Untitled

Abstract

Muslim's prayers have four movements; Ruku (RK), Rafa'a Al-Ruku (R-RK), Sujud (SJ) and Rafa'a Al-Sujud (R-SJ). The purpose of our study is to assess the effectiveness of these movements on strengthening the lower back muscles (LBM) in relation to some common LBM exercises. A cross-sectional study was conducted at King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia in October, 2012. We analyzed surface electromyogram data of 15 men and 15 women aged (21.4±2.2 years) to compare the strength of LBM contraction in Muslim's prayers movements with that of three chosen LBM exercises. Our study showed that there were no significant differences between Muslim's four prayers movements and two of the LBM exercises included in the study (p≥0.05). RK, R-RK, SJ and R-SJ were superior to the third exercise (p<0.05), and all of these four movements revealed higher consistency than the included LBM exercises. There were no significant differences between males and females when we compared the effectiveness of prayers movements with that of standardized LBM exercises except for one exercise (p=0.001). The major movements of Muslim's prayers are as effective as the included lower back muscles exercises.