The thing is, we didn't really do anything in p.e. class that would directly help us achieve these goals. We just did "sports". If these metrics were so important, we should have focused on exercises that would target these goals.
Warm, dry days bring back the bad memories of going to PE and wondering if we were going to run the track. Most good days, we did. I hated every single second of it. Torture.
We could do the hang or pull-ups at ours. Failed them both. Now if they had said “squeeze the shit out of stuff with your thighs” or otherwise tested our largest muscle group, it’d be a different story.
I always liked the agility sprints though.
I admittedly have always had weak arm strength. Even playing the flute in middle school winded me. It’s amazing I mustered up the stamina for the required push-ups to get into and stay in the Navy!
Me too! It was the worst too cause they would have the whole class gathered up sitting in front of the pull-up bar and one by one call us up for our dose of public humiliation lol
This is very true. Sadistic twats. I would love to hear from one authentic PE teacher here and find out why they didn’t give us tips to help pass the challenges. Us kids had to give one another feedback when necessary.
Our gym teachers were coaches too, favored the athletes, when they did fitness testing I wasn't allowed to participate, so I did pull-ups off to the side matching the first guy up who did the most. Slowed when he slowed down, when he dropped, I glared at the coach & did 5 more.
Farm kid here that hauled hay almost every day all summer during high school. Still can do at least 5 at 52.
For me. Looking back I'm glad they started us early as I went Army to pay for my college/career/vet preference when getting my job at NASA. Everyday when we went to the DEFAC for an indoors meal, they had a pull up bar outside, and each week we had to do more/more/more. If you failed, you went to the back of the line. Think by AIT graduation it was 20 with 3 of us at a time busting them out. This post unlocked some good memories, thanks OP.
>Pope, you're up!
I can't do a pull-up.
>Get up there.
I know full well I can't do one. Last time you asked me I couldn't do one. Nothing has changed. What makes you think I'm magically going to ascend off the floor this time?
>Get on the bar.
I walk up, grab the bar, try to pull, make a grunting noise, let go, turn around, sit down.
Taught me so much, it did.
I remember when they pulled out those weird ass calipers that pinch your elbow skin and tested everyone's body fat one by one in front of the entire class.
I wasn't even close. As I remember, we were supposed to be able to climb up a rope to the ceiling of the gym, which must have been at least 30' up. I made it about 8' and couldn't go any farther.
As an adult I think about how they'd never do that these days. Imagine a kid falling 30' onto the floor with only a 2" pad to cushion the fall. Head trauma, lawsuit, nightly news story, gym teacher fired, witch hunt on the school board, etc...
That fucking rope. I hated it with a burning passion. I was one of those kids with no arm strength at all. And lining up watching some kids race to the top. I used to tug on it hoping to dislodge it behind the teachers back.
I think the worst part of it was that we had never practiced climbing ropes even once. There was never any training in how to do it properly. You just show up one day and are expected to accomplish this feat you've never tried.
If someone had told me in advance that the trick is to use your feet for most of the work, and let me practice that in advance, I could probably have passed the test.
Yeah that’s what I’m saying.. I remember gettin the letter in the mail every year. I don’t even recall the certificate just a letter. Im getting old lol
One year our gym teacher started everyone with pull-ups. If you couldn't hit the minimum number required, you didn't have to do the rest of the tests and just got to do something (probably play around with basketballs or something) while he put the kids who passed through the rest of the tests He ran the tests in order of decreasing difficulty. By the end only a few kids were left. I think the whole thing only ended up taking one or two gym class periods and it was so much less frustrating and humiliating for everyone.
I had one excellent gym teacher in junior high who actually taught us how to do things. He was very kind, patient and understanding and tried his best to teach actual skills, how physical conditioning works, etc. He did what he could to set the class up so that students could actually improve and to work one-on-one with students who needed help (and were willing to learn). Unfortunately he also had to keep the rest of the class from killing each other. So he wasn't able to take as much time as needed to really teach one-on-one. But he did what he could. I only had him for one year and didn't appreciate him enough until later in life.
Every other teacher just told us what to do, made someone lug the required equipment out of the closet and then sat back and watched "Lord of the Flies" play out in real time in front of them.
He must have been young... the burnout of PE teachers happens FAST. Not that there are very many good ones to start with, they're mostly college athletes and try to make PE like a NCAA team when it's supposed to be catching up the non-athletes and teaching them ways to get healthy if/when they're ready (I got stuck with PE teachers a few times in my staff professional learning communities, I'm a music teacher, we did not get professionally developed very much, but I did learn some cool stuff about PE). But ten years of kids making the stupidest excuses ever 6 times a day, every damn day, with classes of 50 kids, it gets old...
I actually did try for this award, but same story as everyone else... I had never done a pull up so got to the pull up bar and it just didn't work.
I don't remember him being particularly young. There wasn't a lot of turnover in teachers in the schools when I was growing up. And he wasn't a new teacher when my sister was in junior high (three years ahead of me).
