What and how much benefit is gained by what exercise

In my very old notebook, I hand-copied part of an article published in the Chinese newspaper， China Youth Daily (中国青年报), issue 3689, of March 22, 1981. The article is titled "Which exercises have more value" (哪些运动项目锻炼价值高). The part I copied is a table of 10 exercises with scores assigned to each on 9 criteria about health.

 joggingcyclingswimmingskatinghandballbasketballtennisgymnasticswalkingsoftball
Cardiopulmonary endurance2119211819191610136
Muscular endurance2018201718171613148
Muscular strength1716141515151416117
Flexibility9916131613141979
Balance171812201716161587
Weight control2120151719191612137
Muscle buildup1415141711131318115
Digestion1312131113101211118
Sleep1615161512121112147
Sum14814214014014013412812610264

Unfortunately, either the article did not cite references or I didn't copy them. So the source is unknown. But the data seem to be interesting and make sense. A Google search reveals a message in Chinese posted in 2001 and one message in Swedish probably posted a few years later. Other articles or online postings are probably copies from the first message.

Minor differences exist between my 1981 notes and the above two sources. My table lists 10 exercises while these two messages list 8, missing skating, basketball and gymnastics, but with golf which is missing in my table. The scores assigned to softball slightly differ between my table and the two messages. However, the sum, or overall rating, of each exercise is the same (or almost the same for softball) and so the order of the exercises from the most to the least beneficial remains the same.

[Update 3/4/2014]
Found it! James F. Fixx The Complete Book of Running, 1977, p.39

Not long ago seven exercise experts were asked by the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports to rank popular forms of exercise on the basis of how much they help cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular endurance, muscular strength, flexibility, balance and general well-being. Each panelist was permitted to award a given activity anything from no votes (signifying no benefit) to three (maximum benefit). Thus twenty-one is a perfect score.

James Fixx's table lists 8 physical activities, everything exactly the same as in the two sources (Chinese and Swedish) I mentioned above. Since I translated, or rather back-translated, from Chinese in my notes to English posted here, some words are different, cardio-pulmonary instead of cardio-respiratory, muscle buildup instead of muscle definition, jogging instead of running, etc. Also, my note has softball while James Fixx's has bowling, definitely a different sport, which explains why I see slight difference there.

President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, now President's Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition, has a web site. I ran a few keyword searches on the site but failed to locate this table of 7 exercise experts' rating. In the Bibliography of Mr. Fixx's book, there's President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and the Administration on Aging, The Fitness Challenge... in the Later Years. If that book is this, published in 1968, I didn't find anything in it that looks like this panelists' rating with a few keyword searches.


February 2014
a copy of healthreading blog




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