Tennis For Fitness Your Next Calorie Burning No Joke Workout

Tennis may have a snooty, highfalutin, pinkies out, aristocratic reputation associated with it, but the reality is that when it comes to workouts, it's a heart-pumping exercise that'll sculpt you a sleek lean physique in no time. While it is easy to understand where the high society stigma comes from, tennis is a sport that is meant to be enjoyed by all, regardless of your social class. Hit the court, I encourage it, because I doubt you'll consider tennis a grueling workout when you are hitting the courts for fun.

First, let's start by discussing what causes a person to lose weight. In order to encourage weight loss you need to create a calorie deficit. What that amounts to, is eating fewer calories than what you burn. Incorporating any physical activity, such as tennis, into your daily routine can be a powerful and effective way to lose weight, and it grants you the pleasure of an activity you enjoy partaking in. Weight loss amounts to a simple equation: calories you take in minus the calories you burn. In order to achieve weight loss you need to eat less calories and burn more.

While playing doubles is a ton of fun, playing singles actually turns your body into a high calorie-burning machine. That is because you are controlling your half of the court. In order to keep the ball from going out of bounds you are going to have to hustle. The constant motion is what triggers the calorie burn. Playing tennis is a fun, calorie blaster, and it is easy to forget that what you do for pleasure can account for a significant amount of exercise in your day, but you still need to remember to eat a healthy well balanced diet for measurable improvements in weight loss.

Let's get into the nitty-gritty of how tennis turns you into a calorie burning furnace. When you play a game of tennis, in order to catch the ball and smack it back to your opponent, it requires a person to do sprints across half a court, back and forth, side to side, over and over again, through the duration of the game, all while you swing your arms with a reasonable amount of force to hit the ball back to your opposer. So basically, it's a high-intensity interval session, and according to reports, it's an activity that will help you fry upwards of 600 calories in an hour. The key to burning calories is in the intensity of the activity you are doing and the amount of time spent doing the exercise. The best way to figure out if you are blasting calories: pay attention to how much you move while chasing the ball, and launching shots at your opponent, the harder you are working the more weight you will lose while playing the game.

Keeping your body in the ready position - this position occurs when your legs are spread wide, with your knees bent, torso in straight alignment (envision the squat position) - forces your entire midsection to work hard to maintain this posture. Plus, every time you twist and swing, all of your core, but most especially those oblique muscles, get a healthy dose of action. See-ya later, crunches! When it comes to targeting the midsection a game of tennis is all you need.

Those who devote themselves to regular games of tennis have a decreased risk for heart disease more so than those who devote themselves to team sports such as baseball or basketball per research from Tom Hopkins. (Theory: Tennis is a lifelong activity.) There have been numerous studies that have concluded that playing a friendly game of tennis for just 30 minutes three times a week improved physical endurance in previously sedentary people.

Pound the pavement in a good way because it has been proven that regular movement on harder surfaces help prevent osteoporosis by building stronger bones. People who engage in regular games of tennis tend to have higher bone density than those who don't, especially in their hips and spine, according to several studies.

Outside of burning a ridiculous amount of calories, tennis helps improve hand-eye coordination and develops your quick reflex muscles. In addition, being in constant stop and go motion helps to develop your body for other sports and fitness resolutions. Tennis builds strong, lean muscles while it obliterates fat, and everyone knows, the more lean muscle you have the more fat you burn. Basically, tennis turns you into a fat burning furnace, even when you are enjoying life far away from the courts.

The common suggestion for optimizing health benefits and achieving weight loss goals is that individuals should strive for thirty minutes of activity every day, and while playing a game of tennis every day may be an unattainable task, working in three to four days of this heart-pounding activity will help you achieve your weight loss goals. But, like all weight loss programs, what you eat is just as important as what you do to lose weight.