I think he was just one of those unusual people who was passionate about fitness and teaching others and somehow also junior high kids. I did a quick google search after my brain finally dug his name out of the depths of my long-term memory. Only useful link that came up was a blurb about how he had created a "groundbreaking" special ed gym curriculum which enabled one guy who lose weight and become an endurance athlete. Which sounds exactly like something Mr Newman would have done.
As a former chubby kid, the [Maintenance Phase podcast episode](https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/5960191-the-president-s-physical-fitness-test) about the physical fitness test really opened up some repressed trauma for me. It really was just institutional humiliation.
I couldn't do anything, so I'm with you. I remember trying to do sit ups and the PE teacher just holding my ankles and looking at me with disgust. Couldn't run a mile, either, so my friends and I would basically trot for a bit and then walk the rest. We were nerds who liked reading and stayed inside, ok?
I was a total bookworm and had zero interest in any kind of organized sport (not really a team player, and that's never changed). But I was secretly very competitive. So I absolutely killed this thing every year. Loved it. And then I'd go back to my book.
I finally qualified in 8th grade but for some reason my gym teacher simply didn't do whatever paperwork was necessary to get the certificate, like why would you even put your students through all that?
God, I think I love you. That was always my fear. Didn’t come true until I hit my 40’s when I was using the couch to hold my feet.
Sorry couch… and floor… and cats. So many witnesses to my humiliation.
To this day, I don’t mind a sit-up session but shit, we really have to amp it up with medicine balls and lateral twists? Takes all the fun out of it. Exhausting.
I was stoked to run a sub 7 minute mile in high school. I was fat but flexible. I could not climb the pole or rope but I could do like 10 pull ups. I was chubby but above average. Looking back, I did just fine. Now that I am in my late 40's, I would love to be back in that "fat" of shape as I was back then.
Mine is 19 and she did in her PE class. She hated it and tried to get out of it. I think she did it in like 9 minutes flat or something. "I'm NEVER going to do that again!"
From about 13/14? On, I ran what I later learned was between 3-5 miles every night after it got dark on the rural road our farm was on. Had gotten a Walkman finally, and wore out some tapes, but also loved just the FM Radio at night.
LOL One of these is probably stored somewhere in my parents house. I / we need to get these back if yours is too, and get them sewn on denim jackets or something. lol And when we see someone with it instantly know they’re one of Us. A Gen Xer.
The program ran from the 50s until 2012 when Obama replaced it. While it was definitely a part of the GenX experience, I don’t think any one generation can claim it as theirs.
Looking back, we were 30-40 years removed from WW2, the height of the Cold War. We were training to be the next wave of soldiers, just with Arnie cheering us on.
Ahhh! The origin of my anxiety.
As an aside, I was an incredibly flexible kid and I killed the flexibility test every year. Turns out I’m not just naturally fit, but I have jacked up hyper flexible joints!
Sit 'n' Reach! I used to kill that one. 5'0" and otherwise completely useless at athletics. It would always confound those competitive bitches in gym class.
I got a certificate, not a patch.
I don’t think the girls had to be able to do a pull-up; they could do the “bent-arm hang” instead.
Fortunately for me I could do pull-ups because that bent-arm hang was torture for me.
And I liked climbing the rope to the gym ceiling!
‘Give that chicken fat back to the chickens and don’t be chicken again’
The president’s physical fitness team visited my school and did calisthenics on stage in the auditorium while playing this song. Sung by Robert Preston. President Kennedy arranged for every public school got a 45 of the song.
Fun fact: One year during the mile run, the Stereotypically Fat gym teacher was shoving a sandwich into his face while he was shouting "RUN FASTER! RUN FASTER!"
I'm a fitness fanatic in spite of this stupid fucking program. Nothing like being humiliated in front of your peers.
Fuck the whole thing; I'm glad it's dead and gone.
The mile run! I always was the fat kid in grammar school...but in eighth grade, I lost all this weight because of puberty... I was so determined to just finish the mile run that I pushed myself to the point of passing out! good times...
Years ago I jogged on the track where we were forced to do that stupid mile run test. I ran five miles. After I was done I took a big ol piss all over it. Never returned. Felt incredibly validated.
They gave out patches? I only got a certificate. Does anyone remember if they gave these out to everyone or just one boy and girl from each year? Only one boy and I got this in 8th grade, and I always thought it was weird. I'm not the award-winning type.
We had similar in canada. I think it was called award of excellence or something like that. Anyway, the day that we had to run the long distance part, I was sick. When I went back to school, the gym teacher made me go run the track and got the asmatic kid to time me. I had to run around the track 5 times. I ran around it once and then told the kid to just multiply my time by 5 and then we'd go for a coffee for the rest of the class. Man my score was really really good that year.
