The Influence of Aqua Aerobic Exercise on Cardiac Autonomic Function and Blood Pressure in College Male Students

Cardiac autonomic function may have beneficial adaptive changes from performing regular aqua aerobic exercise. We examined the effects of regular aqua aerobic exercise on heart rate variability and blood pressure in college male students. One hundred forty-eight subjects were randomly assigned to the aqua aerobic exercise (n = 74) and control (n = 74) groups. The aqua aerobic exercise group received training (65 to 75% of heart rate reserve) for three weeks. Blood pressure and heart rate variability were measured before and after intervention protocol in study groups. Dependent and independent t-test was used to analyze within and between group differences. The correlation between blood pressure and heart rate variability was calculated via Pearson’s correlation. Within and between groups analysis showed significant effects on blood pressure and heart rate variability (p < 0.001) and sympathetic and parasympathetic ratio (p < 0.05) after performing regular aqua aerobic exercise. Also, after performing aqua aerobic exercise, the result showed a significant negative correlation between root mean square of the differences in successive R-R intervals (after r=-0.348, p≤0.003; before r=0.139, p≤0.23) and systolic blood pressure, positive correlation between very low frequency(after r=0.300, p≤0.010; before r=0.00, p≤0.99 ) and diastolic blood pressure, positive correlation between very low frequency (after r=0.269, p≤0.021; before r=-0.050, p≤0.67) and mean blood pressure and negative correlation between root mean square of the differences in successive R-R intervals (after r=-0.232, p≤0.048; before r=0.037, p≤0.75) and mean blood pressure. Performing the aqua aerobic exercise improved cardiac autonomic function and blood pressure levels in college male students. Also, blood pressure levels control due to aqua aerobic exercise associated with some of the heart rate variability parameters.