Background/Purpose The purpose of this study was to determine what effect the number of days per week that physical education (PE) classes had on the muscle endurance of sixth grade students. Subjects were 789 (379 females, 410 males) 6th grade students from a rural county in the mid-southern United States. The mean age of the students was 11.70 years. All students either participated in PE classes a) zero days, b) one day, c) three days, or d) five days per week.
Method Students were pre-tested at the beginning of the school year and post-tested at the end of the same year examining muscle endurance to determine significant differences, if any, in relation to the number of times per week the students participated in PE.
Analysis/Results Results of the study indicate a significant difference in muscle endurance (p = 0.0001) when examining the relationship between the number of days a student participated in PE. Furthermore, trends indicate that the students who participated in PE 5 times per week showed an improvement in muscle endurance, while those who had no PE or participated 1 time and 3 times per week showed no significant improvement in muscle endurance.
Conclusions This study indicated that consistent and daily physical activity yields improvement in muscle endurance. Although most schools do not offer PE every day at least the mechanism is in place to do so. Our schools provide an effective setting to improve and maintain muscle endurance levels of today's students.