APPLIED
EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY
PHYSICAL
WORKING CAPACITY OF
12-17 YEARS OLD VISUALLY IMPAIRED BOYS AND GIRLS
Diana
Dimitrova,
Irena Ljudmilova
National
Sports Academy “V. Levski”, Sofia, Bulgaria
INTRODUCTION. Cardiorespiratory
endurance is an important component of health-related physical fitness.
The main factor for improving of aerobic fitness is physical activity.
Visually impaired children has lower level of habitual physical
activity that their counterparts with normal vision.
The aim
of this study is to examine the age- and sex-associated variations of
PWC170 of visually impaired children and adolescents.
Methods.
In this study participated 109 blind adolescents (64 boys and 45
girls), pupils at both special schools for visually impaired children
in Bulgaria, aged between 12 and 19 years. Physical working capacity
(PWC170) was measured in W, using Monark bicycle as a continuous test
with three workloads of 3 min each. Statistical significance between
means was tested by Student’s t-test.
The PWC170
of visually impaired adolescents was about 70% of that of normal
adolescents at the same age. When PWC170 was expressed per kilogram of
body weight no significant difference was found between age groups, but
the differences between both sexes remained significant. The expressing
of PWC170 in relative values didn’t change the difference
between visually handicapped and sighted boys and girls. The results
showed that visually impaired adolescents have considerably lower
physical working capacity than sighted adolescents, probably due to
their low habitual physical activity. That could negatively impact on
their health and well-being.
Key words: visually
impaired
adolescents, PWC170.
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