PURPOSE: To observe the effects of 8-week yoga on body fat and cardiorespiratory fitness of sedentary overweight female students.
METHODS: 25 healthy overweight female students were recruited online or in classroom. They were randomly divided into the yoga(n=13) and control (n=12) group. 8-week Hatha yoga, 4 times/week, 60 minutes/time. After each session, subjects were asked about their feelings to adjust the intensity. During the intervention, all subjects maintained their daily diet and physical activity. Control group can join our yoga practice if they wanted to after the experiment. Before the experiment, the height was measured twice with a height meter. Body composition was measured by DXA, cardiorespiratory fitness was tested with the Bruce Protocol in pre-and post-experiment, body weight, fat mass, Fat%, the fat mass in android and gynoid areas, absolute VO_2max and relative VO_2max were automatically identified by the computer. All operations were done by same person. All the data were compared between groups with independent sample t-test, and within groups with paired sample t-test, SPSS was used for statistics.
RESULTS: (1) In pre-experiment, there were no significant difference in age, height, weight, BMI, body Fat, Fat%, android and gynoid Fat mass, absolute and relative VO_2max between the two groups; (2) In post-experiment, the relative VO_2max (38.54±4.01 VS 34.75±3.77, p < 0.05) in the yoga but not the control group was significantly increased; (3) Compared with the pre-experiment, Fat% (34.36%±2.41% VS 33.63%±2.64%, p < 0.05) in yoga group decreased significantly, absolute VO_2max (1.95±0.33 VS 2.19±0.27, p < 0.01) and relative VO_2max (33.85±3.41 VS 38.54±4.01, p < 0.01) increased significantly in the post-experiment, All indicators in the control group showed no significant difference in pre- and post-experiment; (4) Significant differences in the changes of Fat% (-0.73%±0.98% VS 0.06%± 0.68%, p < 0.05), absolute VO_2max (0.24±0.21 VS 0.06±0.13, p < 0.05) and relative VO_2max (4.69±3.45 VS 1.17±1.90, p < 0.01) existed between the two groups.
CONCLUSIONS: 8-week yoga can reduce the Fat% and improve cardiorespiratory fitness of sedentary overweight female students.Acknowledgment: this study was supported by 2018 Education Reform Project of BSU and The Laboratory of the Ministry of Education.