Introduction:

Regular physical activity is associated with maximum pressure values during inhalation and exhalation processes in active people, which is not the case for sedentary people.

Objective:

To describe the values of respiratory muscle strength in active and sedentary students from Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Materials and methods:

Descriptive cross-sectional study in active and sedentary students from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. An interview to participants was performed regarding the practice of physical activity, anthropometric measurements, and maximum expiratory and inspiratory pressure using a Dwyer Series 477 meter. The analysis of the variables was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics version 20.0 software.

Results:

The average values of inspiratory and expiratory pressure did not show statistically significant differences in active students, compared to sedentary students (p<0.005). The mean values and standard deviation for maximum inspiratory pressure were 108.08±23.53 for active students and 102.08±19.95 for sedentary students, while the values for expiratory pressure were 106.55±27.87 for active students and 107.34±23.38 for sedentary students.

Discussion:

This study reports significant differences between the inspiratory pressure and maximum expiratory values according to sex, being higher in men (p<0.001). No significant differences in the pressure values of active students against sedentary students were observed.

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