The effect of walking and pilates on body composition for middle aged women

Purpose. One of the aim of physical exercising is to prevent the illness of sedantery lifestyle. Among the adults, the most common physical activity is walking. Nowadays the pilates exercises also became in common day by day. The effects of walking on body composition is a thing that is known, but the studies which are related with the effects of pilates on body composition is limited. The aim of this study is to research the effects of pilates and walking in middle aged women on their body compositions.Methods and Materials: The twenty-eight women who are not in menopause and between the age of thirty, fourty-five participated in the study as volunteers. The three different groups joined the study. The group of control (n=9), 10000 group of steps (n=11), group of pilates (n=8). The study lasted eight weeks. The daily numbers of steps of all the participaters were recorded by pedometers. The ten-thousand steps group of participaters were encouraged to success the exercise. The pilates exercises were made for the pilates group which lasted are hour and two days in a week ın the beginning, middle and at the end of the study, some measurements were made on such as body weight index, body fat rate, hip, waist, flexibility, pulse, sistolic pressure of blood, diastolic pressure of blood, Cooper test aerobical power tests.Findings: In this study, on the participaters who practised pilates and they walked 10000 steps, the considerable reduces were noted in their weight, body fat rates, waist and hip and also their flexibility was raised. In walking group participaters their pulses were decreased and their aerobical power was raised, but in pilates group, these changes were not seen. On the other hand the sistolic and diastolic blood pressures did not change is any group.Result: Both kinds of exercises could be adviced to the participaters who want to be beter on body composition but walking could be suggested more than pilates because of it is being easier and increasing the aerobical power. As a result this study was made on such a small group that it could be planned to make this study in bigger groups to search the subject in details.Key Words: Walking, pilates, the index of body weight, the body fat rates aerobical power.