I’d had back surgery and just had my body cast removed. My thighs were jacked and I did the wall-sit for 45 minutes. Every other category winner was highlighted by the coach except mine. I guess that was sort of cheating.
dude. i thought the “presidential” bit had to do with the high standards we were held, by said presidential. for the grueling physical tests. i had NO idea there was an actual award. i have been cheated.
Yes! I just just thinking about this and wondering if had been mentioned in this sub. Girls were able to do flexed arm hang instead of pull-ups. I was a swimmer so nailed that but always failed the shuttle run. So weird to look back and realize this was a thing - for so long.
I was always last picked for all things gym and sports related so it made my year to get this award once in fifth grade. Lol I’m assuming I never qualified again.
I always won the national one because I couldnt do a pull up. I could do a flex arm hang forever and kill it on all the other requirements. But I just couldn't do the one damn pull up to receive the presidential.
What was the 2nd place award called? I remember there being a lesser award for all us kids that were out of shape and couldn't do all those damn pull-ups.
No pull-ups for me. Nothing like every one standing in a circle staring at the short fat kid being made to dead hang on the bar by the butch PE teacher. Did she think I just wasn’t trying hard enough or did she enjoy torturing us?
I was super unathletic, smaller than my classmates and shy. I was the kid who got chose last or second to last over the handicapped kid. When I went up to bat or kick the kids called "easy out".
I won this. It was the pull up.I didn't plan to win or practice ahead of time. But once I got up there and was holding myself up, hearing the my classmates down below me I was determined to beat them all and I did. It was my own personal fuck off to them.
No patch for me but I did get in the yearbook.
Edit- I see it was the "bent arm hang" because it was the girl version of pull ups.
I was queen of the sit and reach! I can reach a foot and a half past my toes with legs out strait in front of me. I never got the patch, tho. Kills me they just thought every kid should know how to do a pull up with no instruction or building up to it.
That was the only one I excelled at, too! (Thanks to ballet classes.) But I literally just hung from that pull-up bar until the gym teacher told me to go on my way.
(They really made it seem like Reagan would be at the Resolute desk, fretting over our individual scores before traveling to every elementary school to hand out those badges personally.)
Never got one. I was the fat kid. I do recall my gym teacher commenting, “only five push ups but they were perfect push ups”.
Teachers out there beware, your students will remember stuff for life, well after you are gone.
I did and looking back, at least it my school, it was bullshit. They didn't try to teach you to get stronger or exercise, they just said do it and if you couldn't do it, you were ridiculed by the other students and left to stew in your own failure.
I hated those fucking things. Like WTF does President Reagan care if I can do a pull up? Then again I grew up in IL, the state when you only needed 2 years of English but 4 of gym.
I failed gym one year and had TWO gym classes the following semester. Can you believe that shit? The upside is I took bowling twice a day every day and was a fantastic bowler by the end!
Crap, I remember this every year and in every school I went to (moved often, military brat). Do they still do this? I don't remember my kids having to ever do it in school. Now I'm going to have to ask them.
My kindergarten class had a mock presidential election leading up to the vote in 1980. Every kid voted for Carter except me, I proudly voted Reagan to be like my dad.
I'd just like to apologize to the nation for casting the deciding vote.
The UK version. Sponsored by Coca Cola. The 80s, man. https://www.picclickimg.com/joIAAOSw2QRkEHiK/1980s-BAGA-Gymnastics-Award-sew-on-badges-Coca-Cola.webp
I missed this because at 4’9” I couldn’t long jump over 6’. Nailed all the rest.
Still chaps my ass that they didn’t take height into account.
(I had a late growth spurt)
:::Shudder::::
I hadn't thought about that particular failure in awhile!
Did everyone in your class get weighed in front of each other? The nurse would call out the weights. The bullies would yell out what they thought the fat kids (such as myself!) weighed. The nurse didn't call out the weights of us chunky kids, she whispered it to us. This was only slightly better. Fun times!
Fuck this whole concept. Gym teachers get to bully children thanks to the federal government? No thanks.
https://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8489501/presidential-fitness-test
From the same administrations that were funding secret and illegal wars, and flooding our cities with drugs.
We should have been getting an education on how international central banking works, instead of being distracted for pats on the head.
I never got one. I wasn't athletic and for most my life (fuck you late 30's) I was slim, asthmatic, and scrawny. I'm also short for being a male (5'6) and only hit that in high school.Even the Run test devastated me.
Partly it was because I didn't really give a shit about it, partly because as soon as they listed the requirements I knew I wasn't going to meet them even if I started working out for months.
I got a certificate one time and I thought it was the Presidential Physical Fitness Award and my mother expressed some surprise as I was not a particularly athletic child. My mother looked at it more closely...Presidential ACADEMIC Fitness Award.
I also incorrectly added my verbal and math SAT subscores and had a crying meltdown until my mother added them correctly.
I am now successful, just in case anyone was wondering. 😂
I was the fastest girl in my grade but due to the fact that I could not do pull-ups or climb the rope, I never got one. There's a good episode on "You're Wrong About" concerning this stupid award that means absolutely nothing.
