NORMATIVE REFERENCE STANDARD FOR CORE MUSCULAR ENDURANCE OF ADOLESCENT 12-16 YEARS FROM SOUTH PUNJAB PAKISTAN: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Abstract

Background: Core muscular endurance has been a part of the investigation for several decades in clinical and non-clinical settings. Current research had three objectives as; firstly, the prevalence estimation of muscular endurance; secondly, to provide the normative reference standards of plank test by Lambda (?), Mu (µ) and Sigma (?) ‘LMS’ technique and lastly, to provide the status of healthy and un-healthy zones of aged 12 to 16 years old adolescents of South Punjab for the very first time. Methods: This study is a cross-sectional descriptive research design with a total of 2970 students aged 12–16 contributing almost equally in numbers from 60 public high schools. Muscular endurance was estimated from Plank to Fatigue (PTF) test. LMS method/technique was deployed to acquire reference norms for muscular endurance by the plank test. Results: The plank endurance test calculated age and gender-specific smoothed percentile curves (5th, 20th, 40th, 50th, 60th, 80th, and 95th). Overall, results reflected that boys were found higher in average plank values than their counterparts; meanwhile, the international comparison showed that current outcomes are similar to the preceding studies. The result showed that 60.1% of the population is falling in the poor, medium and very poor categories. Conclusion: The present study exhibited the earliest age-gender specific plank endurance test normative reference values, percentile curves and health-benefit zones of 12 to 16 years old adolescents of South Punjab Pakistan.

Pak J Physiol 2022;18(1):3?8