The use of performance testing in physical education tends to be based on subjective divisions of human function into qualities such as strength, speed, agility etc. All these qualities depend on the same metabolic process and the intention of this study was to determine whether it was possible to predict the capacity of this metabolic process from performance tests which are widely used in physical education.

Anaerobic power and relative anaerobic power was measured in 88 female physical education students and data on 50 metre run time, 50 metre shuttle run time, basketball throw, vertical jump and anthropometric measurements was collected from the same sample. A further group of subjects was used to determine the effect of motivation on the power test results.

relative anaerobic power = .562 (vertical jump distance) m. - .081 (50 metre run time) sec. - .018 (50 metre shuttle run time) sec, + 2.152.

anaerobic power = 1.202 (weight) Kg. - 5.198 (50 metre run time) sec. + 40.526 (vertical jump distance) m. + 40.477.

There was no evidence that motivation substantially affected performance on the power test.

The S.C.S.S. computer package was used to determine the following regression equations: