Effects of swimming and water walking on body composition and spirometric values in young children

Aquatic activities have been recommended as frequent practices due to the physical properties of water with improvements in body composition of young. Objective: To study if there are differences in body composition and spirometric values in children who practice swimming complemented with water walking and those who only practice swimming. Methodology: 28 individuals (6 to 12 years) were divided into two groups: swimming group (SG: n=9) and swimming complemented with water walking group (SWWG: n=19) in three different moments with 6 weeks between them. For body composition a bio-impedance scale was used and an anthropometric tape for the waist circumference. For spirometric values: forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) and even peak expiratory flow (PEF) a Cosmed Microquark spirometer was used. For statistical procedures the SPSS (20.0) program for descriptive statistics, the Shapiro Wilk test for testing the normality, inferential statistics (non-parametric Mann-Whitney tests, Friedman's Anova), and for the effect size the d-Cohen test. Results: Regarding the inter-group analysis (comparison between the SG and SWWG) we observed that there were significant differences in weight (p=0,004), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1: p=0,025) and peak expiratory flow (PEF: p=0,033). Concerning intra-group differences (improvements in the SG and SWWG), the SWWG showed significant improvements in weight muscle mass (p=0,029), fat mass (p=0,002), percentage of water (p=0,018),, body mass index (BMI: p=0,000), body percentiles (p=0,000), forced vital capacity (FVC: p=0,003) and forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1: p=0,008). We have concluded that the practice of swimming and water walking have benefits with differences in the analysed group variables, however, the two activities complemented (swimming and water walking) present improvements much more significant.