In childhood, children grow and develop significantly with rapid changes taking place in their bodies in many aspects. Therefore, childhood is a very important period for children to maintain their lifelong health. However, due to the development of westernized lifestyle and indoor-focused play culture, physical activity of the children has decreased, and 21.2% of the children in growth period do not participate in exercise even one day a week.
A decrease in physical activity and lack of exercise can negatively affect the development of skeletal muscle of the children, which consequently can cause their lower body misalignment. Therefore, correction of lower body misalignment of the children is very important during their growth period when their skeletal muscle is formed and aligned.
In the elementary school period, children achieve vigorous growth and their bodies also develop very rapidly, so they need exercise that can promote their growth and improve overall body balance capacity, coordination, and muscle strength. Unlike boy students, girl students usually stop growing at the age of 12-14, so an appropriate exercise program should be developed as they go on to the higher grades. Therefore, this study tried to find the effect of core stability exercise using unstable surfaces on the lower body alignment and balance capacity of children, targeting a total of 32 girl students in their 4th-6th grades of the elementary school, including 16 students in exercise group exercising two times a week for 24 weeks and 16 students in control group.
For data processing, an independent t-test was performed before and after the exercise using the spss 25.0 program, and the following conclusions were obtained through participation in core stability exercise on unstable surfaces for 24 weeks.
First, in the leg flexion angle, the exercise group showed a statistically significant difference between pre-exercise (3.29±1.78) and post-exercise (1.76±1.10) (p<.001), but the control group showed no statistically significant difference between pre-exercise (3.04±1.53) and post-exercise(3.03 ±1.39).
Second, in the leg tilt, the exercise group showed a statistically significant difference between pre-exercise (17.11±8.20) and post-exercise (5.78±8.33) (p<.001), but the control group showed no statistically significant difference between pre-exercise (16.42±8.21) and post-exercise (16.01±8.13).
Third, in the calcaneal bone angle, the exercise group showed a statistically significant difference between pre-exercise (14.98±4.70) and post-exercise (8.83±4.79) (p<.001), but the control group showed no statistically significant difference between pre-exercise (11.39±3.23) and post-exercise (11.58±3.91).
Fourth, in the clacaneal bone tilt, the exercise group showed a statistically significant difference between pre-exercise (13.88±3.70) and post-exercise (7.86±4.25) (p<.001), but the control group showed no statistically significant difference between pre-exercise (11.10±3.57) and post-exercise (11.33±3.93).
Fifth, in the Pedalo score to evaluate the balance capacity, the exercise group increased their scores from pre-exercise (72.69±15.53) to post-exercise (77.75±14.91) but showed no statistically significant difference. The control group also showed no significant difference between pre-exercise (77.19±8.76) and post-exercise (71.94±14.03).
Through this study, we could find that the participation in core stability exercise on unstable surfaces can bring many positive changes to the lower body alignment of elementary school students. It is expected the results of this study can provide detailed data on exercise programs that are helpful to improvement of the health and body shape of elementary school students.