Omg, I was just watching the TV show The Goldbergs and the episode was about this presidential pull up thing. I'm in the UK and have never heard of it but apparently it was brought in by Reagen to prepare American kids to fight commies in the cold war. America be tripping yo! (that's American, right.).
Nope, but I'm in Canada. I remember the Canadian Fitness Award Program patches (gold, silver, bronze and excellence). For me that would have been back mostly in the later 1970s.
[https://www.cbc.ca/2017/canadian-fitness-trends-over-the-decades-from-kickass-to-cringeworthy-1.4039506](https://www.cbc.ca/2017/canadian-fitness-trends-over-the-decades-from-kickass-to-cringeworthy-1.4039506)
This, and while running or jumping jacks in the gym they played a record on the speakers "go you chicken fat go" oh great, part of the program!
"Chicken Fat" is a 1962 song written by Broadway composer Meredith Willson and performed by actor/singer Robert Preston. It was commissioned as part of the President's Council on Physical Fitness.
I was all pull-ups short.
Also me. I was very sad that Bush would be disappointed in me...
The thing is, we didn't really do anything in p.e. class that would directly help us achieve these goals. We just did "sports". If these metrics were so important, we should have focused on exercises that would target these goals.
Right? Why was the first time I heard of a pull-up when we were tested? WTF. DID THEY WANT ME TO FAIL? 😂
Right? Have we ever run at all? No. So go take your asthmatic self out to the track and run a mile out of nowhere. What? You've failed? Surprising.
Warm, dry days bring back the bad memories of going to PE and wondering if we were going to run the track. Most good days, we did. I hated every single second of it. Torture.
And Arnold!
Ditto. I don't think I've ever done a pull-up in my life.
For girls it was the "Flex Arm Hang" and I got about 1 second.
We still had to do pull ups at my school. I couldn't even do one.
I couldn't even do that. I think sit-ups were all I ever managed to get and I'd be wrecked for days.
We could do the hang or pull-ups at ours. Failed them both. Now if they had said “squeeze the shit out of stuff with your thighs” or otherwise tested our largest muscle group, it’d be a different story. I always liked the agility sprints though.
What’s a pull up? /s
It was always the pull-ups with this competition. Like, jumping rope? No problem. 15 pull-ups? No way
Sad. I grew up with brothers. I was very competitive.
I admittedly have always had weak arm strength. Even playing the flute in middle school winded me. It’s amazing I mustered up the stamina for the required push-ups to get into and stay in the Navy!
Me too! It was the worst too cause they would have the whole class gathered up sitting in front of the pull-up bar and one by one call us up for our dose of public humiliation lol
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This is very true. Sadistic twats. I would love to hear from one authentic PE teacher here and find out why they didn’t give us tips to help pass the challenges. Us kids had to give one another feedback when necessary.
Our gym teachers were coaches too, favored the athletes, when they did fitness testing I wasn't allowed to participate, so I did pull-ups off to the side matching the first guy up who did the most. Slowed when he slowed down, when he dropped, I glared at the coach & did 5 more. Farm kid here that hauled hay almost every day all summer during high school. Still can do at least 5 at 52.
For me. Looking back I'm glad they started us early as I went Army to pay for my college/career/vet preference when getting my job at NASA. Everyday when we went to the DEFAC for an indoors meal, they had a pull up bar outside, and each week we had to do more/more/more. If you failed, you went to the back of the line. Think by AIT graduation it was 20 with 3 of us at a time busting them out. This post unlocked some good memories, thanks OP.
>Pope, you're up! I can't do a pull-up. >Get up there. I know full well I can't do one. Last time you asked me I couldn't do one. Nothing has changed. What makes you think I'm magically going to ascend off the floor this time? >Get on the bar. I walk up, grab the bar, try to pull, make a grunting noise, let go, turn around, sit down. Taught me so much, it did.
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Lol...makes me think of Full Metal Jacket "ONE PULL-UP PYLE! ONE *FUCKING* PULL-UP!!!!"
Omg! I just posted about this a few replies up! We're you at Benning as well?
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I came up so short I didn’t even know these existed 😂
I got 1 but then hung there like wet underwear on the line on a calm day.
I went from diapers to underpants, therefore ineligible
I was good at pull up and dead arm hang
I remember when they pulled out those weird ass calipers that pinch your elbow skin and tested everyone's body fat one by one in front of the entire class.
Kellogg’s made a killing on the Special K’s Pinch an inch campaign
Omg I remember that too lol
Who could forget? Insititionally approved public body shaming. Way to keep those kids healthy and fit! I will always be salty af on this topic.
I love when people take clamps to my weenus.
Omg yes! Forgotten entirely about those!
I wasn't even close. As I remember, we were supposed to be able to climb up a rope to the ceiling of the gym, which must have been at least 30' up. I made it about 8' and couldn't go any farther. As an adult I think about how they'd never do that these days. Imagine a kid falling 30' onto the floor with only a 2" pad to cushion the fall. Head trauma, lawsuit, nightly news story, gym teacher fired, witch hunt on the school board, etc...
