Minimum Muscular Fitness and Ventilatory Function in South Indian School Children

Emerging society has considered physical fitness as one of the important indicators of health. Muscular fitness and ventilatory functions are the important domains of physical fitness. The present study was designed to evaluate minimum muscular fitness and ventilatory functions in South Indian Children. Three hundred and fifty two healthy school children of both genders in age range of 10- 16 years who attended Yoga based Personality Development Camp were recruited for the study. Sample consisted of 203 boys and 149 females with a mean age of 12.90 years (SD=1.55). Anthropometric measurements, Kraus-Weber (KW) minimum muscular fitness test and PEFR were recorded. Out of 352 subjects tested 251 (71.31%) subjects failed in completing the test successfully. The overall failure rate in boys was 71.9% while in girls it was 70.5% with non significant differences between the two genders. The observation that the group of students who succeeded on minimum muscular fitness had significantly higher PEFR, points to a positive relationship between muscle fitness and lung functions. A failure rate of 71% on KW test in urban children (10-16years) of both genders points to an urgent need of physical fitness training programs for the enhancement of the strength in areas that shape their physical fitness.