This study examined how different types of dance activities along with their duration, influenced heart rate responses of students who participated in the nationally acclaimed “Dancing Classrooms" program.
Methods
Participants of the study (n=96) were fifth graders from two demographically similar suburban Texas elementary schools who participated in the 20-lesson Dancing Classrooms program. Lessons 17 and 18 were chosen to collect data because they were the only lessons that reviewed all the dances. Polar E-600 heart rate monitors were set to collect data at 5-second intervals.
Analysis/Results
Beyond a descriptive analysis of heart rate data, a mixed model repeated measures design was used to determine relationships between heart rate, resting heart rate, BMI, gender, and each of the specific dances in the program. A follow up one-way ANOVA was used to examine any significant main effects between BMI and gender, resting heart rate, and type of dance activity.
Results indicate that 47% of dancing classrooms time (17.39 minutes) was spent above the 60% maximum heart rate reserve criterion. Additionally, when comparing the heart rates of Dancing Classrooms with other physical education activities, Dancing Classrooms (89.7%) is comparable to Cross-country running (90.6%) when it comes to spending time in % zone (Laurson et al., 2008).
The Fox Trot, Rumba, Tango, and Waltz did not record average heart rates above the 60% maximum heart rate threshold. On the other hand, the Meringue, Swing, and Fun Dance did achieve mean heart rates above the 60% heart rate threshold. Further analyses between dance activities indicate that the Swing dance heart rates (143.43 bpm) were significantly higher (p = .000) than all other dance heart rates. When comparing the Swing dance heart rates (143.43 bpm) to other activities reported in the literature, we find that the Swing dance measures up closely to Aquatics activities (141 bpm) and Cardiolab activities (148 bpm) as reported by Laurson et al. (2008).
The mean BMI for the total sample was 21.59 (± 4.65) and there were no significant main effects between BMI and gender (p = .194), resting heart rate (p = .544), and/or type of dance (p = .349).
Conclusions
Findings suggest that the Dancing Classrooms program just meets the recommended 60% maximum heart rate reserve for aerobic conditioning. Females achieved significantly higher heart rate averages than the males, and the Swing dance elevated heart rates significantly higher than all the other dances in the program.
See more of: Research Consortium