Contribution Of Biological Maturation And Sport Participation To 1-mile Walk Run Performance In High School Males

Abstract

PURPOSE To investigate the relation of biological maturation (BM) and school sports participation (SSP) to estimated cardiovascular fitness using the 1-mile walk run (MWR) in high school boys (13–18 yrs). METHODS One-hundred and forty-two boys (16.0±1.3 yrs) were assessed for BM, SSP, and cardiovascular fitness. Biological maturity was determine by calculating the number of years from peak height velocity (PHV) using the formula developed by Mirwald et al. (2002) which calculates PHV from anthropometric measurements (standing and sitting height, body weight, and age). Sports participation was the number of SSP (0 to +6) over the past 12 months. Cardiovascular fitness was estimated from MRW performance (time in seconds to complete). A stepwise linear regression model was constructed to determine the effect of PHV and SSP on MRW performance (dependent variable). Variables entered into the model were PHV, number of SSP, height, and weight. RESULTS The greatest variance in MRW performance was the number of SSP (R2 = 16.2%, p <0.001), followed by weight (R2 = 9.2%, p<0.001), and PHV (R2 = 5.0%; p = 0.057). Total adjusted variance explain by the three variable was R2= 28.9%). CONCLUSION When examining cardiovascular fitness of male adolescents, BM and activity level are considered to have the largest influence in cardiovascular fitness. However, studies have yet to examine these variables concurrently. In this study, activity level was defined by SSP. The contribution of maturation (i.e., PHV), while significant, explained a minimal amount of variance in MRW performance. Conversely, sport participation accounted for the largest proportion of variance in MRW performance. For high school boys, sport participation may serve an important public health purpose by increasing activity levels and improve health related fitness.