Discussion keeps the world turning.
You're listening to Roundtable MFF, together with Yushan and Steve Heatherly.
Coming up across China, people are heading out not to malls, but to courts, to trails, to warehouses with DJ booths.
To be exact, 800 million people participated in some kind of outdoor sports last year, from retirees to office workers to mothers.
They're not really here to win or gain attention, but for the experience itself.
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And now...
In China right now, people from all walks of life are heading outside to catch that summer breeze and work up a sweat.
We have a mother booking a pickleball court on her lunch break.
An office worker signing up for high rocks to prove that those gym hours meant something else.
And also we have retiree calling in court her offline social platform.
800 million people participated in some kind of outdoor sports last year in China.
And this number captures exactly how Chinese people are organizing their leisure, their travel and even their identity.
So Yushan and Steve, It's summertime, it's getting warmer.
So that means our muscles need less time to warm up.
Do you have any plans when it comes to new sports to pick up or new outdoor plans?
I am definitely more active in warmer weather than I am in colder weather.
And I have a gym membership.
But yeah, I'm looking for something else to do that's a little bit more active than simply going to the gym.
Going to the gym can get a little stale.
If you've been doing it for a while, so some sort of outdoor activity.
I was looking for tennis courts around where I live.
I haven't successfully found any yet, but if I do, then yeah, I might add tennis to my list of things.
Yeah, for me, a gym is always the safe zone or the comfort zone.
But to consider how to further strengthen not only your muscles but your bones.
I'm thinking about trying out badminton, or rather picking it up, since I used to play it when I was a kid.
There's a badminton court next door.
Exactly.
That's so convenient.
And also you don't need much to start playing.
And I heard that jumping, or rather like bringing your body in the motion and carrying your own weight more often by jumping, that's a good way of exercising the density of your bones.
I was looking into rock climbing too.
I love that.
So I searched it online and I found a rock climbing gym two subway stops away from my house.
Amazing.
Took the subway, walked there.
It's a children's rock climbing gym.
Maybe it's also still your level, you know?
Just go ahead.
It's like eight feet tall.
It's for babies, I think.
Anyway, they were having a great time, but my search will continue.
Here's a question.
Would either of you consider pickleball, which is a booming sport around the world these days?
It's a very, very new term for me. starting this year i start to see more people playing pickleball you know i didn't actually i have zero knowledge about this kind of sport in the past and saw some of the court some people playing outside i was like what what what oh you've seen it in beijing yeah what are you doing like the nets are different it's source for like badminton tennis but it's Not really.
You're right.
It's kind of like tennis.
It's kind of like badminton.
It's kind of like ping pong in a way.
It is all of those things, but it is its own sport at the same time.
And it's called pickleball.
If you were to see it, you might think, oh, it looks like a tennis court, but way smaller.
Yeah.
Playing table tennis on the tennis court.
Yeah, bigger than.
Yeah, exactly.
But the table is now on the ground, if that makes sense at all.
This has been around for a really, really, really long time.
This is invented decades ago.
I think it was back in the mid 1960s.
But for one reason or another.
Now, I won't go through all the rules of pickleball, but I'll just say this.
Let's just think of tennis and a combination of tennis, badminton and ping pong.
Just think about that.
You're outside.
It's usually played in couples.
So it's you and your partner against another person and their partner.
So it's four people at the same time.
And the ball gets hit back and forth over the net.
We'll leave the description of the game there.
The reason that people seem to be loving this is because it's social.
There's usually four people playing.
Think about if you play tennis with your friend.
They're way on the other side, right?
That's not a social interaction.
Only before and after the match but pickleball is social while you're actually playing it.
That's one of the reasons.
Another is because it's relatively low impact.
It's not very hard on your body.
So what that means is a 10 year old can have fun playing it.
A 30 year old can have fun playing it and so can a 75 year old.
Everybody can enjoy this.
It can be very competitive, which satisfies that type of personality if you want it to be.
