Level of Physical Fitness among Physiotherapy Students in Public Universities in Malaysia

Abstract

Introduction: Physiotherapy profession requires a reasonably high level of physical fitness. This is due to their nature of job requiring them to do a lot of lifting and transferring of patients, use the extremities to give support and resistance during assessment and treatment, and prescribing exercise not only to patients but also to fit athletes. However, lack of attention was given to the physical fitness of physiotherapy students. The objective was to determine the level of physical fitness among physiotherapy students attending public universities in Malaysia. Methods: Each participant performed six physical fitness tests reflecting the four components of physical fitness. The Tanita-BC730G BIA was used to examine body composition. Push up and curl-up, shoulder scratch and back saver sits and reach (BSSR) and three-min step tests were used to determine muscular endurance, upper and lower limb flexibility and cardiorespiratory endurance, respectively. The scores were then categorized based on the normative values of each test. Results: A total of 261 participants completed all tests. For body composition, 73 (28%) participants were either overweight or obese. When compared to their normative values, both curl-up (17.2±11.2 reps in male and 7.1±8.7 reps in female) and heart recovery rate after the three-min step test (102±22bpm and 114±20bpm) were scored below average. For flexibility test, the BSSR was scored below average only in female (10±3.0 for right side and 11±3.1 for left vs. 12 inches). Conclusion: The level of physical fitness among physiotherapy students in public universities in Malaysia is somewhat below average.