Objective: The purpose of this study is exploring the influence of physical exercise on the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) constitution of college students and providing evidence for the intervention methods of college students' TCM constitution by the survey of the TCM Constitution and exercise habits of 672 students in the college of Shaanxi province. Methods: All 672 students who are from three grades in the university were investigated by using the Traditional Chinese Medicine Constitution Scale and the self-made questionnaire on exercise habits. Results: Among 672 college students, 203 students were in gentleness type (30.2%), 447 students were in biased types (66.5%).Among 447 biased types of students, 252 cases (37.5%) were in Yang-deficiency constitution, 236 cases (35.1%) were in Yin-deficiency constitution and 224 cases (33.3%) were in Qi-deficiency constitution. The probability of gentleness type of college students with exercise habit is higher than those doing little exercise, and the probability of biased types are lower than that without exercise habit. Among the college students who have the habits of exercising, the students doing aerobic exercises showed a lower level of biased types than those doing strength training or flexibility training. The exercise frequency was negatively correlated with Qi-deficiency constitution, Yang-deficiency constitution, Phlegm-dampness constitution and Qi-stagnation constitution (r=0.041, 0.003, 0.005, 0.024), the exercise time was negatively correlated with Phlegm-dampness constitution (r=0.026), and positively correlated with Special-diathesis constitution (r=0.038), all the differences were statistically significant (P<0.05, P<0.01). Conclusion: The distribution of biased types has a particularly prominent feature between college students who have exercise habit and those who have no exercise habits. Among the three common exercise modes, the improvement of aerobic exercise on biased types is better than strength training or flexibility training. The increase of exercise frequency and exercise duration are both beneficial to improve students' Phlegm-dampness constitution. It is of great significance to formulate corresponding non-drug health care intervention methods according to different TCM constitution types to improve college students' quality of life.

Ruixue Ma, Mengfan Li, Xiaoling Li, Taoxing Yang, Xinrong Fan. Survey of the TCM Constitution and exercise habits of 672 students in a college of Shaanxi province. Frontiers in Sport Research (2021) Vol. 3, Issue 4: 66-71. https://doi.org/10.25236/FSR.2021.030415.

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