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.
jog- ging | cycling | swim- ming | skating | hand- ball | basket- ball | tennis | gym- nastics | walking | soft- ball | |
Cardio- pulmonary endurance | 21 | 19 | 21 | 18 | 19 | 19 | 16 | 10 | 13 | 6 |
Muscular endurance | 20 | 18 | 20 | 17 | 18 | 17 | 16 | 13 | 14 | 8 |
Muscular strength | 17 | 16 | 14 | 15 | 15 | 15 | 14 | 16 | 11 | 7 |
Flexibility | 9 | 9 | 16 | 13 | 16 | 13 | 14 | 19 | 7 | 9 |
Balance | 17 | 18 | 12 | 20 | 17 | 16 | 16 | 15 | 8 | 7 |
Weight control | 21 | 20 | 15 | 17 | 19 | 19 | 16 | 12 | 13 | 7 |
Muscle buildup | 14 | 15 | 14 | 17 | 11 | 13 | 13 | 18 | 11 | 5 |
Digestion | 13 | 12 | 13 | 11 | 13 | 10 | 12 | 11 | 11 | 8 |
Sleep | 16 | 15 | 16 | 15 | 12 | 12 | 11 | 12 | 14 | 7 |
Sum | 148 | 142 | 140 | 140 | 140 | 134 | 128 | 126 | 102 | 64 |
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
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.
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