Yoga fitness with middle-aged women: benefits for physical and mental health

Abstract

Physical education of adults is important for maintaining their health. The choice of directions for the use of means of physical education should be based on the prevailing needs for motor activity of persons of mature age. The goal is to develop and experimentally substantiate the methodology of yoga classes for women aged 21-35. Participants Women 21-35 years old. Methods. Psychodiagnostics, movement testing, pedagogical experiment. Intervention. The method of yoga classes with middle-aged women has been developed and tested. The peculiarity of the proposed method is connected with the systematic use of original sets of yoga gymnastics exercises. The developed complexes were applied taking into account the successive increase in exposure and were used in accordance with the solution of specific training tasks. The results. The effectiveness of the proposed format of using yogic gymnastics exercises to improve indicators of the physical and psychological state of middle-aged women has been established. The improvement of performance characteristics, the cardiorespiratory system and the normalization of the psychological state of the participants under the influence of the applied sets of exercises were recorded. Discussion. Systematic yoga classes in the format of using developed sets of exercises were to determine their effectiveness in improving physical conditions and improving the psychological state of middle- aged women. The selected physical exercises belonged to the field of mental fitness and were stato-dynamic in nature. Accordingly, the mild effect of the classes on women who do not regularly engage in fitness should be related to the improvement of physical conditions, and meditative practices were associated with expectations regarding the normalization of the psychological state of the participants. The obtained results confirmed the stated expectations and do not contradict the results of similar studies. Conclusions. The established features of building effective yoga classes with middle-aged women allow us to recommend this type of fitness as an affordable means of improving the health of this contingent of people. The obtained results contribute to the further search for possibilities of detailing the program of yoga classes with middle-aged women in order to expand the range of tasks of physical education of this continent of people.