I remember some kind of fitness testing we did in school back in the 60s and 70s. It was some kind of JFK-inspired program, I think.
We had to run a half-mile, do a bunch of pushups and pullups, and do the “bent-arm hang”, where you held yourself at eye-level from a chin-up bar until you passed out from the pain.
Anyone else here remember this?
The Presidential Fitness Test (something like that)
I failed. Might have been the pullups. It was pullups for boys. Good thing I didn’t know anything about psychology, or I would have been really screwed up or life.
I remember the physical fitness test. As if I didn’t feel like enough of a loser. By high school we would do the 50 yard dash, the other kid would be ahead of me and I’d just walk the rest of the way figuring it just wasn’t worth it.
BTW, we ran the mile. About half a mile I’d be having a bronchial attack.
Yes, the President's Physical Fitnes Test. They were still doing it in the 1980's and 90's when I was in school. At the start of first grade they had all of us six-year-old's outside running a mile in the late August Texas heat... wearing our navy slacks and button up oxford shirts. Ugh.
As I got old enough to think about such things, I began to find the whole program a little creepy. School was supposed to be about enriching the mind, not being physically conditioned and evaluated like livestock. I still feel the same way.
Sure do, it was the Presidental Physical Fitness Test. Remember watching all your friends hang from the chin up bar in reverse while their faces got beet red and their arms shook like crazy and standing there laughing your butts off?
I remember it. If you passed you got a patch and/or a certificate, if you didn’t, you didn’t. I don’t remember the name of it though.
Yes, I remember that Physical Fitness test! By the way, I’m a school teacher and students still have to pass a similar physiclal fitness test each spring.