The Physical Motoric and Psychosocial Outcomes of Tae-Bo Program in University Female Students.

In this study which was supported by the project unit of Bitlis Eren University, determining the influence of regular and long-term Tae-bo aerobic exercise program on the physical, motoric and psychosocial developments of sedentary overweight university students was aimed. Seventy-seven (77) students participated in this study. The students randomly divided into two groups; 37 of them in exercise group (EG) and the rest 40 in control group (CG). All of them were asked to have a health certificate. Exercise program was carried on in the martial arts gym which is in the campus of Bitlis Eren University. The physical and motoric measurements were done by the equipment provided with project budget in the sports physiology laboratory in Physical Education and Sports School (PESS). The inventory, scale and survey questionnaires were administered to the students in PESS’ meeting room in one session as pre and post-test. The participants of EG participated in tae-bo aerobic exercise program for 60 minutes, 3 days a week, for 16 weeks. An Individual Information Form with the items of socio-demographical and health status characteristics was developed by the researchers was used to gather data. Physical-motoric measurements such as height (H), body weight (BW), body mass index (BMI), body fat percent (BFP), waist-hip ratio (WHR), right and left hand-grip (HG), leg strength (LS) and back strength (BS), flexibility (F), maximum VO2 (VO2max) and psycho-social measurements such as social physique anxiety (SPA), self-esteem (SE), negative psychological symptoms (NPS), general physical competence (GPC) and self-confidence (SC) that are the indicators of physical self-perception were done. Participants of CG carried on their usual life and same measurements were also done for them. The findings were analyzed by SPSS Statistical Package Program; giving descriptive statistics. Shapiro-Wilk was utilized to examine the normality of data. As the data showed a normal distribution, independent t-test to compare the scores of different groups and paired t-tests for paired groups were used. The difference between mean scores obtained were interpreted as to p 0.01 significance level and 99% confidence interval. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient which informs about the direction and intensity of relationship between parametric two different variables was used. Participation in tae-bo exercise has a positive effect on physical, motoric and psychological variables such as BW, WHR, BMI, BS, LS, F, BFP, VO2maks. Similar positive effect was seen for the psychosocial variables such as SPA, SSI, SE, GPC and SC. Further researches are suggested to be done the generalizable results.