MST-Department of Recreation Management & Exercise Science
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Browsing MST-Department of Recreation Management & Exercise Science by Subject "Aerobic exercises"
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Item The efficacy of low-impact aerobic dance on health-related fitness: the case of Kenyatta University students(2011-11-28) Muasya, Vincent; Wanderi, P. M.; Simiyu, N.W.W.This study analyzed the efficacy of low-impact aerobic dance on health-related fitness variables among 60 purposely-selected Kenyatta University students who were members of the University's Health and Recreation Centre. The one quasi-experimental research design was used in this study where a pre-test, treatment and a post-test were done for each of the fitness variables. A pre-test on the selected variables was done on the subjects a week after the beginning of the first semester. A post-test was then conducted at the end of eight weeks. The dependent variables tested included low back flexibility, cardiorespiratory fitness, percent body fat, abdominal strength endurance and upper body strength endurance while the independent variables included low-impact dance and related exercises. The study also included resting heart rate as a dependent variable because of its significance in aerobic training and to good health. This study found out that the effect of these four intervening variables was not significant because all subjects improved significantly. Therefore, all the stated hypotheses were not rejected. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a series of paired t-tests where all hypotheses were rejected or accepted at 0.05 alpha level. This study revealed that lowimpact aerobic dance and related exercises had a positive significant impact on low back flexibility, cardiorespiratory endurance, percent body fat, abdominal endurance and upper body strength of Kenyatta University students who were subjects of the eight-week programme. Low-impact aerobic dance is thus recommended as a means to decreasing major consequences of inactivity and sedentary lifestyle. From this study, it was concluded that low-impact aerobic is a means to better health, wellness and alleviating hypokinetic ailments. There is thus need for the adoption of low-impact aerobic workouts as opposed to traditional aerobics. Similar studies need to be carried out to establish the effect of other forms of low-impact contemporary and traditional dances on health-related fitness using different population.