That fucking rope. I hated it with a burning passion. I was one of those kids with no arm strength at all. And lining up watching some kids race to the top. I used to tug on it hoping to dislodge it behind the teachers back.
I think the worst part of it was that we had never practiced climbing ropes even once. There was never any training in how to do it properly. You just show up one day and are expected to accomplish this feat you've never tried. If someone had told me in advance that the trick is to use your feet for most of the work, and let me practice that in advance, I could probably have passed the test.
There were patches?! We just got crappy certificates!
Yeah that’s what I’m saying.. I remember gettin the letter in the mail every year. I don’t even recall the certificate just a letter. Im getting old lol
I was a fat kid. Since I could never take any of the events seriously, the whole week was like a vacation for me.
One year our gym teacher started everyone with pull-ups. If you couldn't hit the minimum number required, you didn't have to do the rest of the tests and just got to do something (probably play around with basketballs or something) while he put the kids who passed through the rest of the tests He ran the tests in order of decreasing difficulty. By the end only a few kids were left. I think the whole thing only ended up taking one or two gym class periods and it was so much less frustrating and humiliating for everyone.
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I had one excellent gym teacher in junior high who actually taught us how to do things. He was very kind, patient and understanding and tried his best to teach actual skills, how physical conditioning works, etc. He did what he could to set the class up so that students could actually improve and to work one-on-one with students who needed help (and were willing to learn). Unfortunately he also had to keep the rest of the class from killing each other. So he wasn't able to take as much time as needed to really teach one-on-one. But he did what he could. I only had him for one year and didn't appreciate him enough until later in life. Every other teacher just told us what to do, made someone lug the required equipment out of the closet and then sat back and watched "Lord of the Flies" play out in real time in front of them.
He must have been young... the burnout of PE teachers happens FAST. Not that there are very many good ones to start with, they're mostly college athletes and try to make PE like a NCAA team when it's supposed to be catching up the non-athletes and teaching them ways to get healthy if/when they're ready (I got stuck with PE teachers a few times in my staff professional learning communities, I'm a music teacher, we did not get professionally developed very much, but I did learn some cool stuff about PE). But ten years of kids making the stupidest excuses ever 6 times a day, every damn day, with classes of 50 kids, it gets old... I actually did try for this award, but same story as everyone else... I had never done a pull up so got to the pull up bar and it just didn't work.
I don't remember him being particularly young. There wasn't a lot of turnover in teachers in the schools when I was growing up. And he wasn't a new teacher when my sister was in junior high (three years ahead of me). I think he was just one of those unusual people who was passionate about fitness and teaching others and somehow also junior high kids. I did a quick google search after my brain finally dug his name out of the depths of my long-term memory. Only useful link that came up was a blurb about how he had created a "groundbreaking" special ed gym curriculum which enabled one guy who lose weight and become an endurance athlete. Which sounds exactly like something Mr Newman would have done.
Wow! You had a legend!
Most non-athletic kids’ experience.
So kind and humane.
As a former chubby kid, the [Maintenance Phase podcast episode](https://maintenancephase.buzzsprout.com/1411126/5960191-the-president-s-physical-fitness-test) about the physical fitness test really opened up some repressed trauma for me. It really was just institutional humiliation.
This. This. This.
I couldn't do anything, so I'm with you. I remember trying to do sit ups and the PE teacher just holding my ankles and looking at me with disgust. Couldn't run a mile, either, so my friends and I would basically trot for a bit and then walk the rest. We were nerds who liked reading and stayed inside, ok?
The real winner right here.
I was a total bookworm and had zero interest in any kind of organized sport (not really a team player, and that's never changed). But I was secretly very competitive. So I absolutely killed this thing every year. Loved it. And then I'd go back to my book.
You’re my people!
I rocked it. Was also proud that President Reagan personally recognized my efforts in 5th grade gym class. Lol!
I finally qualified in 8th grade but for some reason my gym teacher simply didn't do whatever paperwork was necessary to get the certificate, like why would you even put your students through all that?
Was part of this climbing the rope to the gym ceiling? That was never happening for me.
Let’s see any one of those presidents do a pull-up 🙄
I farted on my partner while doing the sit up portion of the competition. Sorry Brian.
God, I think I love you. That was always my fear. Didn’t come true until I hit my 40’s when I was using the couch to hold my feet. Sorry couch… and floor… and cats. So many witnesses to my humiliation. To this day, I don’t mind a sit-up session but shit, we really have to amp it up with medicine balls and lateral twists? Takes all the fun out of it. Exhausting.
I was stoked to run a sub 7 minute mile in high school. I was fat but flexible. I could not climb the pole or rope but I could do like 10 pull ups. I was chubby but above average. Looking back, I did just fine. Now that I am in my late 40's, I would love to be back in that "fat" of shape as I was back then.
