Abstract:
Long term dance training can help to make the muscles that expand the lungs stronger and more efficient. This can increase the expansion of breathe in more air with increase number of capillaries around the alveoli enabling to absorb oxygen in the blood quicker. The purpose of this study was to find out the effect of twelve weeks of different dance training on cardiorespiratory endurance among post pubescent girls. To achieve the purpose, Ninety (N=90) women dancers, aged 17-18 years were selected from Jaffna, Sri Lanka. And divided in to Aerobic Dance (AD)( n=30), Bharathanatym Dance (BD) (n=30), and Kandyan Dance (KD)( n=30) groups. All the experimental groups were underwent respective dance training for 60±15 min / day/ 3 days / week over the period of 12 weeks. Cardiorespiratory endurance was assessed by the Harvard step test before and after the intervention programme. The data were analysed with the analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). In all the cases 0.05 level of confidence was fixed to test the significance. When the obtained ‘F’ ratio was significant, Scheffe’s post hog test was used to find out the paired mean difference. The results of the study shows aerobic (mean 55.8), bharathanatyam (mean 50.46), kandyan (mean 49.60) dance training significantly (p=0.05) (F 22.66) influence the cardiorespiratory endurance. However aerobic dance training shows better (Mean Difference (MD) 4.62*) improvement than bharathanatyam (MD 5.48*) and kandyan dance (MD 0.86). From the result it was concluded that aerobic, bharathanatyam and kandyan dance training positively influence on cardiac function in respect of cardiorespiratory endurance.
