International Journal of Physical Education Sports Management and Yogic Sciences

The purpose of this study was to find out the effects of asana practices and pranayama practices on selected breath holding time and resting pulse rate among varsity men students. To achieve this purpose of the study, forty-five men students studying in the Department of Physical Education, Annamalai University were selected as subjects at random and they were divided into three equal groups of fifteen subjects each with age ranging from 18 to 24 years namely asana practices group, pranayama practices group and control group. The asana practices group and pranayama practices group underwent their respective trainings for three days per week for twelve weeks in which the control group did not participate any special training programme apart from their regular physical education activities as per their curriculum. The following variables, namely breath holding time and resting pulse rate were selected as criterion variables. All the subjects of the three groups were tested on selected dependent variables by using holding the breath for time and Radial pulse at prior to and immediately after the training programme. The analysis of covariance was used to analyze the significant difference if any among the groups. Since three groups were compared, whenever the obtained ‘F’ ratio for adjusted posttest was found to be significant, the Scheffe’s test to find out the paired mean differences, if any. The .05 level of confidence was fixed as the level of significance to test the ‘F’ ratio obtained by the analysis of covariance, which was considered appropriate. The results of the study showed that there was a significant difference among asana practices group pranayama practices group and control group on breath holding time and resting pulse rate. And there was a significant change on selected criterion variables due to asana practices and pranayama practices.