Background & Objective: Practicing exercises on regular basis will reduce the cardiovascular diseases and also reduce death due to cardiac complications. The independent and additional benefit of practicing physical exercises regularly help in improving the aerobic condition of the body and also helps in leading healthy life. Physical fitness index is one of the important parameter which is not given much attention. To measure the physical fitness index among Indian elite runners and compare it with control group, by using Harvard step test. To correlate the PFI of runners with resting heart rate. Methods: PFI and BMI, HR of 31 runners at national level was compared with that of 31 controls. Runners were divided into two groups, group A (>2yrs & < 3yrs of training) and group B (>3yrs & < 10yrs of training).Correlation of PFI with resting Heart rate was done. Results: PFI was high among runners and showed statistically significant values. Group B players (seniors) showed highly statistically significant PFI value. Correlation analysis has shown negative correlation of PFI with resting Heart rate with statistically significant value in runners. Conclusion: Improvement in PFI by regular practice will ultimately improve cardiorespiratory endurance in turn improving the sports performance.

Keywords: Runners; Physical Fitness Index (PFI); Harvard Step Test; Heart Rate (HR).