EFFECT OF PRANAYAMA PRACTICE ON BREATH HOLDING TIME AMONG UNIVERSITY KABADDI PLAYERS

The purpose of the study was to find out the effect of pranayama practice on breath holding time among university kabaddi players. To achieve this purpose of the study, thirty men students studying in the Pachaiyappa’s College for Men, Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu, were selected as subjects and they were divided into two equal groups of fifteen subjects each, such as pranayama practice group and control group. The Group I underwent pranayama practice programme for three days per week for twelve weeks and Group II acted as control which did not participate in any special pranayama practice programme apart from the regular pranayama practice as per the curriculum. The following dependent variable namely breath holding time was selected as criterion variable and was tested by using holding breath for time. All the subjects of two groups were tested on selected dependent variables at prior to and immediately after the pranayama practice programme. The analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyze the significant difference, if any, between the groups. The .05 level of confidence was fixed to find out the level of significance which was considered as an appropriate. The results of the study revealed that there was a significant difference between pranayama practice group and control group on breath holding time. And also the results of the study showed that there was a significant improvement on breath holding time due to pranayama practice.