Racquet sports and lifespan
Social posts circulating a recent summary claim racquet sports like tennis and squash show some of the biggest mortality benefits, with effects peaking at roughly 5 MET‑hours per week. (x.com) The same set of posts contrasts that with walking (noted at 7.5 MET‑hours/week) and says mixing activities—variety rather than a single sport—correlates with about a 19% lower mortality risk in cohort summaries. (x.com) Other social commentary links racquet play, running and resistance training to lower all‑cause mortality in pooled observations. (x.com)
A metabolic equivalent, or MET, is a way to count exercise by energy used: 1 MET is resting, and higher numbers mean harder work. A January 20, 2026 study in *BMJ Medicine* found that adults who kept up several kinds of activity over decades had lower mortality, with racquet sports among the strongest individual associations. (bmjmedicine.bmj.com) The study followed 111,467 women and men in the Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-Up Study for more than 30 years, from 1986 to 2018 or 2020. During 2,431,318 person-years of follow-up, researchers recorded 38,847 deaths. (bmjmedicine.bmj.com) Researchers converted each activity into MET-hours by multiplying weekly time by intensity, then compared people with higher and lower long-term activity levels. In the highest activity categories, the pooled hazard ratio for all-cause mortality was 0.85 for walking, 0.87 for running, 0.87 for weight training or resistance exercise, and 0.85 for tennis or squash. (bmjmedicine.bmj.com) An earlier British cohort study helped drive the racquet-sports claim now circulating online. Published in *British Journal of Sports Medicine* in 2017, it analyzed 80,306 adults and found racquet sports were associated with a hazard ratio of 0.53 for all-cause mortality and 0.44 for cardiovascular mortality. (bjsm.bmj.com) That 2017 paper did not find statistically significant mortality reductions for running or football after adjustment, while swimming, cycling, and aerobics did show lower risk. The authors said the evidence was observational, meaning it measured associations in real lives rather than proving one sport directly caused longer survival. (bjsm.bmj.com) The newer 2026 paper added a second point now spreading on social media: variety. Participants in the highest physical-activity-variety group had a 19% lower all-cause mortality risk than those in the lowest group, even after researchers adjusted for total activity volume. (bmjmedicine.bmj.com) The cohorts counted variety as the number of different activities people consistently did, from walking and running to tennis, gardening, yoga, stair climbing, and resistance exercise. Harvard Chan, which highlighted the study on January 20, 2026, said the cohorts were made up primarily of white health professionals and relied on self-reported exercise, two limits on how broadly the findings can be applied. (hsph.harvard.edu) Separate pooled evidence supports one of the other claims in the posts: muscle-strengthening activity is linked to lower mortality. A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis in *British Journal of Sports Medicine* found muscle-strengthening activities were associated with a 10% to 17% lower risk of all-cause mortality, with the largest reduction around 30 to 60 minutes a week. (bjsm.bmj.com) The World Health Organization does not rank one sport over another in its public guidance. It says regular physical activity, including walking, cycling, sports, and active recreation, helps prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some cancers, while inactivity remains widespread worldwide. (who.int) So the cleanest reading of the evidence is narrower than the viral posts: long-term observational studies link racquet sports, walking, running, and resistance work with lower mortality, and the newest cohort paper says doing a mix of activities is linked to lower risk than sticking to one alone. (bmjmedicine.bmj.com)
