Effect of Surya-Namaskar on the Fitness Components and its Trends

Abstract

Yoga plays a vital role as the ancient Indian healing art while dealing with the  physical, mental, emotional, moral, and spiritual well-being. Yoga education is a  process that helps in the all-around development of a human being. Suryanamaskar is a major part of yogic training that concentrates on physical health, mental health  as well as spiritual health also. It is a sequential combination of 12 Yogic postures  made up of a variety of spinal column forward and backward bending performed  dynamically in synchrony with the breath. The objective of the study was to  determine the effect of Suryanamaskar yogic training on the Components of Physical  fitness i.e Strength, Speed, Endurance, Flexibility, and Coordination. The subjects  for this study were selected from Punjab Engineering College (Deemed to be  University), Chandigarh. A total of fifteen students were randomly selected for the  study. Suryanamaskar was considered the independent variable and components of  physical fitness were considered the dependent variable. Strength was measured by  the handgrip dynamometer test in Kg. Speed was measured by the flying 30 meters  test in time seconds. Endurance was measured by the sit-up test in 30 seconds.  Flexibility was measured by the sit and reach test in cm. Coordination was measured  by an alternate hand wall toss test. Repeated measure design was used for this study.  The test was started four weeks prior to the treatment and thereafter every two weeks.  Observations were taken up to the end of six weeks of training. To determine the  effect of Suryanamaskar on fitness components, level of significance was set at 0.05  levels. In relation to fitness components, a significant (p< 0.05) effect of  Suryanamaskar was found at the end of six weeks of training.