Health Education during the Pandemic: Physical Fitness Course Applications and Personal Physical Fitness Test (PPFT) in University Students

Abstract

The physical fitness course is a mandatory subject for undergraduate students at Universitas Negeri Surabaya, Indonesia. However, there is limited physical activity possibly performed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, conventional physical fitness tests and measurements could not be conducted in a conventional way. This study aimed to test the possibility of the Personal Physical Fitness Test (PPT) being implemented by college students who were enrolled in a physical fitness course. There were 1.639 college students aged 18 ± 0.81 years old who participated in this study. The independent physical fitness test was designed to represent several physical components i.e., standing board jump (lower body strength). Plank (core strength), push-ups (upper body strength), and one-minute skipping (cardiorespiratory). The data were in the normal distribution. Male students performed better than females in every test (p 0.05). Furthermore, the data were categorized on each test based on gender. The categories are excellent, good, fair, poor, and very poor. In a further study, the personal physical fitness test could be implemented in a larger sample size.