Researchers at the University of Copenhagen have found that an hour of soccer results in better fitness than a hour of jogging. The researchers found improvements on multiple levels including a lower level of body fat and lower blood pressure levels for those who played soccer versus those who jogged.

NetSweat.com Comments: We're not the least bit surprised because playing soccer is akin to doing intervals for a hour. If you can vary the speed of your endurance workout, incorporating bursts of speed throughout the workout, you will burn more calories.

It should be stated that the twisting, jumping and kicking that soccer requires does have an additional beneficial affect and we would expect that a similar results would be found if basketball or hockey were compared against hockey.

What's not being said by the survey results is that active play can burn as many calories as what most people think as "exercise".