Abstract

Most of the material currently available in the domain of physiological fitness and motor performance pertains to the estimates of the size of genetic effects, i.e., narrow and broad heritabilities. The estimate suggest a significant genetic proportion of the variation in working capacities, muscular strength, motor development and performance, and motor learning. These quantities for a given trait are population estimates of the additive and the nonadditive effects of genes within the total phenotypic variance. Careful studies with large sample sizes and proper statistical procedures are required to obtain valid estimates of these population parameters. Most of the studies reviewed in this paper are limited by several deficiencies. The data are more available for studies of twins than for other biological relatives (siblings, parent-off-spring). Verf.-Referat