Can Ping Pong Be Considered Exercise?

SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (WJBK) - There's perspiration, determination, fancy footwork and a little aggravation. Some passionate players meet several times a week to prove their ping pong prowess and it gets physical.

Al Fung says the better his ping pong, the better his heart health.

"After playing it for a year or so, my cholesterol level goes down, the sugar level goes down, the blood pressure goes down," he explained.

So, could what used to be a British parlor game really give you a good workout? We went to the experts to find out.

Exercise physiologists at Beaumont Hospital put ping pong to the test.

The name of the study is ridiculously long, but here's how it worked. Cardiac patients -- average age 67 -- wore monitors to see if bouncing that little ball across the net triggered a safe, aerobic response.

"What we found was, with the population that we were looking at with their fitness capacities, they did trigger an aerobic or exercise response," explained Roger Sacks, M.S.

So, ping pong is a form of exercise?

"Absolutely," he said.

The ping pong study shows, on a cardiovascular level, regular ping pong play was equivalent to walking at about three miles an hour on a flat treadmill. Of course, the harder you play, the more calories you'll burn, and just like the spin on a good serve, the benefits don't stop.

"It requires not only a little bit of fitness, even minimal at that, but balance, coordination, flexibility, which are all beneficial as we get older," Sacks told us.

On average, that means a 150 pound person will burn about 300 calories in one hour of ping pong.

Online: Rochester Table Tennis Club