Social Sweat Outsmarts Solo Workouts?

A 25-year study of 8,577 people found that tennis players lived nearly a decade longer than people who did nothing — and the reason why might surprise you.

Quick Take

The Copenhagen City Heart Study found tennis players gained 9.7 years of life expectancy compared to sedentary people.
Sports with social interaction — tennis, badminton, soccer — beat solo gym workouts by a wide margin in longevity gains.
Tennis mimics high-intensity interval training, giving your heart and body an efficient workout in short bursts.
The study is observational, so researchers cannot confirm tennis directly causes longer life — but the evidence is hard to ignore.

The Study That Stopped the Fitness World Cold

Researchers in Denmark tracked 8,577 adults for 25 years. They measured how long people lived based on what sport they played in their free time. The results, published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings in 2018, were not subtle. Tennis players outlived sedentary people by 9.7 years on average. That gap is larger than the benefit seen from running, cycling, swimming, or going to the gym. Health club activity added just 1.5 years. Tennis added nearly ten.

A separate British study of more than 80,000 adults in England and Scotland backed this up. Racket sport players had a 47% lower risk of dying from any cause and a 56% lower risk of dying from heart disease. Those are enormous numbers. For context, quitting smoking does not always move the needle that far. Something about picking up a racket appears to matter — a lot.

Why Tennis Works Better Than a Treadmill

Dr. Ed Laskowski, co-director of Mayo Clinic Sports Medicine, explained it simply. Tennis is built like high-intensity interval training — about 30 seconds of intense sprinting and swinging, followed by a rest period, repeated for an hour or more. That pattern is one of the most efficient ways to train your heart and lungs. You get a serious cardiovascular workout without even thinking about it. You are too busy trying to return the ball.

The brain gets a workout too. Every point in tennis demands fast decisions — where to move, how to hit, where your opponent is going next. A 2020 study published in The Lancet linked racket sports to slower cognitive aging and a lower risk of dementia. The rapid decision-making required in tennis may keep the brain sharp in ways that walking on a treadmill simply cannot match.

The Social Factor Science Cannot Ignore

Here is where it gets interesting. The Copenhagen City Heart Study did not just rank tennis at the top. It found a clear pattern: sports that force you to interact with other people produced the biggest longevity gains. Tennis requires a partner. It creates conversation before, during, and after the match. It builds friendships over years and decades. The Harvard Study of Adult Development — one of the longest studies of human happiness ever conducted — found that quality relationships are the strongest predictor of a long life. Tennis delivers both the exercise and the relationships in one package.

Henry Young, an Australian man recognized by Guinness World Records as the oldest competitive tennis player, has played since 1976 and still competed internationally at age 102 in 2025. You can dismiss that as one data point. But it fits the pattern perfectly. Tennis is a sport you can play well into old age, with friends, outdoors, under pressure — all things that appear to keep the body and mind running longer.

The Bottom Line for Anyone Over 40

You do not need to be a ranked player. You do not need to serve like a professional. You need a court, a partner, and a willingness to show up. The evidence says that combination — movement, competition, friendship, and strategy — may be one of the most powerful longevity tools available. And unlike most prescriptions, this one is actually fun to take.