The effectiveness of health exercises in children during physical education classes in the first level of primary schools

Abstract

Problem Statement: It is well-known that low back pain (LBP) prevalence is high among school-age children. We are talking about ten percent who are diagnosed with scoliosis, posture disorders, or other various deformities by the early age of 7. The Modules are a project whose goal is to provide physical education lessons with innovative content which are aimed at students in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years of primary school. Approach: The data collection was carried out in the months of October and November 2022. The study included 32 girls and 36 boys aged 7-11 years with a mean age of 8.4, the mean height of 138.1 cm, mean weight of 33.5 kg, and mean BMI of 17.65. To evaluate the effectiveness of the exercise, we chose Schober's and Thomayer's tests. The children were examined before the exercise and then after the completion of the block of 6 lessons (45 minutes of group exercise, once a week). The data were processed in the statistical program SPSS using one sample t-test to compare the collected values to physiological values of Schober ś and Thomayer ś tests in children. Purpose: The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the effectiveness of the exercise on the range of motion of the spine. Results: Thomayer's and Schober's test results showed significantly lower differences from the physiological values of these tests after the exercise than at the initial examination (the p-value before the exercise of Thomayer's test > 0.05, after < 0.001, Schober's test > 0.05, after < 0.05). A negative correlation was found between Thomayer ́s test and age. The difference was found lower after finishing the „Modules“ (before: r =-0.23, after: r =-0.05). Conclusions: After 6 weeks of correctly adjusted group health exercises in physical education classes, the range of motion of the spine with Schober ś test increased and the average deviation from the norm in the Thomayer ś test decreased. The higher the average age, the lower the range of motion of Thomayer ́s test. Using health exercises in physical education classes is an effective form of prevention of back pain for children.