Apple Watch used in a pickleball vs tennis health study

Pickleball, despite what you might think of its name, has been the fastest-growing sport in the US for the last couple of years. No, it does not involve any pickled ingredients, on the contrary – it requires physical activity and is a way to burn calories.

Now, a study update from the Apple Heart and Movement Study (AHMS) compares the effects of both the emerging sport of pickleball and the well-known sport of tennis using participants’ data (via 9to5Mac).

After analyzing more than 250,000 pickleball and tennis workouts recorded on Apple Watch by study participants, researchers concluded that pickleball workouts were slightly longer in runtime than tennis workouts. On average, a pickleball workout usually runs for 90 minutes versus 81 minutes of tennis, respectively.

To assess the intensity of each workout type, researchers analyzed heart rate data. The average peak heart rate was nine beats per minute faster during tennis workouts, which averaged 152 beats per minute, compared to 143 beats per minute in pickleball.

Heart rate zones are another way to assess exercise effort. While both sports had similar trends in time spent within each heart rate zone, on average, tennis workouts had nine percentage points more time in higher-intensity heart rate zones compared to pickleball workouts.

What exactly is pickleball?

This may be the fastest-growing sport in the US for the last couple of years, but with all that has been going on, it could’ve passed under your radar unnoticed. Pickleball is a recreational racket sport that mixes three well-known things: tennis, table tennis (ping-pong) and badminton. It can be played 1 vs 1, or in twos for a total of four players.

It can be played both indoors or outdoors using paddles and a perforated hollow ball on a court with a net in the middle – definitely smaller than a tennis court. The goal is to pass the ball above the net and to score points.