Influence of yoga practices and core exercises training on cardiorespiratory fitness of college females

Background: Obesity is a major health issue in modern society. Regular physical exercise and healthy habits are some of the ways to get rid of it. In this study, researchers applied yoga and core exercises to overweight college females to find their effect on cardiorespiratory endurance.

Objectives: To find out the effect of yoga and core exercise training on the cardiorespiratory fitness of overweight college females and to compare the effect of yoga and core exercise training on the cardiorespiratory fitness of overweight college females.

Methodology: Through the purposive sampling method 30 overweight college females were selected and they were randomly divided into two groups the yoga group and the core exercise group. Both exercises were conducted three days per week for periods of 16 weeks, each exercise session was 40 minutes in duration. Cooper's 12 minute run/walk test was used to measure cardiorespiratory fitness. The t test was conducted to analyze the data, and the level of significance was set at p<0.05.

Result: It was observed that after yoga practice cardiorespiratory fitness measurements improved from 1396 ± 76.12 meters to 1476 ± 67.46 meters. After core exercise training, it improved from 1399.62 ± 82.83 meters to 1480.66 ± 135.72 meters. The statistical analysis has shown yoga and core exercise significantly improved cardiorespiratory fitness (p<0.05). When the effects of yoga and core exercise training were compared, it was shown that both had similar effects.

Conclusion: The study demonstrated that both yoga practice and core exercise significantly improved the cardiorespiratory fitness of overweight college females, and both yoga practice and core exercise had a similar effect on cardiorespiratory fitness among the subjects.