General fitness
10-pin bowling: A good weight-bearing exercise. But distances walked are short and it won't get your heart rate up, so it's not great for cardio fitness or fat burning. A 63.5kg (10st) person would burn 170 calories an hour. 2 stars
Table tennis: Relies on anaerobic fitness, but also develops stamina, as matches last up to an hour. Players often use all the space (14m x 7m) around the table, and a 63.5kg (10st) person burns about 280 calories an hour. 4 stars
Upper-body strength
10-pin bowling: Balls weigh between six and 16 pounds and, although biased to one side of the body, bowling develops shoulder flexibility from swinging the ball and strength from sending it down the lane at speed. 3 stars
Table tennis: Your body is bent slightly forwards playing table tennis, strengthening the abdominal and back muscles. Shoulders, chest, biceps and triceps will also get a great workout. 4 stars
Balance and coordination
10-pin bowling: Swinging a heavy ball on one side of the body will help hone balance, while developing skills for knocking down 10 15-inch pins that are 60ft away will refine hand-eye coordination. 3 stars
Table tennis: Players need to be agile to perform complex footwork and fast changes of direction. You'll develop lightning-fast reflexes, too - top players have about 0.5 seconds to react to balls hit at 60mph. 5 stars
Lower-body strength
10-pin bowling: When releasing the ball, you lunge, pushing your weight into your front leg and throwing the back leg backwards - this strengthens the quads, glutes and hamstrings. 3 stars
Table tennis: Table tennis will develop leaner quads, glutes, calves and hamstrings, as you're almost constantly in a half-squat position, poised to launch in any direction. 5 stars
Risk of injury
10-pin bowling: Injury risk is low, but poor technique can cause bowler's elbow (similar to tennis elbow), shoulder or lower back strain. Blisters, calluses or pain can also develop around the thumb. 4 stars
Table tennis: Often come from muscle imbalances in the lower back, lats or shoulders from favouring a stronger side. Others include tendonitis in the elbow or wrist, and ankle sprains, but only really at the top level. 3 stars
