6 Reasons to Play Tennis
Many people around the world enjoy playing tennis. You can take it to a competitive level or simply enjoy it in your leisure time with friends and family. Tennis boasts benefits for your mind and body. Let’s take a closer look at the reasons and benefits of playing tennis.
As you probably already know, in tennis, players use a racket to hit the ball over a net to the other side of the court. Tennis courts can be made of various materials and the games can be singles or doubles. In any case, it’s a challenging sport that requires tactic. It requires bursts of speed, in addition to strong muscles and endurance.
Sometimes tennis players suffer injuries that occur from repetitive movements. Thus, the correct technique and respecting your physical limits are essential for preventing injuries.
On top of it all, tennis is a great way to keep healthy and to stay strong and agile. Read about the benefits it offers today!
What are the benefits of playing tennis?
1. Muscles
Unlike other sports, tennis is a great muscle-building workout. It keeps the cardiovascular system and muscles in great shape.
Adding on to this, the sport builds muscle mass in diverse muscle groups such as the thighs, legs, shoulders, arms, and abs. Not to mention that it also combines intense workouts for the legs, arms and upper body.
2. Tennis provides a mental workout
As with other confrontational sports, tennis also gives players a mental workout. In order to face opponents, players need to control their emotions despite difficult situations. Thus, tennis players often enjoy a healthy level of self-confidence and control over their feelings, which helps improve their game.
The sport also helps instate a stronger sense of discipline, which is crucial for mastering patience, time and dedication.
3. Weight loss: one of the best benefits of tennis
As it’s an all-body workout, you can burn many calories on the court because you’re constantly on the run. Balls can only bounce one time on the floor, which means players have to run to hit it before it’s too late. And that translates into guaranteed weight loss.
The intensity also puts the heart to the test, which helps improve endurance and cardiovascular health.
4. Improves concentration
Players need a high level of concentration to move around the court, hit and receive the ball. Concentration is actually one of the key aspects that sets apart great tennis players from the rest.
5. Endurance
Playing on the court increases oxygen intake, stimulates heart rate in addition to helping the blood carry oxygen and nutrients to all the muscles. The quick movements pick up heart rate and enhance energy levels.
6. Hones coordination, another big benefit of tennis
Tennis is one of the best sports for improving hand-eye coordination. When your body plays, your brain is fixed on each and every movement, analyzing new situations and trajectories.
The more you play, the better your fine motor skills will be for hitting balls as well as measuring the distance and coordination of your movements.
All in all, tennis boasts an incredible amount of benefits. You can play at any age as long as you take the right preventative measures to avoid serious injuries.
Don’t forget to start off with a good warm-up in addition to hydrating during your match or practice. What are you waiting for? Go out and get those amazing benefits!
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
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- Kovacs, M. S. (2006, May). Applied physiology of tennis performance. British Journal of Sports Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2005.023309
- Pluim, B. M., & Staal, J. B. (2009). Tennis. In The Encyclopaedia of Sports Medicine: An IOC Medical Commission Publication, Epidemiology of Injury in Olympic Sports (pp. 277–293). Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444316872.ch21
- Fernandez, J., Mendez-Villanueva, A., & Pluim, B. M. (2006, May). Intensity of tennis match play. British Journal of Sports Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2005.023168