Millions of people play table tennis, also known as ping pong. The sport is popular around the world, and with good reason. It offers entertainment, good cardiovascular exercise and health benefits to players of different ages and fitness levels. The risk of injury is low and the intensity is manageable for most people. If you play table tennis to lose weight, you can avail of several social, mental and health benefits. Considering the fact that the sport is entertaining and addictive, it can be a fun and easy way to burn calories. While the calorie exemption is lower than in singles tennis, the risk of injury and falls is also significantly lower. A high-speed game of table tennis can burn 270 calories in a 150 pound person and improve your concentration and reflexes. It also helps your cardiovascular system and improves your overall fitness level. Whether you play in the community center or at home with friends, table tennis offers a great way to bond with other people while you lose weight.

Because young and old people can play the game, it can help improve communication and build relationships, irrespective of age. Playing at home with siblings or parents can bring family members closer and enable them to spend more quality time with each other. Table tennis improves reflex, eye-hand co-ordination, mental alertness and speed of movement. It also improves balance and lowers the chances of falls and injuries, especially among older people. Table tennis can slow the process of cognitive decline that occurs with aging.Whether you’re playing doubles or singles, table tennis, or ping pong, can be a fast-paced competitive sport. In fact, when played at an intense rate, it can be a great way to burn calories and get fit. Here are the Top 10 Health Benefits of Ping Pong: Playing improves hand-eye coordination and it stimulates mental alertness, concentration and tactical strategy. This makes it the perfect game for young people to sharpen reflexes, and for older people to refine tactics.

The speed, spin and placement of the ball are crucial in table tennis, and practiced players are highly skilled in both creating and solving puzzles involving these three attributes.Due to the fast-paced, short-distance nature of the sport, both gross and fine muscle movements are improved. The game is distinguished by bursts of exertion and recovery, leading to fast-twitch muscle development.Puppies For Sale Eastern Pa It’s easy on the joints. Software As A Service Architecture GuidanceHave you had knee surgery, back problems, tired of twisting your ankles? Big Sky Conference T ShirtIt’s a great way to improve your leg, arm and core strength without overtaxing your joints.A 150-pound person can burn 272 calories by playing table tennis for an hour.

Considering the fact that the sport is entertaining and addictive, it can be a fun and easy way to burn calories. Offers a social outlet. Keeps your brain sharp. Alzheimer’s Weekly reports a clear increase in motor skills and cognitive awareness from playing table tennis, after a series of preliminary clinical studies in Japan found that table tennis markedly increases the flow of blood to the brain, and could possibly even prevent dementia.Following the ping pong ball as it moves quickly toward you, and following its trajectory as your opponent hits it helps improve hand-eye coordination.Staying balanced and being able to quickly change direction are key to being successful in a ping pong rally. This is especially important for the elderly. Stimulates various different parts of the brain. By anticipating an opponent’s shot, a player uses the prefrontal cortex for strategic planning. The aerobic exercise from the physical activity of the game stimulates the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is responsible for allowing us to form and retain long-term facts and events.

To see more of our Top 10 lists, click here. Health Fitness Revolution by Samir Becic Foundation is a 501(c)3 organization, to make the world a healthier, fitter place, please donate!Millions of people have lost weight using MyFitnessPal, the world's largest nutritional database & easiest calorie counter — get it now, completely FREE! studies show that diet journals are essential for weight loss. - over 2,000,000 entries - calories, fat, protein, carbs, sugar, fiber, cholesterol and more Sync with our free iPhone, Android and Blackberry apps - "I would shop for the most forgiving clothes possible and sometimes skip events because I didn't feel comfortable in anything I had to wear." "Thanks to MyFitnessPal, I've rolled back 26 years of weight gain and discovered a life I thought was gone forever." "I can honestly say that finding this website has been the best thing to happen to me in my life..." Read more success stories Calories Burned From Table Tennis, Ping Pong

