Heart rate variability of children engaged in therapeutic swimming

In Russia the last decade has seen a significant deterioration in health, physical activity and physical fitness of children due to a number of adverse factors of ecological, socio-economic nature, with a real decrease in the prevention measures in health care and education. About 50% of students have abnormalities of varying degrees in posture needing corrective or preventive care. Among the causes of incorrect posture are various environmental factors and individual development. A universal means of physical education is swimming that has a versatile effect on people. Swimming lessons will certainly have a positive effect on the development of the muscular-skeletal system, muscles and other body systems. The comprehensive program of physical education of 1-3-graders (1996) provides for the formation of the correct posture, but does not specify the ways and means of solving this problem. We have developed a methodology of swimming techniques for children of primary school with impaired posture. Estimation of the functional state of the body is one of the key steps in testing the effectiveness of the methodology as optimizing health is closely linked to the process of adaptation, which is determined by the functional capacities of a particular individual. As the limiting characteristics of the functional state can be the ''price'' of adaptive responses to physical stress. Estimation of these parameters can be done by the heart rate variability in the relatively calm state and during run load tests. When the prognostic estimation of the level of functional reserves and physical activity adequate to it, we should note that for children with sufficient activity level the functional reserves and adaptation correspond to the load they receive, with extra level it is possible to increase the load, and with insufficient level it is necessary to reduce it. Children with a high level of functional reserves have a shift of the autonomic balance, both at rest and in orthostasis with the predominance of parasympathetic effects, a higher degree of autonomy of the autonomic nervous system regulation. Children with low levels have increases of the impact of the central mechanisms effect, the autonomic balance shifts towards the predominance of the effects of the sympathetic nervous system. Students with sufficient level of activity have higher levels of the body functional status, as evidenced by the low background values of load index, mode amplitude, heart rate, higher values of ДХ, and the optimal dynamics of load index values during the active orthostatic test.

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