Isolated and Combined Effect of Asanas and Pranayama Practice on Vital Capacity of Middle Aged Men

N. CHANDRASEKARAN; Prof. V. GOPINATH

Volume : IV, Issue : VIII, August - 2015

Isolated and Combined Effect of Asanas and Pranayama Practice on Vital Capacity of Middle Aged Men

N. Chandrasekaran, Prof. V. Gopinath

Abstract :

Human movement is the result of complex interactions between environmental factors and the nervous, muscular and skeletal systems. Brain cell activities within the cereal cortex are converted by supraspinal centre programming into neural outputs that stimulate the muscular system to produce the requirement. Yoga is a system of attaining perfect physical and mental health. Yoga controls one�s sense resulting in an integrated personality. Positive changes in the life style of the people can be ought through by yoga. The study aim to foundout the isolated and combined effect of asanas and pranayamas on vital capacity of middle aged men. To achieve these purpose sixty (N = 60) middle aged men were selected randomly from the 138 voluntaries of Prapancha Yoga Centre, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu as subjects. Their aged ranged from 45 to 55 (48 ? 2.8) years. They were divided into three equal groups (n=20). Group I underwent asanas, Group II underwent pranayamaand Group III underwent combined (Asanas and Pranayama) alternate sessions practices – 40 to 60 min/session/4days/week for 12 weeks. Data were collected on forced vital capacity (FVC) by PC based USB spirometer before and after the intervention programme. Dependent �t� test was used to find out the difference between pre and post fest. After eliminating the influence of pre–test on post–test means of experiment groups the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to find out the mean gain differences. In addition to this Scheffe�s test was employed (p < 0.05). From the results and limitation of this study it was concluded that, twelve week of asanas, pranayama and combined practice are effective method to improve forced vital capacity of the middle aged men. Among the experimental group combined asanas and pranayama group improved FVC much better than the other groups.