To see how many calories you burned from this exercise, enter your weight and time performed below Search our exercise database by name: Running (jogging), 6 mph (10 min mile) Stationary bike, moderate effort (bicycling, cycli... Walking, carrying infant or 15 Music playing, piano, organ, violin, trumpetWhen you think of a table tennis player, do you envision someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Terminator” or more like Tom Hanks in “Forrest Gump”? There’s a reason why someone with big muscles doesn’t come to mind — and that’s because “if you have really big muscles as a table tennis player, it actually slows you down,” revealed 2012 Olympic table tennis player Timothy Wang. But that doesn’t mean these athletes don’t work out. So we asked Timothy and his U.S. teammate, 2008 Olympic table tennis player Chen Wang to share their exercise routines. You might be surprised to see how much they vary, yet both are very much key in helping them stay fit for their sport.

Timothy — who was the first (and only) table tennis player to join his athlete performance gym in Atlanta, which sees mostly professional baseball and football players — admitted the reason they don’t see more is “because there aren’t that many full-time table tennis players in the U.S. There are a few more now, but it’s still very rare,” he said. “So they were a little bit surprised when they heard what I did.” Despite being unfamiliar territory, he said his trainer, former NFL player Corey Bridges, spent time learning what it takes to work with a table tennis player. “He went online and looked at some of my videos,” Timothy remembered. “It takes a lot of communication to figure out what’s necessary for me because he’s never worked with a table tennis player before.” Another person who had to brush up on their table tennis was Chen, who had retired from the sport after the Beijing Olympics in 2008. But seven years later she decided to return to table tennis and credited her trainer for her comeback.

“Yu Tian Wang is a very important person for me this time,” she said. “If he was not here, I could not train. Because before he came to my club, I didn’t have anybody to train with.” Chen practices table tennis with Yu five days a week. “He is like the top-10 player in the country,” she said. “So he is a very good practice partner and he has brought my level up for competing.” Though when it comes to exercising, she mostly works out by herself at a local gym near where she lives in New York City (with her 4-year-old son, her reason for retiring). How often do you work out? Timothy: On the table, I train about five hours a day, seven days a week, year-round. But I work out with my trainer at the gym for another hour and a half to two hours, every other day. Chen: Usually I go to the gym two times a week, and I work out for two hours. Since I haven’t played table tennis for seven years, the first thing I did to get back in shape was physical training to build my muscle and lose weight.

What does your workout look like? Timothy: My trainer has me do a little bit of everything, but mostly cardio with some weights added. I also do free weights because my trainer doesn’t really believe in using machines.  We’ve been working a lot on stability and balance, lunges with weights or side-to-side movements with a medicine ball. Every workout is different, and it always challenges me until I can’t walk anymore. Chen: I do one hour on the machines working my arms and legs, and the second hour I ride the bicycle. The bicycle is my main exercise — it helps build my leg muscle. I swim sometimes, too. I also lie down on the mat and focus on my stomach and back muscles. Because I had back pain before, and when my back hurt I couldn’t do anything. So now I do a lot of sit-ups. Is it more important to work on your arms or legs? Timothy: I focus on my legs maybe a little bit more, because for table tennis you have to be in a really good position to get the most out of a shot.

So footwork is really important. And since stability comes from the legs and the core we work on those areas a lot — that means lots of deadlifts and plyometrics. Chen: Because in table tennis you have to move from right to left a lot, the muscles start to hurt when you squat like that. So I do a lot of machines that help build the upper leg muscles. What do you do for your arms? Timothy: A lot of shoulder work — because in table tennis you always have to keep your arms up and ready. So we do a lot of movements with medicine balls. For example, the trainer is throwing a medicine ball at me on either side and I’m moving side to side while turning and exploding the ball back to the trainer. Do you practice yoga or any other forms of exercise? Timothy: Actually my trainer has been doing a lot of things very similar to yoga with me. We’ll do stretches that have movements very similar to yoga but we’ll use a little bit of weight, like maybe 10 pounds, too.