Effect of eight week crosscountry skiing excersise on physical fitness levels of children between 8 and 12 years

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of eight week cross country skiing exercise on physical fitness levels among children aged 8-12 years. A total of 45 boys, including the crosscuntry skiing Group (CCG, n=15), the Walking Group (WG, n=15) and the Control Group (C, n=15) with a mean age of 11.3±0.13 participated in the study voluntarily. The study includes 30-minute workout programs for eight weeks, 3 days a week. The intensity and duration of exercise protocol were increased regularly by 2.5% per week for eight weeks. For measuring children's height, body weight, body mass index (BMI), body fat percentage and lean body mass was measured. In the determination of the motoric properties, flexibility, standing long jump, right-left grip force, flexed arm hang, static balance, t-agility, 20m shuttle run and 30m speed test were applied. The data were analyzed by SPSS 23.0 package program, The normal distribution of the data was examined by Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk test. The groups showed normal distribution. Since the number of participants in the groups was less then 30, nonparametric tests were applied. Willcoxon T test was used to determine if there was any difference between pre-test and post-test in group. Kruskal Wallis test was used for comparisons between the groups. Statistical significance level was accepted as (p<0.05). Statistical analysis showed statistically significant differences in body weight, right hand grip, left hand grip, flexed arm hang parameters between CC,Y and C groups, static balance, standing long jump, body fat percentage, body mass index parameters; There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of speed, agility, flexibility, lean body mass and height parameters (p <0.05), while there was a statistically significant difference between the groups of CC,CG and CC,WG in the MaxVO2 parameter. It seems that the 8-12 age group mostly performed better than the walking and control group according to the physical, physiological and motoric parameters of the group who were cross country skiing exercises for 8 weeks. Key words: Children, Cross Country Skiing, Exercise, Physical Fitness, Walking