Efficacy of breathing exercises and walking exercises on resting heart rate among overweight college students

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of pranayama and walking exercise on resting heart rate among overweight college students. Thirty male overweight students (n = 30) from Govt. Degree College, Dharamnagar, North Tripura, India were randomly selected as subjects. The age of the subjects ranged from 17 to 23 years. The subjects divided into three equal groups of ten subjects each (n = 10). In which, group I underwent Pranayama or Breathing Exercise (BEG), group II underwent walking exercise (WEG) for six days per week for eight weeks and group III acted as control (CG) who did not undergo any special training programme apart from their regular activities. Resting heart rate was selected as a test variable and assessed before and after the training period. The collected data were statistically analyzed by using Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Scheffe's test was applied as post hoc test to determine the paired mean difference. From the results of the study, it was found that there was a significant reduction (p ≤ 0.05) in resting heart rate of training groups when compared to control group.