A Comparative Study of Hematological Variables between Basketball Players and Yoga Practitioners
Abstract
Basketball is a popular court-based team sport that has been extensively studied over the last decade. Yoga is a physical and mental discipline that forms part of ayurvedic medicine. The purpose of the study was to find out hematological variables (RBC, WBC, and Platelets) between regular basketball players and yoga practitioners. Nine (09) subjects were randomly participated as volunteers in this study; among them (n=04) were basketball players and the rest (n=05) yoga practitioners. Blood samples were collected in the morning session (6:30 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.) with fasting. Red blood cells (counts), white blood cells (counts), and platelets (counts) were criterion measures in this study. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, mean and SD and an unpaired t-test were applied to check the level of significance (p<0.05). Statistical results indicated that the monocytes and platelets were statistically significant differences found between basketball players and yoga practitioners. There was no statistically significant difference in red blood cell, neutrophil, eosinophil, basophil, lymphocytes between the two groups. In summary, it could be said that basketball players’ monocytes and platelets blood count were higher than yoga practitioners, but red blood cell, neutrophil, eosinophil, basophil, lymphocytes blood count is closer in both groups.