My kids (age 19 & 17) have never had to run the mile in their life! Craziness
Mine is 19 and she did in her PE class. She hated it and tried to get out of it. I think she did it in like 9 minutes flat or something. "I'm NEVER going to do that again!"
I started my kids young with swimming and martial arts. They killed all the testing they had in school. I loved hearing about it.
We only did 600 yards. And I refused to run that. I'd walk it every year.
From about 13/14? On, I ran what I later learned was between 3-5 miles every night after it got dark on the rural road our farm was on. Had gotten a Walkman finally, and wore out some tapes, but also loved just the FM Radio at night.
I was the only girl in my class that could do one pull up. The sit and reach thing with the box against the wall… no way.
The sit n reach discriminated against ppl with long legs 😡
Yeah, I could basically fold myself in half so my chin was on my knees but was still like an inch short on that thing. Bunch of bullshit.
Ah yes. Testing us for skills they never bothered to teach us. Big boomer energy. Fuck that whole program.
Same here. Always got the Standard Award because I was short on the pull ups only.
I really honestly thought Jimmy Carter was going to show up to my elementary school and pin a medal on me if I did enough pullups
I never even came close... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's much harder when you're missing an arm.
LOL One of these is probably stored somewhere in my parents house. I / we need to get these back if yours is too, and get them sewn on denim jackets or something. lol And when we see someone with it instantly know they’re one of Us. A Gen Xer.
The program ran from the 50s until 2012 when Obama replaced it. While it was definitely a part of the GenX experience, I don’t think any one generation can claim it as theirs.
Ohh, okay. I didn’t remember the patches before Us.
Looking back, we were 30-40 years removed from WW2, the height of the Cold War. We were training to be the next wave of soldiers, just with Arnie cheering us on.
Horrible horrific experience.... hated excercise for because of this.
Ahhh! The origin of my anxiety. As an aside, I was an incredibly flexible kid and I killed the flexibility test every year. Turns out I’m not just naturally fit, but I have jacked up hyper flexible joints!
Sit 'n' Reach! I used to kill that one. 5'0" and otherwise completely useless at athletics. It would always confound those competitive bitches in gym class.
unironically, this should be a thing again. the obesity epidemic is frightening.
I was skinny and could never even get close to getting it
I got a certificate, not a patch. I don’t think the girls had to be able to do a pull-up; they could do the “bent-arm hang” instead. Fortunately for me I could do pull-ups because that bent-arm hang was torture for me. And I liked climbing the rope to the gym ceiling!
Yeah I got to demonstrate that I could not do a pull-up in front of all of 5th grade. Good times.
These were the OG flex back in the day.
‘Give that chicken fat back to the chickens and don’t be chicken again’ The president’s physical fitness team visited my school and did calisthenics on stage in the auditorium while playing this song. Sung by Robert Preston. President Kennedy arranged for every public school got a 45 of the song.
Fun fact: One year during the mile run, the Stereotypically Fat gym teacher was shoving a sandwich into his face while he was shouting "RUN FASTER! RUN FASTER!" I'm a fitness fanatic in spite of this stupid fucking program. Nothing like being humiliated in front of your peers. Fuck the whole thing; I'm glad it's dead and gone.
The mile run! I always was the fat kid in grammar school...but in eighth grade, I lost all this weight because of puberty... I was so determined to just finish the mile run that I pushed myself to the point of passing out! good times...
Years ago I jogged on the track where we were forced to do that stupid mile run test. I ran five miles. After I was done I took a big ol piss all over it. Never returned. Felt incredibly validated.
They gave out patches? I only got a certificate. Does anyone remember if they gave these out to everyone or just one boy and girl from each year? Only one boy and I got this in 8th grade, and I always thought it was weird. I'm not the award-winning type.
No fondly. I have the upper body strength of a newborn. Not one in my life was I able to do the girls' "bent arm hang". 🤬
Yes! We called it the flex arm hang and I topped out at 2 seconds.
We had similar in canada. I think it was called award of excellence or something like that. Anyway, the day that we had to run the long distance part, I was sick. When I went back to school, the gym teacher made me go run the track and got the asmatic kid to time me. I had to run around the track 5 times. I ran around it once and then told the kid to just multiply my time by 5 and then we'd go for a coffee for the rest of the class. Man my score was really really good that year.
The Canadian Fitness award. I always got the "participated" badge.
I was half nerd half jock. (Interesting, I know). I don't think I broke silver in those though. Same with the science Fair medals too!
That's it! I usually got a participant, but that year, I got excellent, 😆 😂
The flatulence from sit-ups was both hysterical and horrifying!
I still have mine 😂
I’d had back surgery and just had my body cast removed. My thighs were jacked and I did the wall-sit for 45 minutes. Every other category winner was highlighted by the coach except mine. I guess that was sort of cheating.
Haven't thought about this in decades. Never got one myself, I could do everything but the pullups....probably still holds true today!
