There are many reasons why a family thinks about getting a ping pong table, or a school or community center considers putting it in the recreation center or gym. Scattered among the many reasons for competitive spirit and tournament joy are the health benefits. When it comes to playing ping pong, the health benefits are numerous. Adding ping pong to your life or to the life of a child makes them healthier in many ways.
There are gross and fine motor skills that get developed, and a myriad of researchers and studies indicate that the brain benefits as well. Add some social love and joy to a child’s life with ping pong, and they experience even more benefits.
Playing ping pong offers numerous benefits for kids, from improving hand-eye coordination to enhancing focus; if you’re considering getting a table for your home, check out this comprehensive review of table tennis tables to make an informed choice.
Learn more about the health benefits for kids while playing ping pong if you are thinking of adding a ping pong table to your home or recreation center.
Help a Child Grow
Ping pong is a cardiovascular activity that has a child moving back and forth constantly. One is always in motion when playing the game. Every bone and muscle in the body is moving when a child plays ping pong.
As bones and muscles are being worked, they contract and lengthen with every move. This is going to stimulate growth in children and help them to become stronger physically.
Ping pong is also easy on the joints. As much as it is fast-moving, it is also a lighter load on the knees, back, and hips. Additionally, table tennis burns energy and calories, and this makes for better sleep at night.
During sleep, cell division occurs to promote healing in worked muscles and any wounded areas. The result is physical growth and a healthy height and weight balance. Ping pong contributes to children’s growth.
Improve Cardiovascular Function
Most experts would agree that an adult of average height and weight can burn as much as 275 calories per hour in ping pong, and that can be the same rate of calorie burning as an hour on the treadmill. This is a sport that promotes cardiovascular function in children, as it gets the heart moving and it promotes circulation.
At the same time, children can sweat it out very easily in the game. Ping pong is an exercise, plain and simple. Any child that does this activity a lot is going to be healthier.
Develop Gross and Fine Motor Skills
Along with growing, ping pong helps to develop the gross and fine motor skills that children use strong bones for. For fine motor skills, their hands and wrist action are developed as they practice and get better in the game.
For gross motor skills, the constant jumping back and forth keeps the muscles and bones active to promote growth.
This helps with cell memory, which contributes to the development of gross and fine motor skills. Our bodies just remember that we are supposed to do certain things, and when that task is well practiced, it becomes a rote memory and stronger gross and fine motor skills.
Practice Eye-Hand Coordination and Reflexes
The entire game of ping pong hinges on a good hand and eye coordination. This involves brain work, fine or small motor skills, and the gift of a good reflex.
Practicing this game and playing it a lot helps a child improve these reflexes and skills. This is not just the development of talent, but the development of better health. Improve reflexes are a brain function as much as they are a physiological function.
Foster Stronger Balance
The sport of ping pong uses both sides of the brain and both sides of the body, and this is a complex system working all at once. When that happens regularly, a child will naturally develop stronger balance in their entire system. This game will have them hopping.
Its ergonomics make it impossible to lose out on this benefit. Here they have both biology and energy systems in the environment around them forcing them to foster a stronger balance system. This is a health benefit that happens naturally without them even realizing it.
Nurture Healthy Brains
It can’t be said enough that ping pong is good for the brain. There are again, numerous studies and experts that call table tennis the best sport in the world to improve brain function or encourage healthy brain activity.
This exercise has the brain working to perform both mental and physical tasks at the same time. A player needs to keep their concentration focused, and they also need to have a play-by-play strategy. This is a game that gets children thinking, and when that is paired with cardio activity, the health benefits are exponential.
Stimulate Long-Term Memory
In addition to promoting cell memory for positive growth and strength in gross and fine motor muscles, ping pong stimulates long-term memory. A wide body of research is consistent with this.
Many Alzheimer’s publications will even recommend ping pong as an activity that stimulates long-term memory. Having a child play ping pong helps them to develop this critical skill, and keep it strong for other activities in life.
Encourage Social Skills With Ping Pong
There are many different physical and mental health benefits of playing ping pong, but there is also the benefit of good social skill development. This is a health benefit because good social skills contribute to overall health for both mental health and physical health.
When you have a ping pong table in the center of the room, children can’t resist the temptation to get up and get playing with each other. This teaches them sportsmanship, leadership, and how to get along with another player and their strategy.
The more opponents they are exposed to, the greater their social skills will be.
When it comes to ping pong, there are very few if any risks and the risks will be based on the individual. And ping pong is fun! If it is fun the kids will do it more. They will gethealthier socially, physically, and mentally when they do.