Effect of Pranayama Exercise on Breath-Holding Capacity of Soccer Players

Abstract

Abstract Objective: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of Pranayama exercises on breath-holding capacity soccer players. Method: A total of thirty male soccer players (age 18 – 25 year) were selected from Manipur University, Canchipur, Imphal, Manipur (India) who participated in the national level competition. The subjects were randomly assigned into two equal groups, experimental group (n=15) and control group (n=15). The groups were measured before the intervention with the breath holding capacity. Breath holding capacity was assessed by Nostril clip method. The Pranayama exercises were carried out for the period of six weeks, five days training (Monday to Friday) and 60 minutes each session to the training group where no special exercise was administered to the control group. The pre and post-test scores were statistically examined by the Analysis of pair ‘t’ test and Co-Variance(ANCOVA) for selected variables. Results: The experimental group showed improved scores in the breath holding capacity compared to the control group (p<0.05). The mean and standard deviation of the breath holding capacity for pre-test and post-test of the experimental group were 33.22±10.22 and 46.46±9.49 respectively. The mean and standard deviation of the breath holding capacity for pre-test and post-test of the control group were 33.17±11.64 and 33.09±11.33 respectively. Conclusion: It was concluded that the pranayama training group had shown significantly improved breath-holding capacity and the control group had insignificant improvement. İt was confirmed that a six weeks Pranayama training program was effective to improve the breath-holding capacity of soccer players.