Comparative Relationships of Selected Physical Fitness Variables among Different College Students of Mekelle University Ethiopia Africa

The purpose of the present study was to experiment, measure and compare the level of physical fitness among different college students of Mekelle University (MU), Endeyesus main campus. From a total population of 2738, the sample consisted of three hundred forty nine (N=349) first year male students with mean ±SD; Age: 19.92±.909, weight: 57.08±4.233, & height: 1.6887±.05739. The samples were selected using random sampling technique. FITNESSGRAM testing battery was used to measure physical fitness level of the students. To measure endurance of the cardiovascular fitness of the subjects, one mile run test was administered. To assess the abdominal muscle strength & endurance, curl-ups test was applied. Trunk lift Test was used to evaluate the strength and flexibility of trunk extensor, and Back-Saver Sit and Reach test was used to measure lower back and hamstring flexibility of the subjects. To compare the mean differences among different college students one-way analysis of variance (F Ratio) was applied with the help of SPSS (version, 16.00) Software. To test significant mean differences Scheffe’s Post Hoc Test was applied. The level of significance was set at 0.05. There were statistically significant mean differences obtained in cardiovascular fitness, abdominal muscle strength and endurance, and strength and flexibility of trunk extensor among different college students except lower back and hamstring flexibility about which no significant mean differences was seen. The finding reveals that students from the CDANR exhibited superior performance in CVF and AMSE. On the other hand, students from CNCS demonstrated better performance on BEMSF than students from the other two colleges (CDANR and EIT-M) but statistically no significant mean difference was showed on LBHMF among CNCS, CDANR, and EIT-M students. From these findings, it is concluded that statistically significant difference had been shown in CVF, AMSE, and BEMSF except LBHMF which did not show statistically significant difference