I've never played it before.
I've seen it a lot.
I want to play.
It looks like a whole lot of fun.
And you know, that reminds me of tennis, really.
I tried tennis.
I made multiple goals before.
None of them succeeded.
Simply because it's so hard.
You have to run a lot.
It's like you have to hit the ball really hard.
And if your technique is not up there but the other side of the player is really, for example, has been really experienced all you do is he hit the ball to you and then you pick it up running around.
So pickleball is a little.
There's a pickleball movie coming out.
Oh, Not so far away from now.
And that's in the trailer of the film.
This tennis pro comes to play pickleball and the tennis pro is saying oh, I got this.
And then tries to hit the ball as hard as he can.
You know, in tennis, the overhead serve?
Well, you don't serve overhead in pickleball, you serve underhand.
And he's like, oh, I didn't know that.
And then he tries to smash the ball and the partner is saying, don't hit the ball so hard.
So it's just a different kind of strategy.
It's a different kind of game.
And it's really popular here in China, too, in Henan province.
It's booming since 2023.
The city there, is it Hubei City?
Hubei, yes.
Through a bunch of different ways.
They've been promoting it in schools and offices and communities and out at different scenic spots and government institutions.
They've attracted more than 1 million participants to this game.
And the city built over 1,500 courts and installed more than 8,000 pieces of fitness equipment.
Ensuring that the people who live in the city can reach a sports facility within 15 minutes.
It's absolutely booming in that city in Hunan province.
I watched a video of how people play pickleball this morning.
Apparently the intensity level is rather low and you can just play and chat and it's just something that you're vibing with your friend and it's so chill.
That's why also in Hebei, the city, A lot of retirees, the elders, they play in the mornings.
And you can also see students, they train in the afternoons.
And office workers arrive after work to just relax and socialize.
It's a good way for people to just chill out a little bit.
It's the fastest growing sport in America.
As well.
And the data shows that, yeah.
In 2024, almost 20 million Americans participated in pickleball in some way, shape, or form.
And that was a 45% increase from the year before. and a 311% increase from two years before.
And also here in China.
I think the number of pickleball tournaments in China increased from around 80 in 2024 to more than 600 this year.
Yeah, it's crazy.
People love it.
We're only half into this year.
And the social part is sort of an important factor.
Why is fueling this popularity in pickleball and that reminds me we have a lot of other sports that got trendy because of this social factor that can have playing here and this summer?
Well, not only this summer, I think.
In the beginning of this year and even A later part of last year, more people are talking about high rocks, especially in big cities like Beijing Shenzhen, Shanghai.
I believe I heard the word high rocks first time last year.
Yeah, we talked about it briefly on Roundtable.
I was so impressed about how intense it is.
So for HIROX, it's a global fitness race that combines endurance running with functional workout stations.
A standard HIROX competition would include, well, hear this out.
First of all, multiple one-kilometer runs.
Combined with exercises such as rolling, sled pushing, lunges, burpees, and wall balls.
It's mental.
It's absolutely mental.
Any one of these will kill me.
You just described that in a very kind way.
This is insanity level workout.
Multiple one kilometer runs in the same workout.
So the way this goes, I was watching the World Championships from 2025 earlier today on replay.
The race starts, you run for one kilometer.
Then you do one of those exercises that Yushan mentioned.
So let's say rowing.
And you don't just casually row, right?
This is high intensity rowing.
You give it all.
The clock is ticking for you.
And you do a lot of it.
And then when you're finished with the rowing, then you run for one kilometer again.
And then you do sled pushing, but not a little bit of sled pushing.
And by the way, not some light, casual.
We're talking about 100 kilograms.
Or more.
Yeah, yeah.
For like entry level. for the general public.
And then, when you're done with that, guess what you do?
Run one kilometer again and you keep going.
You do lunges, you do burpees, you said it.
You do wall balls.
Wall balls are a nightmare.
A hundred wall balls, yeah.
You hold a medicine ball.
