Assessment of physical fitness and preparing norm in 18-60 years old of Birjand’s men and women

Update and standardized norms is necessary for continuous physical fitness evaluation of population and their health monitoring. The aim of this research was to investigate the state of physical fitness and develop a standard norm for men and women aged 18-60 years in Birjand.

In this descriptive study, the statistical population consisted of people aged 18-60 years living in Birjand. It was used the Cochran’s sampling scheme and it is applied based of cluster sampling. Four hundred Birjand’s men and women (200 persons per each sex group) in age groups of 18-29, 30-39, 40-49, and 50-60 years old selected as statistical sample. It is applied the floor push-ups, sit & reach, sit-ups, the 1-mile Rockport walk and hand grip tests for data collection. Fat percent was determined using Jackson & Pollock formula. We applied standardized scores for providing of physical fitness norm and it was used the independent-t and Mann-Whitney U tests at the siginificant level of p<0.05 for age group and sex comparisons.

After providing of physical fitness norm, it is recognized that men in the whole groups were taller in height, bigger in waist circumference, and lower in fat percent than women and differences slope of the waist and body fat indices were rising. Women had a lower VO2max   than men in whole groups despite of 50-60 years old. On the other hand, men obtained better grip strength, and shoulder and abdomen endurance than women in whole groups. Besides, measured physical fitness characteristics have shown a decline slope in long life; while fat distribution in Birjand had a rising slope along with age and it showed biggest in 50-60 years old men and women groups.

Men have better physical fitness than women and it was observed a sensible falling in physical fitness of participants parallel to their age rising. Based on comparing to the other locations, Birjand’s population were weaker in majority of the physical fitness status and it is necessary to design feasible motor paln for their improvements.