Improving the development of physical qualities in university students through a differentiated circuit training program

Abstract

The article addresses the problem of developing the basic physical qualities of university students under conditions of declining motor activity. The aim of the study was to substantiate and experimentally verify the effectiveness of a differentiated circuit training program for developing the physical qualities of first-year students. The pedagogical experiment lasted one academic semester (16 weeks, two 80-minute sessions per week) and involved 60 first-year male students of Almalyk State Technical Institute, divided into an experimental group (n=30) and a control group (n=30). Physical fitness was assessed using a battery of six motor tests evaluating speed, speed-strength qualities, strength, endurance, flexibility and coordination. The results were processed using Student’s t-test. By the end of the experiment, the experimental group demonstrated statistically significant improvements in all six indicators, considerably exceeding the gains of the control group, in which the changes were statistically insignificant. The findings confirm that a differentiated circuit training program is an effective pedagogical means of developing the physical qualities of university students and can be recommended for inclusion in the physical education curriculum of higher educational institutions.