The importance of considering biological maturity when assessing physical fitness measures in girls and boys aged 10 to 16 years

It is widely considered that biological maturity influences physical fitnes s test performance. children can be advantaged/disadvantaged in physical fi tness tests by bring more or less mature than counterparts of the same chro nological age. The current study sought to investigate the effect sexual ma turity had upon performance in physical fitness tests. A cross-sectional st udy involving 161 girls and 152 boys was carried out. Each subject was asse ssed for stature, mass, self-assessment of sexual maturity, vertical jump, hand grip strength and the 20 m shuttle run test, all procedures were stand ardized. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients were developed to assess the relationship between maturity and physical fitness measures. ANCOVA inf erential statistics were performed to investigate if performance in physica l fitness tests differed between children of different sexual maturity stag es irrespective of mass and stature. Significance was set at p < 0.05. Stag e of sexual maturity was significantly correlated with all physical fitness measures (boys: r = 0.56 to 0.73; girls: r = 0.24 to 0.46). ANCOVA reveale d that when stature and mass were taken into account significant difference s were evident between sexual maturity stages in boys bur not girls. This s uggests that increases in mass and stature are primarily responsible for va riation in girls' physical performance throughout maturation, whereas in bo ys there are some qualitative differences in performance due to other facto rs. It was concluded that sexual maturity has a large influence on physical fitness measures in boys but less effect in girls. Rating of physical fitn ess, particularly for boys should take into account biological maturity.