"Agility
A skill-related component of physical fitness that relates to the ability to rapidly change the position of the entire body in space with speed and accuracy. (From Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, USDHHS, 1996 as adapted from Corbin and Lindsey, 1994).
Comment: Agility is typically measured using a shuttle or zig-zag run. Tests of agility are common as screening tests among sports teams.
Balance
A skill-related component of physical fitness that relates to the maintenance of equilibrium while stationary or moving. (From Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, USDHHS, 1996 as adapted from Corbin and Lindsey, 1994).
Comment: Balance is typically measured using a balance beam or tests that require holding a stationary posture after changing body positions. Balance is generally considered to be of two types; static and dynamic.
Coordination
A skill-related component of physical fitness that relates to the ability to use the senses, such as sight and hearing, together with body parts in performing motor tasks smoothly and accurately. (From Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, USDHHS, 1996 as adapted from Corbin and Lindsey, 1994).
Comment: Coordination is typically assessed using measures of hand-eye or foot-eye coordination such as juggling, dribbling a ball or hitting an object. There are, however, many different types of coordination and total assessment of coordination would require many different tests.
Power
A skill-related component of physical fitness that relates to the ability to the rate at which one can perform work. (From Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, USDHHS, 1996.)
Comment: Power is considered to be a combination of strength and speed. It has also been defined as the ability to exert muscle force quickly (Howley and Franks). For this reason some consider it to be a combination of skill and health-related physical fitness. Examples of power include putting the shot and vertical jumping. There are, however, many different types of power and total assessment would require many different tests.
Speed
A skill-related component of physical fitness that relates to the ability to perform a movement within a short period of time. (From Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, USDHHS, 1996 as adapted from Corbin and Lindsey, 1994).
Comment: There are many different types of speed such as running speed, swimming speed, speed of hand or foot movement to name but a few. Among athletes a 40 yard dash is often used to measure speed. There are a wide variety of laboratory measures of speed that are highly specific to different body parts and different human movement activities.
Reaction Time
A skill-related component of physical fitness that relates to the time elapsed between stimulation and the beginning of the reaction to it. (From Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, USDHHS, 1996 as adapted from Corbin and Lindsey, 1994).
Comment: An example of reaction time is moving your foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal when reacting to a situation that requires a person to stop a car. This example illustrates the fact that in many cases, the total response time is the more important variable. Total response time includes stimulus to beginning of movement (reaction time) to end of movement (movement time). Like other measures of skill-related fitness there are many different types of reaction time and total assessment of reaction time would require many different tests. Sophisticated timing devices are used to measure total response time in the lab. Like speed, reaction time is considered to be a component of fitness that is greatly influenced by heredity. Note: The authors of this paper, not Bouchard, et al. (1990) have classified these as subcomponents of physiological fitness."
Source(s): http://www.fitness.gov/digest_mar2000.htm
