Photo: Basin Recreation.

In a study conducted for Apple, one in 16 Utah participants had played pickleball at least once

Using data compiled from Apple Watches, Apple has concluded that, among Apple Watch wearers — Apple says that’s 35% of U.S. iPhone users, or close to 50 million Americans — Utah is the most popular state per capita for pickleball.

In a study conducted for Apple, one in 16 Utah participants had played pickleball at least once. That information comes from a sample of Watch wearers who agreed to participate in the Apple Heart and Movement Study, one of three public studies Apple introduced in its Research app.

The app “gives researchers the ability to broaden the scale and scope of their studies, helping uncover new scientific findings, and furthers Apple’s ability to create new features grounded in science in the process,” the company said in a press release.

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“The Apple Heart and Movement Study offers us remarkable opportunities to follow participants’ behavior changes and the consequences of these changes on health,” said Calum MacRae, a cardiologist at Harvard Medical School and principal investigator of the study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in the release. “Following the growth of pickleball, using Apple Watch data allows us to explore emerging trends and the effects of activity on multiple metrics of health and wellness that were not accessible before.”

“It’s awesome that so many Utahns are grabbing the opportunity pickleball offers,” said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. “This research is a great reminder that exercise of any kind is a powerful way to improve our health.”

Apple also studied and compared tennis players.

“After analyzing more than 250,000 pickleball and tennis workouts recorded on Apple Watch by study participants, researchers found pickleball workouts were slightly longer than tennis workouts on average — 90 minutes versus 81 minutes, respectively — and saw greater variability in time played,” the company said.

“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.”

“Participants often played pickleball and tennis for long periods of time, averaging a peak heart rate within 70 percent of their estimated max heart rate during recorded workouts,” the company said. “Pickleball workouts lasted for slightly longer than tennis workouts, while tennis workouts averaged more time spent in higher-intensity heart rate zones and had a higher average peak heart rate.”