Shuttle run presidential fitness test8/10/2023 ![]() ![]() Eisenhower founded the President’s Council of Youth Fitness. So how did that result in me having to exhaust myself by running four times around my high school’s track when I was 17?īecause a decade after World War II ended, President Dwight D. If the training were realistic, our high school boys would be instructed in how to twist a bayonet in another boy’s body, how to wear gas masks, how to throw grenades, how to battle cooties and rats and spend hours in mud in trenches.” Terrifying. “It will not be a realistic training for war. In citing his support for the APEA’s decision not to encourage uniformed drills in school, the pastor of a Wisconsin church addressed the local Lion’s Club and had these remarks recorded by the Kenosha News: Self-preservation is one of the first laws of nature, and it applies to both individuals and nations.”īy the late 1930s, the debate had less to do with whether or not the APEA should be touting battle readiness, and was instead tailored to discussions about if school time should be allocated for full-blown military drills. And in the same way, it is the duty of the nation to be prepared to defend itself in case of an attack. It is the duty of the individual to keep himself in a physically sound condition in order to protect himself in case of need. “And yet, the two ideas are perfectly reasonable and logical. “Unfortunately, some educators are putting the soft pedal on the physical training idea for fear that it may be the means of encouraging military training,” remarked Philadelphia Inquirer editor James Elverson in response to the APEA’s flirtation with advocating for combat training in gym class. ![]() Thirteen years later, just prior to America’s direct entry into World War I, the APEA began to aim its promotional efforts rather unsubtly in the direction of exercises that could be characterized as constituting “military-preparedness” training. ![]() By 1903, the formal membership roll of the APEA consisted primarily of Ivy-League-caliber universities, the Young Men’s Christian Association and a few organized athletic clubs. The early stages of the federal government’s interest in gym-class activities has its roots in the founding of the American Physical Education Association (APEA) in 1885. What?!?!?! The government was basically spying on me in gym class. But while millions of American children were subjected to the individual tests that collectively made up the test, with the top 15 percent (more or less) qualifying for a special award, it’s unlikely that they understood that their results were part of a massive information-gathering effort by the feds. And it has a lot to do with if your school forced you to adhere to the somewhat arbitrary Presidential Fitness Test standards in the first place.Īlthough it was ultimately abandoned in 2013, the Presidential Fitness Test was a holdover from years of government tinkering - both direct and indirect - in the physical education of the nation’s youth. It also has a lot to do with the era in which you attended high school. has a lot to do with reporting procedures. Okay, truthfully, whether or not your sluggish mile time actually made its way to Washington, D.C. Deep within the recesses of the Department of Health and Human Services, your embarrassingly slow one-mile run time from high school is collecting dust somewhere. ![]()
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