Comparative study of health related physical fitness components of urban and rural female students of guder secondary and preparatory school, Ethiopia

The study was conducted to compare health related physical fitness components of urban and rural female students of Guder secondary and preparatory school. Thirty (15 female from urban and 15 female from rural) students were selected as subjects and their age were 16–18 years. The participants participated in supervised training program 3 days/weeks for 12 weeks. The physical fitness variables selected for the study were; cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance and flexibility. Data were analyzed using SPSS and comparisons of mean at 95% confidence interval of the difference. The results and conclusion of the study revealed that, the urban female students were stronger in cardio-vascular endurance than the rural group. There was no significant difference in the muscular strength levels of the sampled rural and urban female students, but the urban groups were again found to be stronger in muscular endurance than the rural female students. Significant differences were observed when flexibility were tested. As a summary, urban female students are superior to rural female students in cardiovascular endurance, muscular endurance and flexibility, whereas rural female students are superior to urban female students in muscular strength. This shows that regular energetic activity produces physical fitness improvements. Urban life style is more active in nature than the life in rural areas which produced high level of physical and physiological functioning in urban. A lot could be done to improve the health-related fitness levels of female students in the rural school.