Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University Medical College, Pune
*Corresponding author: Dr Anuradha Rajiv Joshi Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University Medical College, Pune, Contact No-9422884006, E mail: anuradhajoshi30@gmail.com
Online published on 4 January, 2017.
Regular and continuous yoga exercise is one of the most important nonpharmacological method of improving aerobic capacity and physical fitness.
The present study was conducted to ascertain whether a short-term practice of yoga training had improvements in cardiorespiratory functions in middle aged females.
This interventional study was conducted in the Department of Physiology of local Medical College, Pune Thirty five females in the age group of 30–40 years, fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria underwent sixty minutes of daily yoga programme for 8 weeks taught by a certified yoga teacher. Pre and post yoga cardio respiratory functions, were assessed by recording pulse rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and ventilatory lung function tests.
The parameters were analyzed by paired ‘t’ test.
Results showed statistically significant reduction in pulse rate and systolic blood pressure. FVC, FEV1/FVC and MVV showed definite improvement which was also statistically highly significant.
This study showed significant improvement in cardiorespiratory parameters after training course for two months. These changes highlight the positive effect of short duration yoga training on physical fitness in sedentary females.
Blood pressure, pulse rate, ventilatory lung function tests, FVC, FEV1, MVV
