Physical fitness of physical therapy students.

Physical fitness norms do not exist for physical therapists or physical therapy students. This lack, in part, reflects the complexity of physical fitness and the scarcity of data reported on physical fitness norms of other populations. This report describes the methods used and the results obtained for 16 physical fitness factors of 98 female and 13 male physical therapy upperclassmen and discusses the implications of physical fitness in the practice of physical therapy. Means, standard deviations, ranges, and percentile rankings are given by sex for each of the 16 fitness factors. The purpose of this study was to begin to establish physical fitness norms. As physical fitness norms are established, it will be possible to determine how norms of physical therapists and physical therapy students compare with established values.