Cardio Tennis – Get Fit Without Playing Tennis!
There are things that just don’t make sense. At least until you try to understand what may be the motivation of the people behind it.
Invention Of A New Sport
Ever heard of “cardio tennis”? Me neither, until I read a Reuters article on it. And it turns out it’s tennis done in groups and designed as a cardio activity. Or like playing tennis without playing tennis, as a representative for cardio tennis told Reuters it doesn’t quite involve you being shown “how to hit the correct forehand or backhand”.
Or maybe it’s the opposite, as the “official website” for cardio tennis cheerfully declares you “naturally improve your game because you hit so many balls and repeat various shots”.
Well, yep, I suppose if 1,000 balls are thrown at me in an hour, I’ll eventually manage to hit one. But will it make me a good tennis player? As “fitness expert” – there is always an expert – Denise Austin told Reuters in the same article:
“If you’re not a really good tennis player it’s hard to get in a good workout (in a traditional game of tennis) because you’re always missing the ball”
Indeed, Mrs. Austin. And I won’t get better at tennis by doing movements called “torso twist” and “merry-go-round”. Or the other way around: The better I get at tennis, the more I have practiced and the more I have practiced, the better I will be in shape. While having learned to play tennis, that is. The difficulty will naturally increase with my level of ability.
So please, either let me get good at tennis or let me do a cardio activity that makes sense to begin with and that doesn’t require me to spend close to $500 on tennis equipment and a club membership.
Who Is Behind It?
So who would come up with this? People who thought long and hard about how a good fitness activity should be designed? Or were there other interests?
Cardio tennis? I think not.
It turns out that behind cardio tennis is the Tennis Industry Association, which has a vested interested in selling tennis-related products. We can almost imagine how a group of their executives sat around a table, thinking about ways into the lucrative large part of the fitness market that normally won’t touch a racquet. Accordingly, the cardio tennis website doesn’t fail to inform us that cardio tennis is “more fun than working out in the gym or other forms of exercise”.
Is that so? The part of the German cardio tennis website aimed at professionals perhaps shows us the other motivation that may have lead to the invention of this “fun” activity. Under the headline “what’s in it for me as a coach” we find (my translation):
During cardio tennis you have 6-8 students on the court. That means more income per hour for you.
Right beside their logo the Tennis Industry Associations’s website says: “Promoting the growth and economic vitality of tennis”.
Yes, indeed.
Picture courtesy of Charlie Cowins.
12 Comments
I agree with you, it is waste of money. Playing soccer or basketball is a much better and cheaper cardio exercise.
Yep, basically all you need is a ball and a goal / hoop!
Grabbing that gimmicky fitness dollar… Coming to a sport near you!
Why do I never have these ideas, that would undoubtedly make me very rich?
Hm, maybe I should spray that board I use for workouts jet black and sell it as the “Evil Fitmaster 3000 – The Ultimate Piece of Versatile Fitness Equipment” 🙂
Evil, I appreciate the ban. Finally I can be free of the ignorance and faux-bodybuilding. I tried to contribute all I could to combat the flood of misinformation that Scooby and his butt buddy Evil were peddling as free for so long, and I can only hope that I made a difference to your legion of skinny kids. Farewell, faggot.
You make it sound like we forced you to stay against your will.
But I’m glad for this public testament to your maturity and hope that your constant rage won’t at some point lead to dire consequences.
Nice Evil. What came to my mind with the title? Wii Spaorts, and Wii stuff in general. Though I wonder if Wii stuff COULD e considered cardio…
I think Wii tennis might make more sense and be more fun than this 😉
Racquetball is much better, a lot of quick bursts are involved and you hit the ball every 2 seconds 🙂 Enough of that, but doesn’t surprise me they would do this- ‘Hey lets take tennis, turn it into a group session, call it cardio tennis ‘
It’s waste for this reason(s)
1. The money you spend gets you nowhere, learn to play and get better with a tennis coach. Or buy a ball machine and a basket of balls and hit the free local parks.
2. If you don’t know how to play tennis, you don’t need to spend money for someone *showing* you to play the wrong way, just simply play how you think and turns out your playing just like the cardio tennis classes.
3. I’d rather be the guy who stands in one spot, barely breaking a sweat because I know how to place the ball.
Which got me thinking I do this with other sports for cardio, I don’t want to do the sport, I’d rather take the sport and make it cardio. But simply they are not playing tennis, they share same equipment but the objectives are completely different but it’s semantics, anything with a tennis racquet we will call it tennis, even if your swatting flies we’d still call it tennis.
My thoughts exactly!
Hm, maybe I should give racquetball a try! 🙂
I suppose it could be good exercise but wow thats way to overpriced! Truly a waste of money when I can get an awesome cardio workout for just the 7 dollar jump rope I have. Or better yet, just getting out and running. Or when its too cold, do 20 minutes of burpees. The free or atleast dirt cheap alternatives go on and on.
Absolutely. You simply don’t have throw tons of money at it to get fit!