Presidential Physical Fitness Test: Can You Pass It Now?

In case your college days are behind you, you most likely keep in mind a gym-class ceremony of passage: the Presidential Bodily Health Check.

For all of you of us fortunate sufficient to keep away from this public college custom — which, fortunately, resulted in 2012 — this battery of assessments was given twice a 12 months to schoolchildren.

Image a horde of eight-year-olds staggering by way of a cross between a cattle present and the NFL mix and also you’ll have a fairly good thought of what the take a look at was all about.

I bought to questioning just lately: What on earth had been we pondering? And the way would I fare if I took the take a look at now?

Transient Historical past of the Presidential Health Check

Seems the take a look at will be traced all the best way again to President Dwight Eisenhower. In 1953, Dr. Hans Kraus and Bonnie Prudden revealed a research on the health stage of U.S. college students.

Within the research, they administered the Kraus-Weber Check — a pass-fail health take a look at which consisted of a single rep every of six fundamental workouts like sit-ups and leg lifts — to college students within the U.S., Switzerland, Italy, and Austria.

Practically 60 % of U.S. college students failed one or more of the take a look at workouts. Eisenhower was troubled — not least as a result of the findings implied that our youngsters had been unfit for army service, therefore the marginally patriotic taste of the entire endeavor.

In 1956, he based the President’s Council on Youth Health (now generally known as the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition).

What Was the Presidential Bodily Health Check?

The take a look at advanced all through the a long time, however current variations sometimes consisted of at the very least 5 of the next workouts:

• Sit-ups (timed for one minute)
• Push-ups (as many as doable with out resting)
• Pull-ups (as many as doable) or flexed arm hold (so long as doable)
• A 30-foot “shuttle run”
• The “V-seat attain” (to gauge flexibility)
• A one-mile run

For those who scored above the eighty fifth percentile, you had been eligible for the Presidential Bodily Health Award. However is {that a} dependable solution to gauge your health stage?

Is the Presidential Health Check an Efficient Measurement?

Sure and no. The benefit of this take a look at — and any health take a look at — is that it provides you one thing to trace and enhance on. In that sense, Eisenhower and Co. had been onto one thing.

Now that I’m a health professional, nevertheless, I’ve come to acknowledge the Presidential Health Check as basically flawed. Since you had been pitted in opposition to different youngsters in your age group nationwide, success depended not simply on being match, however on being fit-ter than different college students.

By means of the magic of the Web, I tracked down Debby Franzoni, the P.E. trainer who administered these assessments at my elementary-school again within the ’70s and ’80s. She agreed the take a look at had its issues.

“We had been taught to show to those that bought into the [85th percentile] or above as a result of they had been those happening the athletic groups,” Franzoni mentioned. Anybody under the fiftieth percentile “would do greatest in French Membership.” Ouch.

However in 1987, the take a look at modified. “As an alternative of being pitted in opposition to one another, youngsters had been examined to see in the event that they fell inside a wholesome commonplace in every element,” Franzoni says.

In different phrases, it was now not about figuring out distinctive performers, however about bettering the well being of the whole class. Her college students’ common go fee went from 50 to 90 % — a win for the longer term psychological well-being of youngsters in all places.

Taking the Presidential Health Check: Then Vs. Now

In elementary college, I swallowed the entire thing hook, line, and sinker. I even skilled for it, banging out sit-ups and shuttle runs within the yard. I used to be middling at dodgeball and mediocre at freeze tag, however boy, might I nail these Presidentials.

If reminiscence serves, I bested over 90 % of the nation’s 10-year-old inhabitants with my 60-second rating on the flexed-arm hold.

These days, the Presidential Health Check has been changed with complete well being and health packages like Let’s Move and, extra just lately, the Presidential Youth Health Program, which touts itself as “more than a test.”

However for a health nerd like me, the attract of these authentic, uncompromising fitness standards nonetheless looms massive. That’s why, on a current Sunday morning, I placed on my sweats and headed to the observe to place my fitness-obsessed 45-year-old physique to the take a look at (once more).

I in contrast my outcomes in opposition to the requirements for 17-year-old boys on the chart found here.

The Outcomes

• Pull-ups: 20 (over eighty fifth percentile)
• V-sit-and-reach: 7.25″ (over eighty fifth percentile)
• Sit-ups: 53 in a single minute (just under eighty fifth percentile)
• 30-foot shuttle run: 9.6 seconds (just under fiftieth percentile)
• One-mile run: 8:30 (far under fiftieth percentile)

As a lot as I hate to confess it, these scores are pretty correct reflections of my athletic strengths and weaknesses. I’ve at all times had respectable upper-body power, and over the previous couple of years, I’ve labored to develop good flexibility.

However working velocity and explosiveness had been by no means my sturdy fits and haven’t been coaching priorities, so these outcomes are predictably subpar. Possibly that’s as a result of I’ve fallen into a typical health entice: taking part in to my strengths whereas avoiding my weaknesses.

Backside line, the Presidential Health Check isn’t a foolproof measure of health (if I turned in these scores as a young person, I wouldn’t get the award) however it may be a enjoyable solution to problem your self and see the place there’s room for enchancment. See you on the observe.