Effect of training on physical fitness of women students

¹ Department of Physiology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

To ascertain the effect of physical training on young women, four groups were subjected to a modified Harvard step test at the beginning of the academic year and again 4 and 9 months later. One group, specializing in physical education, had a very active program of gymnastics, dancing and games; two other groups had a much less active program; a fourth group had no physical training at all. In the series as a whole there was no correlation between fitness index and either height or weight and no evidence that menstruation influenced performance of the test. At the beginning of the investigation the physical education students had higher fitness indexes than the others and they improved with training. Lesser degrees of physical training caused no significant increase in fitness index but counteracted a tendency to deterioration observed in the group that had no physical training. Changes in the resting pulse were less consistent, and resting pulse rates showed little correlation with fitness indexes.