THE EFFECT OF EIGHT WEEKS COMBINED EXERCISES ON STANDING & WALKING ABILITY IN 65 TO 80 YEARS OLD SEDENTARY MALES

The balance is most important factor in elderly people motor fitness. Without it, they cannot stand and walk correctly. The purpose of this study was to consider the effect of eight weeks combined exercises on standing and walking ability in sedentary males, 65 to 80 years old.

The method of this research was semi experimental with pretest-posttest pattern and with two experimental and control groups. In this method, 30 elder males (age: 72.23±4.45, height: 160.4±4.86, weight: 66.23±5.43, body mass index: 25.71±1.32) were selected subjectively, and they were divided randomly into experimental (n=15) and control (n=15) groups. The ability of standing of the participants was evaluated by Romberg test, and the ability of walking was evaluated by Time up & go test. Primarily, both groups were taken pretest, and then experimental group performed combined exercises protocol for eight weeks and each week for six sessions, and every session for one hour, while control group performed daily activities. This protocol included strength, durance, balance and flexibility exercises. After eight weeks, posttest was taken from two groups. To do statistical analyses, SPSS software (version 20) and Covariance Analysis (ANCOVA) was used.

The results shown that there are significant differences between experimental and control groups on doing posttests of Romberg & Time up & go tests (P<0.05).

According to the obtained results, combined exercises protocol can increase the standing and walking ability in sedentary males of 65 to 80 years old.