Z.S. Zemlyakova¹
Dr. Hab., Professor V.G. Shilko^1
1National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk

Keywords: state anxiety, classical aerobics, slide aerobics, morbidity rate, adaptation.

Background. The national research community gives a growing priority to the studies meant to improve the students’ mental and physical health standards and academic living and learning environments by special physical practices, with the highest attention to the university entrants [4]. The academic physical education and sport service offers a wide range of the physical activation and health improvement models, with modern aerobics systems (dominated by the classical and slide aerobics) being among the most popular and demanded by the female students [2]. Thus National Research Tomsk State University has offered the classical aerobics service for the last few decades in the academic physical education and sport curricula and accumulated a vast experience – that proves benefits of the courses for the physical education and sport service mission; albeit the slide aerobics course is relatively new for the academic physical education and sport service; and its benefits, as we believe, still need to be comprehensively tested and analyzed [3].

Objective of the study was to rate and analyze benefits of the slide and classical aerobics training models for the mental and physical health standards of the first-year female students.

Methods and structure of the study. We sampled for the slide aerobics model testing experiment the 17-19 years old first-year female students (n=54) from 9 National Research Tomsk State University departments and institutes qualified with the main and preparatory health groups; and split up the sample into Experimental and Reference Groups (EG, RG) of 27 people each. The RG was formed of the classical aerobics trainees, and EG was trained as required by the new slide aerobics model of our own design, with both groups trained twice a week for 1.5 hours for the period of October 2017 through May 2018.

Mental health was tested by the Spielberger-Khanin State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) tests; and the emotional health was tested by synchronous stress tolerance tests that rate the stress tolerance by varied intensity and time stresses [1]. The group progresses were tested by the pre-, mid- and post-experimental tests (in October 2017, late November 2017 and May 2018, respectively). The pre-experimental tests found the intergroup differences in the stress tolerance and morbidity rates (reported by the university health clinic) insignificant (p>0.05).

Results and discussion. Presently National Research Tomsk State University runs comprehensive studies with analyses of the classical aerobics benefits for the physical development, physical fitness and stress tolerance of the beginner students [3], with a special interest to the stress tolerance and mental adaptability in the first two academic semesters including the physical and mental health benefits of the classical and slide aerobics classes. We also ranked for the study purposes the academic stressors the first-year female students are inevitably exposed to.

We run a questionnaire survey and found most of the sample reporting high emotional discomforts due to the drastic changes in the lifestyles and learning environments. Thus the sample (n=47) was dominated by resettled people, with 43 living in hostels; 4 in rented apartments and only 7 locals. Most reported shortages in the rehab sleep time (averaging 6 hours only) and too long academic learning time, with the majority (38 people) reporting 10+ hours claimed by the class and off-class studies: see Figure 1 hereunder.

Figure 1. Questionnaire survey data (n=47)

Table 1. Spielberger-Khanin STAI tests: pre-, mid- and post-experimental state anxiety test data, points

Table 2. Spielberger-Khanin STAI test: anxiety benchmarks, points

Table 3. Morbidity rates of the sample, people

We tested the state anxiety in RG and EG versus the benchmarks (Table 2) to find the group test data being still within the moderate zone albeit close to the upper limit: see Table. 1. Despite this, the pre-experimental stress tolerance rates were insignificantly (p≤0.05) above the threshold values: see Table. 2.

References

1. Batarshev A.V. Bazovye psikhologicheskie svoystva i samoopredelenie lichnosti: Prakticheskoe rukovodstvo po psikhologicheskoy diagnostike [Basic psychological properties and self-determination of personality: practical guide in psychological diagnostics]. St. Petersburg: Rech publ., 2005. pp. 44-49.
2. Golyakova N.N., Mazulenko A.N. Sovremennye napravleniya ozdorovitelnoy aerobiki [Modern trends in fitness aerobics]. Aktualnye problemy ekonomiki, sotsiologii i prava. 2019. No. 4. pp. 20-22.
3. Zemlyakova Z.S., Shilko V.G. Vliyanie zanyatiy slayd-aerobikoy na funktsionalnoe sostoyanie i fizicheskoe razvitie studentok [Effects of slide aerobics on female students' functional state and physical development]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. 2017. No. 10. pp. 86-88.
4. Shilko V.G Povyshenie stressoustoychivosti studentok pod vliyaniem zanyatiy razlichnymi vidami sporta [Stress tolerance building in female students by academic sports]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. 2018. No. 11. pp. 17-19.

Corresponding author: zloboda@sibmail.com

Abstract

Objective of the study was to rate and analyze benefits of the slide and classical aerobics training models for the mental and physical health standards of the first-year female students.

Methods and structure of the study. We sampled for the slide aerobics model testing experiment the 17-19 years old first-year female students (n=54) from 9 National Research Tomsk State University departments and institutes qualified with the main and preparatory health groups; and split up the sample into Experimental and Reference Groups (EG, RG) of 27 people each. The RG was formed of the classical aerobics trainees, and EG was trained as required by the new slide aerobics model of our own design, with both groups trained twice a week for 1.5 hours for the period of October 2017 through May 2018.

Mental health was tested by the Spielberger-Khanin State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) tests; and the emotional health was tested by synchronous stress tolerance tests that rate the stress tolerance by varied intensity and time stresses.

Results and conclusions. The study found a close correlation between the stress tolerance and morbidity rate of the first-year female students, regardless of their physical activity. The classical and slide aerobics trainings were found to equally facilitate the students’ adaptation to the academic living and learning environments, with the stress tolerance and morbidity rate falling down to the minimal values by completion of the first academic year – versus their unsporting peers whose adaptation processes were tested to take up to two years. The study data and analyses proved high benefits of the slide aerobics training service that may be ranked among the key adaptability factors for its accelerating effects on the bodily adaptive responses to academic stressors the students are always exposed to in the first academic year.