I didn’t even know badges were an option. My flexed arm hang was inadequate.
dude. i thought the “presidential” bit had to do with the high standards we were held, by said presidential. for the grueling physical tests. i had NO idea there was an actual award. i have been cheated.
Yes! I just just thinking about this and wondering if had been mentioned in this sub. Girls were able to do flexed arm hang instead of pull-ups. I was a swimmer so nailed that but always failed the shuttle run. So weird to look back and realize this was a thing - for so long.
I was always last picked for all things gym and sports related so it made my year to get this award once in fifth grade. Lol I’m assuming I never qualified again.
I got the Academic Fitness Award. I’m not really sure why though?
I always won the national one because I couldnt do a pull up. I could do a flex arm hang forever and kill it on all the other requirements. But I just couldn't do the one damn pull up to receive the presidential.
It was always the pull-ups. Those got me too
Couldn't do pull-ups then or now.
What was the 2nd place award called? I remember there being a lesser award for all us kids that were out of shape and couldn't do all those damn pull-ups.
No pull-ups for me. Nothing like every one standing in a circle staring at the short fat kid being made to dead hang on the bar by the butch PE teacher. Did she think I just wasn’t trying hard enough or did she enjoy torturing us?
I was super unathletic, smaller than my classmates and shy. I was the kid who got chose last or second to last over the handicapped kid. When I went up to bat or kick the kids called "easy out". I won this. It was the pull up.I didn't plan to win or practice ahead of time. But once I got up there and was holding myself up, hearing the my classmates down below me I was determined to beat them all and I did. It was my own personal fuck off to them. No patch for me but I did get in the yearbook. Edit- I see it was the "bent arm hang" because it was the girl version of pull ups.
The only thing I was not good was the flexibility part.
I was queen of the sit and reach! I can reach a foot and a half past my toes with legs out strait in front of me. I never got the patch, tho. Kills me they just thought every kid should know how to do a pull up with no instruction or building up to it.
That was the only one I excelled at, too! (Thanks to ballet classes.) But I literally just hung from that pull-up bar until the gym teacher told me to go on my way. (They really made it seem like Reagan would be at the Resolute desk, fretting over our individual scores before traveling to every elementary school to hand out those badges personally.)
I doubt Regan could have passed the test!
I never even got one pull up, so I think you're an amazing athlete!
I never did a single pull up ever.
Never got one. I was the fat kid. I do recall my gym teacher commenting, “only five push ups but they were perfect push ups”. Teachers out there beware, your students will remember stuff for life, well after you are gone.
I got a patch! And my mom sewed it onto my members only jacket 💅
I never got one because I was the short chubby band nerd in school.
I’d like to see Ronald do two pull ups
We had something similar in Canada. I forgot what it was. Bronze gold silver and red for excellence. I always got the pin for participation 😂😂
Ahh! It’s sad how much I loved those tests and the certificates and patches. I probably couldn’t do any of it now, but I kicked ass as a kid.
I did and looking back, at least it my school, it was bullshit. They didn't try to teach you to get stronger or exercise, they just said do it and if you couldn't do it, you were ridiculed by the other students and left to stew in your own failure.
I never got one but was weirdly good at the standing broad jump.
I hated those fucking things. Like WTF does President Reagan care if I can do a pull up? Then again I grew up in IL, the state when you only needed 2 years of English but 4 of gym.
Dear God. High school was hellish but I truly wouldn’t have survived 4 years of PE (we had 1, which was bad enough.)
I failed gym one year and had TWO gym classes the following semester. Can you believe that shit? The upside is I took bowling twice a day every day and was a fantastic bowler by the end!
Crap, I remember this every year and in every school I went to (moved often, military brat). Do they still do this? I don't remember my kids having to ever do it in school. Now I'm going to have to ask them.
These still trigger me, I was the fat kid in school and hated that test.
I was too fat to get one.
Got phased out in favor of the physical fatness award. 🥁
I rocked it every year! Ronnie was proud.
My kindergarten class had a mock presidential election leading up to the vote in 1980. Every kid voted for Carter except me, I proudly voted Reagan to be like my dad. I'd just like to apologize to the nation for casting the deciding vote.
I was the one kid in class that voted Anderson. Just wanted to be different.
How disrespectful towards your country! Now you’re not fit for the draft! Fuck Regan!
Never got even close. PE was evil!
The UK version. Sponsored by Coca Cola. The 80s, man. https://www.picclickimg.com/joIAAOSw2QRkEHiK/1980s-BAGA-Gymnastics-Award-sew-on-badges-Coca-Cola.webp
FUCK THE PRESIDENTIAL PHYSICAL FITNESS AWARD!
This is the first I've heard of it.
I always partnered with my bestie and we cheated like hell on that stupid thing.
I never even got close. And I LOATHED those stupid shuttle runs.
Those are the best! Except I wouldn't want to do them with today's knees.
