertain whether this relationship is causal\u201d.<\/p>\n

The benefits of strength<\/a> training are very well-established, too.<\/p>\n

But the researchers did find that the social aspect of tennis may have had benefits for players, which other experts have also suggested<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A 2019 study<\/a> found that tennis players had better grip strength, linked to increased longevity<\/a>; a British Medical Journal paper<\/a> linked playing racket sports like tennis, badminton, and squash to a 47% lower chance of all-cause mortality (higher than swimmers, cyclists, and those who did aerobics). <\/p>\n

I reckon I need to take up a new sport this Wimbledon season…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It doesn\u2019t matter what you do \u2013 study after study shows that any amount of activity is far,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1630,105,4716,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-237789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-longevity","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114795803496944689","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}