Playing a sport is one of the best ways to get fit and healthy. The desire to win and the chance to have fun makes any such pastime much more exciting than performing regular gym workouts.
If you want to get into a sport in order to improve your health, then you’re going to want to take those listed below into account. Ranging from the strenuous to the somewhat effortless, by playing any one of them you will stand to reap a host of benefits.
Here are the top seven sports you can play if boosting your health is your main goal:
- Squash
Many consider squash to be the very pinnacle of healthy sports, and for good reason. When you play this game you’ll become more flexible than you ever have been, which will allow you to partake in a wider range of health-boosting exercises. As a health-boosting exercise itself, squash will improve your cardiovascular health no end, thanks to all the dashing around you’d be forced into doing. This dashing to and from in order to win points will also see you burn a significant amount of calories—800 calories per hour, to be precise—and that’s always beneficial when seeking to get healthier.
- Rowing
Rowing is, like squash, another sport that veers toward the strenuous side of the tracks. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing if your goal is to get healthy, though. With a high cardio rate, as well as the fact that it boosts muscular endurance, this sport will see you improve your heart health like nothing else. As it is a low-key, non-contact sport, the chance of getting injured while you partake in a spot of rowing is incredibly low (just don’t fall overboard!).
- Swimming
You can, quite literally, dive head first into the water if swimming is your sport of choice, however. This incredibly popular aerobic sport, loved by millions, both young and old, the world over is great if you want to give your ticker a good workout. Going on long-distance swims will undoubtedly see you shed some pounds, too.
- Running
Running, specifically marathon and half-marathon running, is not just a sport that will see you improve your cardiovascular abilities, it will also see you increase your bone density. The health benefits of having strong bones can never be understated—the biggest benefit is that osteoporosis can be better avoided.
- Tennis
Tennis mimics its bat and ball cousin, squash, in many healthy ways. Through the vast amounts of mini-sprints and the number of technical moves that are performed during each game (let alone during each match), when you play tennis, your heart health will be bettered immeasurably. You’ll stand to lose a great number of calories, too. New balls, please!
- Golf
For a game that doesn’t involve any sprinting (unless you are sprinting away from stray balls), golf is a surprisingly healthy sport to play, especially for the elderly. When you play this game on an average golf course, you will find yourself walking between five to seven kilometers. That’s a lot,especially if you don’t do any walking in your day-to-day life, and will certainly see you get your optimal heart endurance exercise.
If golf, with its host of health benefits and little physical exertion, sounds like the perfect sport for you,then get yourself some innovative golf irons, buy some balls, get yourself signed up at your local course, and give it a go. Just, whatever you do, don’t be tempted to sink too many drinks in the clubhouse after your round. If you do, you’ll just put all those calories that you burned off walking around the course back on.
- Gymnastics
To be completely healthy, you have to be in top condition both physically and mentally. One sport that will help you to improve both of these all-important aspects of your overall health is gymnastics. By embracing this sport, you’ll not improve your flexibility and get yourself in great shape, but you’ll else put your mental capabilities to the test. You’ll boost your concentration kills no end through the way you’ll have to focus on doing the right things at the right time to not only succeed with the sport, but remain safe when you take part in it. You’ll also better your ability to solve problems, especially those that occur out of the blue.
If you’re tired of the doing the same old fitness routine in the same old gym, why not give one of the health-boosting sports listed above a go? When you do, you’ll never get bored.
Mia Guerra
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