The purpose of this lecture is to introduce how aquatic exercise is an attractive training method, especially for maintaining the cardiovascular fitness, during recovery from musculos-keletal injuries of the lower legs and/or from obesity. Though the energy expenditure of vertical movement in water is less than that on land due to the effect of buoyance, walking/running in water increases the energy metabolism largely enough to maintain the cardiovascular fitness level. In addition, water running on the spot with flotation device is capable of eliciting metabolic responses comparable to treadmill running on land. Therefore, comfortable and useful facilities for aquatic exercise should be constructed in each province for both healthy and injured persons to maintain and improve their cardiovascular fitness.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of silver spike point (SSP) therapy on peripheral circulatory function in workers exposed to hand-arm vibration by analyzing the second derivative of photoplethysmogram (SDPTG). Seventy-seven male subjects including public service workers and forestry workers volunteered for the present study. After the SSP therapy on LI4 (Hege) and LI10 (Shousanli) at 1Hz for 10 minutes, the SDPTG-index was significantly increased among the subjects whose SDPTG-index was below the 50th percentile curve of the normal aging curve. The result suggests that the SSP therapy is useful in the improvement of peripheral circulatory function in workers exposed to hand-arm vibration.

In order to investigate an effect of the excess fat of obese men on the respiratory-cardiovascular system, VO₂max was measured for seven obese, 16 ordinary and seven lean men. All subjects were university students, ages 18 to 25 years. Body composition was determined by densitometry. Furthermore, six non-obese young men participated in an added-weight experiment so as to estimate an effect of the excess fat of obesity. Results showed that there were no statistically significant differences in the absolute values of VO₂max, VEmax, and HRmax among the groups. Concerning the relative value of VO₂max to body weight, the obese group showed a significantly lower value of 40.4 ml/kg-min than the lean and ordinary group values of 51.5 and 48.8 ml/kg-min, respectively. However, no significant difference was found between the relative values of VO₂max per lean body mass of any of the groups. VO₂max for the obese group was 54.0 ml/kg-min, 56.0 for the lean group and 57.7 for the ordinary group. Such trends were very similar to the results of the added-weight experiment. Based on the values for the subjects in this study, this leads to the conclusion that the excess fat of obese men might act only as an inactive load and might not affect the ability of the respiratory-cardiovascular system. Besides, the threshold of obesity for men proposed by Behnke and Wilmore might be reasonable from the viewpoint of the absolute and the relative values of VO₂max.

To analyze the relationship of cause and effect between the onset of throwing disorders of the shoulder and decreased muscle strength, two studies were conducted at a baseball field. In study 1, shoulder joint muscle strength was measured when pain developed during practice and the relationship between pain onset and muscle strength was investigated. Decreased muscle strength was noted at the time of pain onset in 8.1% of players. Study 2 was a prospective study in which the relationship between changes in shoulder joint muscle strength from the start of pitching at the beginning of the season to one month later when competitive games began, and shoulder pain that appeared at the beginning of competitive games was analyzed. Based on the results, the possibility of shoulder joint muscle strength being a predictive factor for the onset of throwing disorders of the shoulder was investigated. However the pain group had greater muscle strength than the normal group at the beginning of the season. On the baseball field, the players’ throwing motions and joint function change daily, making it difficult to determine the reason for onset of disorders and injuries. These results suggest that onset of pain at the start of competitive games cannot be predicted from muscle strength at the beginning of the season.

Energy balance plays an important role in weight control. Ghrelin is known to stimulate food intake, while peptide YY (PYY) and glucagon-like peptide (GLP-1) are known to suppress food intake. These appetite-related hormones are affected by behaviours such as exercise and mastication. Increasing the number of times food is chewed during a standard meal suppresses ghrelin secretion and food intake. The intensity of exercise is more strongly related to the secretion of total ghrelin, acylated ghrelin, PYY3-36 and food intake than the duration or mode of exercise. This review summarises the effects of exercise and mastication on appetite-related hormones and/or energy intake.

[Objective]In order to provide proper educational guidance to work-study students attending an acupuncture school, learning-related standards were prepared by conducting an exploratory inventory survey, and the relationships among willingness to learn, average test scores, and the number of absences was investigated.
[Methods]Subjects were 234 work-study students majoring in acupuncture at a vocational school. The construct validity of the standards and the verification validity of external variables were investigated using exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling.
[Results]The results of exploratory factor analysis revealed the following four factors affecting learning:fatigue, willingness to learn, career matching, and class environment. With verification validity, a model having the number of absences at the center matched the data well (GFI=0.959, AGFI=0.929, RMSEA=0.057, and CFI=0.912).
[Conclusion]For proper educational guidance, the establishment of guidance based on the number of absences-which is affected by willingness to learn and in turn affects average test scores-appears valid.

In order to determine acupuncture point locations, basic points are used as indicators and a standard local scale expressed. In the classic text SENKINPO the individual finger can is described as an easy method for determining a standard local scale. To determine whether the can explained in the original text where 7 SHAKU 5 CUN is used as a standard for the body height, and the individual finger can measurements taken on the middle fingers and thumb correspond, we measured the height and bilateral middle finger and thumb lengths of a mixed group of 242 male and female subjects. Following are our results:
1. On male and female adults both left and right middle finger can measurements corresponded well. Results with school age children were similar however correlation was not as favorable as with adults.
2. Correlation with thumb can measurements was not good.
3. Classics state that for males the left hand is to be used, for females the right hand. In the adult group which showed high correlation these were compared however no significant differences between sexes was proven.
4. We compared the adult middle finger can with the body height however the local scale which varies individually also varles with the length of various parts of the body. It was shown however to be useful in point localization in precise short areas.