INTRODUCTION:
Swimming as a modality of physical activity that has been recommended for preventing, controlling and treating arterial hypertension.
OBJECTIVE:
To verify the persistent effects of a regular swimming program on pre-hypertensive adults on arterial pressure levels.
METHODS:
The sample was constituted of 36 pre-hypertense individuals who were divided into two groups: experimental - GE (n=24, 40.60 ± 9.36 years old) and control - GC (n=12, 40.57 ± 8.05 years old. GE individuals took part in a regular swimming programme consisting of three forty-five training sessions weekly (ST) for 12 weeks, whereas GC individuals were instructed not to alter their nutritional habits and did not practice any physical activity during the experiment. The Student t-test was used as statistical procedure to analyze the differences between the average indexes recorded before and after the 12-weeks regular swimming program. The study admitted a level statistical significance at p < 0.05 for.
RESULTS:
The results led to the conclusion that experimental group presented a statistically significant difference for the analyzed variables when compared to Control group. There was an important reduction of systolic blood pressure, SBP(Δ = - 5,89 mmHg, p = 0,00), and also of diastolic blood pressure, DBP (Δ = - 5,15mmHg, p = 0,00).
CONCLUSION:
The results showed that a regular swimming program leads to a significant decrease in resting blood pressure values of pre-hypertensive men.
motor activity; exercise; swimming; hypertension; prehypertension; blood pressure