A medicine ball is um a heavy.
Think of a yoga ball, a smaller yoga ball, think of a kettlebell, i guess yeah, but um yeah, but still heavy.
So you, you do a lunge with that and when you come up out of your lunge, you throw the ball up in the air.
It has to hit a spot on the wall.
You catch it.
Then you lunge again and you repeat that for you said it right a hundred times times.
That's the whole hour of exercise for me, like 100.
Squat.
Sorry.
Oh, yeah.
I was going to say, if you could finish this in an hour, you'd be a world championship level.
I didn't see the women's finals time, the winning time, but the men's winner was 45 minutes, I think.
But for most people yeah, it takes them like an hour to complete some of these events, some of these individual parts, not the whole thing.
That can take hours and hours.
That's such a high-intensity workout.
It doesn't really seem like something as accessible as pickleball that everybody can do, but still.
People are diving in.
It's taking over.
Why is that?
Yeah.
It's just crazy looking at how so many people are participating.
This is, according to High Rocks coach and participant, that in 2024 In Beijing, right here, about 1700 participants signed up for one HIROX event.
And just one year after that, the 2025 Beijing event saw that number jump to over 8,000 athletes.
And the upcoming 2026 Shanghai station is expected to break 20,000 participants.
I believe the biggest reason here why people love it so much is because of the fact that it's a way of keeping up with the tide, with the latest trend.
This is the cool thing to do as everybody is posting on social media.
If he or she can do it, then I can train myself and I can do it too sometime in the future.
Yeah, I mean, this is relatively new.
This was invented in Germany in 2017.
It was only a few hundred people who came up with this idea.
But I attribute the popularity of High Rocks to the fact that I think it's the pinnacle of exercise right now.
It's kind of like the ability to run a marathon is seen as the pinnacle of jogging.
It's also beaten up, what's it called, CrossFit.
Yeah, it seems to me like it's a more intense version of CrossFit.
So I think the attraction is...
99.9% of the people on this planet wouldn't be able to complete this, wouldn't be able to do it.
So it's like the ultimate exercise challenge.
And that's why they have High Rocks training centers where you go and you sign up and you get a coach and you'll train yourself.
For the individual parts.
You'll train for the wall balls, you'll train for the running part of it, you'll train for the sled push and the sled pull, and you train in those individual parts and then you can go and take part in a High Rocks competition yourself.
And also when it comes to, you know, I was very attracted to high-res competitions.
I was thinking about joining that and then I realized I cannot finish all that plus 100, you know squats and throwing medicine balls and eight kilometers.
But I think the atmosphere is also one part.
You know they have DJs playing, playing really pumping music in the background.
People are cheering up for you.
And it's sort of especially for someone who's been struggling with any exercises and feeling that they need this extra motivation.
Events like High Rocks and CrossFit can actually help you to participate in it.
That DJ would be playing my funeral music.
I'm in relatively decent shape.
There's no way I could complete that, which is why I would love the opportunity to see if I'm even physically capable of doing something like that.
I don't think I am, but I'd like to know.
But whenever there is such an event like marathon or high rocks race coming into town, it triggers a chain reaction of attracting people to travel to this place and bring in tourism revenue for the year.
And yeah, it's a good way of knowing people in the circle and also just challenge yourself a little bit.
And you know high rocks is only one of many examples of niche sport.
You know it's supposed to be niche sports going mainstream because of the popularity.
But regardless of from, you know, being in pickleball course, in city parks or camping sites or riverside trails or warehouses, panting yourself, trying to finish that high rocks.
Competition, I think, is more than just exercises, and getting fit is more about, you know, meeting people become everyday life, getting more positive and active in your daily life.
So, in the end of the day, I encourage everybody, go out in the summertime and enjoy the breeze and enjoy your fitness.
And that is the end of today's Roundtable.
I'm Fei Fei and thanks Steve and Yushan.
Thank you for listening to this edition of Roundtable and I'll see you next time.
