The effects of breathing exercises in comparison with other exercise programs on cardiorespiratory fitness among healthy female college students.

Abstract

We wished to determine the effects of breathing exercises (BE) on endurance performance compared to those of different fitness training programmes. Endurance was measured by the Cooper 12-minute Run Test and voluntary breath-holding time test before and after the training period. Altogether 69 healthy female college students were assigned into four groups. The first group (N.=15) participated in a breathing-exercise programme (BE). The 3 intensity training groups included constant-training (CT; N.=22), interval-training (IT; N.=17), and Fartlek-training groups (FT; (N.=15). All programmes were conducted for one hour twice a week for 7 weeks. The results of the Cooper test improved significantly in all four groups (P<0.01). The voluntary breath-holding time test showed significant increase in all groups but the CT group. In the BE group the rate of improvement was 9.23% (P=0.014). In the FT group the intensity was 75-85% of maximal heart rate (HRmax), the rate of improvement was 15.2% (P=0.011). In the IT group, the percentage of increase was 9.94% (P=0.039). Finally, the CT resulted in an improvement 8.45% (P=0.063). Results derived from the present study suggest that BE may be an effective alternative to improve endurance performance in healthy female college students.