T he Comparison of Turkish Folk Dancers with Sedentary People in Terms of Some Physical Fitness P aram e ters

The aim of this study wa s to compare Turkish folk dancers with sedentary people in terms of some physical fitness p arameters . 12 women and 14 men from Turkish folk dances team, which took part in a contest in 2013 and 12 sedentary women and 14 sedentary men from Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, totally 52 volunteers, pa rticipated in this study. Height, weight, strength, flexibility, vertical jump and anaerobic power of subjects were measured with measuring tools. Descriptive and Mann - Whitney U tests in SPSS 16.0 were used to analyze data. When physical fitness p arameters of men Turkish folk dances athletes and sedentary men were compared, while statistically significant difference was found between the right - hand grip strength, the left - hand grip strength and vertical jump (p<0.05), there wa s no statistical difference found between other variables (p>0.05). When physical fitness p arameters of women Turkish folk dances athletes and sedentary women were compared, while statistically significant difference was found between the right - hand grip strength, the left - hand grip strength, vertical jump and a naerobic power (p<0.05), there wa s no statistical difference found between other variables (p>0.05). Consequently, it was found that the right and left handgrip strength and vertical jump values of women and men Turkish folk da nces athletes were higher than sedentary. It can be said that these differences result from that they usually do exercises for development of these p arameters because of the nature of this sport branch