Not medical advice. Nothing here is a recommendation to start, change or stop any activity or treatment. Talk to your doctor before starting a new sport, especially if you have a heart, joint, balance or neurological condition.
How to read these studies
- Randomised controlled trial (RCT): people are assigned by chance to play the sport or not. This is the strongest single design, but the trials here are small and short.
- Observational study: researchers follow or survey people who already play. These can show an association, not that the sport caused the difference. Healthier people may simply be more likely to play.
- Pilot study: a small first test, often without a comparison group. It shows whether a larger trial is worth running, not whether something works.
- Meta-analysis: pools the results of several trials. Only as good as the trials it pools.
One large study that compared several sports
Oja and colleagues (British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2017) followed 80,306 adults in Britain, aged 30 to 98, for an average of about 9 years. They compared people who reported each type of exercise with people who did not. A hazard ratio below 1 means a lower risk of death during follow-up; the authors report these as associations.
| Activity | Death from any cause | Death from cardiovascular disease |
|---|---|---|
| Cycling | 0.85 (0.76 to 0.95) | No significant association |
| Football (soccer) and rugby | No significant association | No significant association |
| Racket sports | 0.53 (0.40 to 0.69) | 0.44 (0.24 to 0.83) |
| Running | No significant association | No significant association |
| Swimming | 0.72 (0.65 to 0.80) | 0.59 (0.46 to 0.75) |
| Aerobics | 0.73 (0.63 to 0.85) | 0.64 (0.45 to 0.92) |
Hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals, as reported in the study abstract. The study reported racket sports as a single group; table tennis and pickleball were not reported separately. Other large studies have reached different results for some sports (see running below), which is one reason a single observational study should not be read as the final word.
Cycling
Leyland and colleagues, PLOS ONE, 2019 (randomised trial). 100 adults aged 50 to 83 were assigned to ride a conventional bike, ride an e-bike, or not cycle, for 8 weeks (at least three 30-minute rides a week). The authors reported that both cycling groups improved accuracy on some executive-function tasks compared with the non-cycling group, and the e-bike group also showed improvements in processing speed and a mental-health measure. The study was short and the groups could not be blinded to what they were doing.
In the Oja study above, cycling was associated with lower all-cause mortality but showed no significant association with cardiovascular mortality.
Browse our cycling guides.
Pickleball
Owoeye and colleagues, Frontiers in Psychology, 2025 (survey). 1,667 US pickleball players with an average age of about 63 completed an online survey. Playing three or more times a week, and playing sessions longer than two hours, were each associated with higher mental-wellbeing scores, and the association was stronger among players aged roughly 63 to 77. Players with a recent injury reported noticeably lower wellbeing. This was a single survey of people who already play, using self-reported data, so it cannot show cause and effect.
Browse our pickleball guides.
Running
Lee and colleagues, Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2014 (observational). 55,137 adults aged 18 to 100 were followed for about 15 years. The authors reported that runners had about a 30% lower risk of death from any cause and about a 45% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease than non-runners, and that this association appeared even at low amounts of running. As an observational study, it shows an association rather than proof that running caused the difference.
Note that the Oja study above found no significant association for running. The two studies used different populations and methods.
Browse our trail running guides.
Soccer (recreational football)
Helge and colleagues, Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 2014 (randomised trial). 26 previously inactive men with an average age of about 68 were assigned to recreational football, resistance training, or no training for 12 months. The authors reported that bone mineral density at the hip rose by about 1.8% after 4 months and about 5.4% after 12 months in the football group, along with increases in markers of bone formation, while the other two groups showed no significant change. The trial was very small and included men only.
In the Oja study above, football and rugby (grouped together) showed no significant association with mortality.
Browse our soccer guides.
Table tennis
Li, Ahn and Shin, Healthcare, 2026 (meta-analysis). The authors pooled 14 randomised trials with 1,565 participants of different ages and health conditions. They reported improvements in balance and in cognitive measures for the table tennis groups. They also reported high variation between the trials, incomplete reporting of blinding in several of them, and that only studies published in English, Chinese and Korean were included.
Tsai and colleagues, Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 2017 (randomised trial). 64 healthy older men were assigned to table tennis, to cycling, walking or jogging, or to no exercise programme, for 6 months. The authors reported that both exercise groups responded faster on a task-switching test than the control group, with the table tennis group showing faster responses across more of the test conditions. The study was small and included men only.
Inoue and colleagues, Clinical Parkinsonism and Related Disorders, 2021 (pilot study). 12 people with Parkinson's disease were enrolled and 9 were analysed after 6 months of weekly table tennis sessions. The authors reported improvements on standard ratings of daily activities and movement symptoms, and no significant change in cognition or mood scores. One fall and one backache were reported. There was no comparison group, and the authors describe the results as preliminary.
Browse our table tennis guides.
What these studies do not tell you
- Whether any sport is right or safe for you. That depends on your health, history and goals, which is a conversation for your doctor.
- That one sport is better than another. The studies used different people, designs and measures, so they cannot be ranked against each other.
- That the results would hold for everyone. Several of the trials were small, short, or included men only.
Sources
- Oja P, et al. Associations of specific types of sports and exercise with all-cause and cardiovascular-disease mortality: a cohort study of 80 306 British adults. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2017. Abstract
- Leyland L-A, et al. The effect of cycling on cognitive function and well-being in older adults. PLOS ONE, 2019. Record
- Owoeye OBA, et al. The more you play, the better you feel: a dose-response analysis of pickleball and mental wellbeing in U.S. adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 2025. Full text
- Lee D-C, et al. Leisure-time running reduces all-cause and cardiovascular mortality risk. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 2014. ACC summary
- Helge EW, et al. Recreational football improves bone mineral density and bone turnover marker profile in elderly men. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, 2014. Record
- Li H, Ahn H, Shin M. Table tennis as a sustainable health intervention: a meta-analysis of its effects on balance and cognitive functions. Healthcare, 2026. Full text
- Tsai C-L, et al. Open- and closed-skill exercise interventions produce different neurocognitive effects on executive functions in the elderly: a 6-month randomized, controlled trial. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 2017. Full text
- Inoue K, et al. Table tennis for patients with Parkinson's disease: a single-center, prospective pilot study. Clinical Parkinsonism and Related Disorders, 2021. Record
If you spot an error in how a study is summarised here, tell us at contact@equipflow.net and it will be corrected.