Abstract:
Increasing involvement of students with hearing impairment in sporting activities and their remarkable performances are now engendering more research interests on how to promote sporting activities among this group and to enhance their performance to equal that of their hearing counterparts. Several studies have been conducted on identifying and developing sporting skills among adolescents with hearing impairment (AHI). However, investigating the effects of Aerobic Exercise (AE) and Progressive Resistance Exercise (PRE) on AHI has not been sufficiently explored. Therefore, this study examined the effects of AE and PRE trainings on Resting Systolic Blood Pressure (RSBP), Resting Diastolic Blood Pressure (RDBP), Heart Rate (HR) Maximum Oxygen uptake (VO2-Max), Muscular Endurance (ME), Muscular Strength (MS), Flexibility, Speed and Agility of secondary school adolescent with hearing impairment in Ibadan Metropolis.
The randomized pretest-posttest control group design with a 3x2x2 factorial matrix was adopted. Purposive sampling technique was applied to select 120 adolescent students from two public secondary schools for AHI in Ibadan metropolis. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental (AE and PRE) and control groups. Each of the experimental groups was exposed to a 12-week exercise training programme. Data were collected using Sphygmomanometer (r=0.97), Stethoscope (r=0.94), Stopwatch (r=0.96), 1 Mile Run/walk (r=0.71), Burpee (r=0.92), Hand Grip Strength Dynamometer (r=0.93), Flexbox (r=0.90), 50 yards Sprint Test (r=0.97) and Illinois Agility Test (r=0.93). Three research questions were answered and five hypotheses tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics, t-test, Analysis of Covariance and Scheffe post-hoc test.
AHI had normal resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate and VO¬2-Max. They had average ME, MS and flexibility, above average agility, but poor in speed. There were significant effect of treatments on RSBP (F(3,116)=14.17, p<0.05, ή =0.35), HR (F(3, 116)=16.59, p<0.05,ή=0.47), VO2-Max (F(3,116)=15.81, p<0.05, ή=0.45), ME (F(3,116)=22.60, p<0.05, ή=0.54), MS (F(3,116)=9.87, p<0.05, ή=0.38),flexibility (F(3,116)=8.15, p<0.05, ή=0.32) and agility (F(3,116)=23.72, p<0.05, ή=0.53). This shows that AE and PRE had significant improvement on the participants. Scheffe post hoc shows significant differences in RSBP, HR and flexibility among the three groups (AE and control and PRE and control p<0.05), ME and agility were between PRE and AE, also between PRE and control (p<0.05). Based on gender, the results show significant differences in VO2-Max (t=13.542; p<0.05), ME (t=7.137; p<0.05), MS (t=6.915; p<0.05), Flexibility (t=2.350; p>0.05), Speed (t=6.190; p<0.05) and Agility (t=6.547; p<0.05).This indicates that gender had effects on VO2-Max, ME, MS, Flexibility, Speed and Agility of both AE and PRE groups. This reveals a significant difference only in MS based on age (t=-2.351; p<0.05) of both groups while physiological and motor variables were not significant based on degree of hearing impairment.
Aerobic exercise training was effective in enhancing RSBP, RDBP, ME, and agility while PRE training was more potent on HR, VO2-Max, MS, flexibility and speed of the participants. Therefore, the two modes of exercise should be recommended for planning and designing exercise and rehabilitation programmes for adolescents with hearing impairment.
Keywords: Aerobic exercise, Progressive resistance exercise, Physiological variables, Motor variables, Hearing impairment adolescents.
Word Count: 483