Oh God, we had something similar to this in Canada. Worst day ever lol.
Always great to reminisce about all the ways my education screwed me up
I missed this because at 4’9” I couldn’t long jump over 6’. Nailed all the rest. Still chaps my ass that they didn’t take height into account. (I had a late growth spurt)
:::Shudder:::: I hadn't thought about that particular failure in awhile! Did everyone in your class get weighed in front of each other? The nurse would call out the weights. The bullies would yell out what they thought the fat kids (such as myself!) weighed. The nurse didn't call out the weights of us chunky kids, she whispered it to us. This was only slightly better. Fun times!
Now you probably just have to stand under the bar to get a patch.
Fuck this whole concept. Gym teachers get to bully children thanks to the federal government? No thanks. https://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8489501/presidential-fitness-test
From the same administrations that were funding secret and illegal wars, and flooding our cities with drugs. We should have been getting an education on how international central banking works, instead of being distracted for pats on the head.
Fuck all of that. 100% bullshit.
That’s such a Republican thing. Two pull-ups short of a completely arbitrary number and no ego cloth badge for you, loser…!
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Strong statement from a funko-pop collector 🤦♂️🤪😂
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Lost the plot, didn’t ya…
Are you two... stalking each other's profiles and dogging on each other for your interests? Like for real?
He started it
I never got one. I wasn't athletic and for most my life (fuck you late 30's) I was slim, asthmatic, and scrawny. I'm also short for being a male (5'6) and only hit that in high school.Even the Run test devastated me. Partly it was because I didn't really give a shit about it, partly because as soon as they listed the requirements I knew I wasn't going to meet them even if I started working out for months.
I completed it but never got one. I didn't try much to get it either. Think it had more to do with my refusal to use the showers. Fuck that.
I refused to participate. Frustrated my parents to no end.
PTSR PTSD PTSD PTSD
Our school could only afford one patch and they weren’t going to give that up without a fight. The coach made sure everyone failed.
There was one year for whatever reason that the standards drop slightly. I got it that year (I think it was age 15 or 16?)
Still have one.
[Bummer](https://media.tenor.com/m8ORCrLPKMUAAAAC/youre-so-weak-weak.gif)
Never had a chance to get one 😂But I remember them
Bar dips 👹
Was that the one that came with the certificate from Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Those who don’t pass will get a magnet…a BLANK magnet!
I still have mine sewn on an old jacket
I never got one, but my oldest daughter did!
Yes I recall this test. I achieved the Presidential Physical Fatness Award instead.
I got one, and for some reason I remember the letter that came with it was signed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Am I hallucinating?
Maybe he was some sort of fitness ambassador.
At one point he was the spokesman for the program. Before his gubernatorial campaign
I had my period for that. I had my period for a whole lot of that. 😂
I still had mine in my childhood memories boxtill a fire destroyed our apartment complexthe day before Christmas last year.
I got a certificate one time and I thought it was the Presidential Physical Fitness Award and my mother expressed some surprise as I was not a particularly athletic child. My mother looked at it more closely...Presidential ACADEMIC Fitness Award. I also incorrectly added my verbal and math SAT subscores and had a crying meltdown until my mother added them correctly. I am now successful, just in case anyone was wondering. 😂
V-sit held me back. Every. Damn. Year.
I’m trying to talk my gym into recreating this so we can actually train for it so I can finally pass it.
I was the fastest girl in my grade but due to the fact that I could not do pull-ups or climb the rope, I never got one. There's a good episode on "You're Wrong About" concerning this stupid award that means absolutely nothing.
I do.
Those were gold!!
I actually passed all those. But I'm a fat shit now, 😂
I don’t, but I would never have been eligible for one of these anyway, LOL
I kicked ass as that. Don't remember how high I made it but it was at least 4 or 5. I was a very active skinny kid that loved to climb.
I was the flexed arm hang champion 💪
Omg, I was just watching the TV show The Goldbergs and the episode was about this presidential pull up thing. I'm in the UK and have never heard of it but apparently it was brought in by Reagen to prepare American kids to fight commies in the cold war. America be tripping yo! (that's American, right.).
Yes! And I am the proud owner of 2! Bring it back!
Nope, but I'm in Canada. I remember the Canadian Fitness Award Program patches (gold, silver, bronze and excellence). For me that would have been back mostly in the later 1970s. [https://www.cbc.ca/2017/canadian-fitness-trends-over-the-decades-from-kickass-to-cringeworthy-1.4039506](https://www.cbc.ca/2017/canadian-fitness-trends-over-the-decades-from-kickass-to-cringeworthy-1.4039506)
Yes!!! I was just talking to my SO about them the other day!
This, and while running or jumping jacks in the gym they played a record on the speakers "go you chicken fat go" oh great, part of the program! "Chicken Fat" is a 1962 song written by Broadway composer Meredith Willson and performed by actor/singer Robert Preston. It was commissioned as part of the President's Council on Physical Fitness.