V.V. Cheshikhina, professor, Dr.Hab.
V.V. Seleznev, associate professor, Ph.D.
O.N. Nikiforova, associate professor, Ph.D.
Russian State Social University, Moscow

Keywords: physical working capacity, skilled orienteers with hearing impairments, competitive activity, oxygen uptake at anaerobic threshold.

Introduction. According to the World Health Organization, at the present stage of development of society every tenth person in the world is disabled due to various diseases. Problems of social, medical, economic, psychological and pedagogical nature related to human disability and processes of their rehabilitation have always been relevant in the society.

As of today, there are over 12 million of disabled people in Russia, a significant part of them are children with various impairments. However, only 3% of the disabled are engaged in physical culture and sport. Meanwhile, international practices show that in the system of social protection of the disabled its active forms are becoming increasingly important, the most effective being social rehabilitation by means  of adaptive physical culture and sport. The main purpose of engaging the disabled in regular physical activities and sports is to restore the lost contact with the outside world, to create the necessary conditions for reunification with the society.

WHO experts state that 6% of the current world population have hearing impairments that in varying degrees impede social communication.

Studies of a number of scientists revealed a considerable lag of children with hearing impairments from their healthy peers with regards to motor skills development. The lag is also manifested in insufficiently precise motion coordination, low level of spatial orientation development and balance maintenance [1, 2, 5].

Systematic classes of adaptive physical culture and sport are not only the most powerful means of health improvement and education, but also means of social adaptability formation for persons with lost functional capabilities of the body, in particular, with hearing impairments. There is a need to improve the content, methods and techniques of engaging athletes with hearing impairments in systematic training in view of the increasing requirements to the preparedness level of the Deaflympics athletes [3, 4, 6, 7].

The purpose of the study was to determine the level of physical working capacity of skilled orienteers with hearing impairments.

Materials and methods. The study was conducted with the Russian and Moscow national team of skilled orienteers with hearing impairments.

The experiment program included measurement of anthropometric indicators: body size, body weight, skin fold thickness using a fat caliper.

The HR signal was recorded using a sport tester on the course and during a pedagogical testing under laboratory conditions.

Speed was recorded at anaerobic threshold while athletes were running treadmill on a treadmill with incrementally-increasing speed. The speed of running on the treadmill was increased by 0.5 meter/second every three minutes, at a constant angle of slope of the treadmill being 5%.

Exhaled breath gas was measured using the gas-analyzing complex Cortex Metalyzer 3b (Germany).

Results and discussion. During the research of physical working capacity of the skilled orienteers with hearing impairments their basic anthropometric characteristics were studied (Table 1).

Table 1. Anthropometric characteristics of hearing-impaired orienteers

Analyzing the results of Table 1 we can see that hearing-impaired orienteers have a high percentage of muscle mass and low body fat.

Male orienteers with hearing impairments generally have relatively small body weight (due to the minimum amount of fat and relatively small weight of the skeleton). Untrained men aged 18-25 have 15-17% of fat in their body weight, while skilled orienteers have only 8%.

To assess the functional state of the oxygen transport system of skilled orienteers with hearing impairments a comprehensive examination was conducted during which the athletes were running on a treadmill.

In the examination the speed of the anaerobic threshold was measured based on graphical plotting of the relationship between running speed and HR at the inflection of the relationship between lung ventilation and oxygen consumption and the running speed.

The results of the functional examination of the orienteers are adduced in Table 2.

The comparative data in Table 2 show that the level of maximum oxygen consumption of the examined orienteers with hearing impairments is high enough.

Table 2. Functional indicators of the oxygen transport system of orienteers – members of the Russian national team of the deaf

Indicators of HR modes and running speed dynamics of skilled orienteers with hearing impairments in competitions are sufficiently objective assessment of the intensity of work. Using HR recording it is possible to study the nature of responses of the body and determine optimal training loads. HR when performing cyclic work is in linear relation with the intensity of the load performed. HR is for a good reason considered to be the most important physiological mechanism for adaptation of the circulatory system to the muscular work.

During the educational experiment the HR of skilled athletes with hearing impairments was examined on orientation trails during competitions. In total 64 people were examined in this period (34 men and 30 women), Honored Masters of Sports, Masters of Sports of International Class, Masters of Sports, Candidates for Masters of Sports. The average age of the examined was 25 for men and 26 for women. The results of the examination of the HR modes during competitive activities of the orienteers are given in Table 3, the analysis of which shows that the average maximum HR on orientation trails was 171 bpm for skilled athletes, both men and women. The minimum HR on orientation trails was significantly different for Honored Masters of Sports, Masters of Sports of International Class and Candidates for Masters of Sports, both for men and women. The range of changes of the average competitive and minimal HR was on average 19 bpm for men and 20 bpm for women.

Table 3. Characteristics of HR modes during competitive performance of skilled orienteers with hearing impairments

This HR variation is associated with the time spent by the athletes on performing technical actions: search of a checkpoint, checking in and selection of the option of movement to the next checkpoint.

According to measurements conducted on the competition orientation trails, HR of the athletes ranged from 150 to 180 bpm on average and corresponded to changes in the running speed. When reading maps or checking in at a checkpoint the HR of hearing-impaired orienteers decreased by 5-7 bpm on average for Honored Masters of Sports, by 7-10 bpm for Masters of Sports of International Class and by 10-15 bpm for Masters of Sports.  

According to analysis of the dynamics of heart rate and running speed at competition courses, good performance of orienteers mostly corresponds to steadier average values of pulse and running speed. Pulse curves were rather flat with small fluctuations associated mainly with reaching the checkpoint, registering and leaving it.

Thus, as shown in a series of investigations, hearing-impaired orienteers had a fairly high correlation between running speed and heart rate during competitive activity. It is especially evident when passing lowland parts of the distance. An increase in heart rate was observed when dealing with inclines, water-logged grounds and ploughed fields. Heart rate decreased when descending, stopping or slowing down when reaching the checkpoint and registering on it.

Conclusions. The required level of physical working capacity of skilled orienteers with hearing impairments is ensured by high resource indicators of the oxygen transport system. The indicators of maximum oxygen consumption of the leading Russian hearing-impaired orienteers are at the level of 66-71 and 55-60 ml/min/kg for men and women respectively, the speed at the anaerobic threshold is 4.8-4.9 m/s and 3.9-4.1 m/s for men and women respectively, which is slightly different from the indicators of elite orienteers.

Analysis of indicators of competitive loads of skilled orienteers with hearing impairments suggests that most of the distance the athletes cover when the speed corresponds to the level of the anaerobic threshold (HR – 171±6 bpm), and the speed of the anaerobic threshold increases along with the skill level of athletes.

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Corresponding author: Kfv-rgsu@yandex.ru