Compared cardiorespiratory endurance and musculoskeletal legs explosive power in students of Tsinghua University Beijing China and University of Sindh Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the health-related physical fitness status of students and the attributes of performance in terms of endurance and power.

METHODS: The cross-sectional study was conducted at University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Pakistan, and Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, during academic session of January 2012 to December 2013, and comprised an equal number of male and female students aged 18-23 years. Prior to the assessment, physical activity readiness questionnaire was filled by all the subjects, while standardised health-related physical fitness criterion was used to make comparisons in terms of oxygen consumption. .

RESULTS: There were 600 subjects in all; 300(50%) at each of the two centres, and at both centres, there were 150(25%) boys and 150(25%) girls. Both for power and endurance, mean values of Chinese students were significantly better than their Pakistani counterparts (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Chinese students had better health-related physical fitness levels than Pakistani students of either gender.