The effect of eight weeks of selected aerobic exercise in water on some of the cardiovascular risk indicators of overweight elderly men

Voluntary activity decreases in the elderly, and this causes many physical problems and cardiovascular risk factors in these people. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of 8 weeks of selected aerobic exercise in water on some cardiovascular risk factors in overweight elderly men.

After measuring anthropometric indices, 34 overweight men (age: 64/84± 5/56) (≥ 25 Kg/m BMI) were randomly selected and divided into two groups of exercise in water (n = 17) and control (n = 17). The exercise program included aerobic exercise in water with an intensity of 45 to 65% of maximum heart rate for 8 weeks. Before and after the intervention, blood samples were taken from all subjects to measure serum levels of triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), LDL cholesterol and HDL cholesterol. Shapiro-Wilk test was used to evaluate the normality of data distribution and after assuming the normality of the data, correlated t-test was used to examine intragroup changes and independent t-test was used for intergroup differences. Data analysis was performed using SPSS software. The results were evaluated at a significance level of less than 0.05.

Exercise in water led to a significant reduction in the percentage of fat (P£0.03), weight (P£0.01), body mass index (P£0.01), blood pressure (P£0.001), TG (P£0.00), Cholesterol (P£0.01), LDL (P£0.02), But there was no significant difference in HDL index between the two groups.

8 weeks of aerobic exercise in water can probably have positive effects on reducing some cardiovascular risk factors in overweight older men. Therefore, these exercises can be used to recommend exercise by sports and health experts in these people.