The paper presents the results of research studying the dynamics of the concentration of the steroid hormone cortisol in blood serum of women aged 18-21 years when using different methodological content of fitness programs, namely strength and dance fitness. Study of the features of the hormone’ changes in response to physical stimuli allows to diagnose signs of human fatigue at an early stage and to correct the training process promptly, as well as to reveal one of the ways of solvation of an important scientific issue of determining the most effective and simultaneously safe fitness direction for the organism of young women. Material and methods. To assess the adaptive-compensatory reactions of women, modern methods of biochemical analysis were used, in order to study changes in the level of the steroid hormone cortisol in the serum. In order to reach the goal of the research as well as to solve particular successive tasks, two research groups were formed. Group A (strength fitness) consisted of 25 young women, who during the research used the fitness program related to strength fitness. Group B (dance fitness) included 25 young women who had indictors statistically identical to Group A, but who used fitness program related to dance fitness. Results and discussion. Both fitness programs were performed during three months of exercise. Blood samples of each member of dance and strength fitness groups were taken before and after the session at the beginning and at the end of three months of research, corresponding to the duration of the fitness program of a certain content. According to the results, at the beginning of the study, the average group indicators after exercises showed that the value of the studied indicator in the blood of young women of group A (strength fitness) increased by 18.28% (p <0.01) compared to the state of rest. At the same time, we observed an increase in the concentration of this steroid hormone by 18.47% (p≤0.01) in the blood of members of group B (dance fitness). Thus, the obtained results indicated that, regardless of the methods of the proposed training programs, at the beginning of the study, the parameters of cortisol concentration in blood serum showed almost identical increase in both groups in response to physical stimuli. At the final stage of the pedagogical experiment the concentration of cortisol in the serum in response to exercise of young women of group A (strength fitness), increased by 7.89% (p≤0.05) compared to the state of rest. The detected range of changes in the concentration of cortisol in absolute terms was smaller (almost for 50%), compared to the same measurement at the beginning of the pedagogical experiment in women of this group. This indicates the formation of a certain level of resistance of the organism to stressful physical stimuli, as well as the pronounced processes of adaptation to motor activity of this fitness direction. Conclusion. The results of monitoring the changes of the controlled indicator in response to physical stimuli, obtained after the three months of dance fitness, indicated that the concentration of the studied hormone in the serum of young women of group B showed a decrease for 10.4% (p <0.05) compared with the state of rest. This fact indicates that the level of physical activity is too high for members of this group, that may indicate the onset of overload, even overtraining, and in the future may cause the failure of adaptation.
Keywords: cortisol, adaptive changes, strength fitness, dance fitness, biochemical parameters of blood, physical activity
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