{"id":3476,"date":"2025-01-24T09:57:53","date_gmt":"2025-01-24T09:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movewithnicole.com.au\/blog\/can-you-pass-the-presidential-physical-fitness-test-today.html"},"modified":"2025-01-24T09:57:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-24T09:57:53","slug":"can-you-pass-the-presidential-physical-fitness-test-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/health\/can-you-pass-the-presidential-physical-fitness-test-today.html","title":{"rendered":"Can You Pass the Presidential Physical Fitness Test Today?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If your school days are behind you, you probably remember a gym-class rite of passage: the Presidential Physical Fitness Test.<\/p>\n<p>For all of you folks lucky enough to avoid this public school tradition \u2014 which, thankfully, ended in 2012 \u2014 this battery of tests was given twice a year to schoolchildren.<\/p>\n<p>Picture a horde of eight-year-olds staggering through a cross between a cattle show and the NFL combine and you\u2019ll have a pretty good idea of what the test was all about.<\/p>\n<p>I got to wondering recently: What on earth were we\u00a0thinking? And how would I fare if I took the test now?<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"Brief-History-of-the-Presidential-Fitness-Test\">Brief History of the Presidential Fitness Test<\/h2>\n<p>Turns out the test can be traced all the way back to\u00a0President Dwight Eisenhower. In 1953, Dr. Hans Kraus and Bonnie Prudden published a study on the fitness level of U.S. students.<\/p>\n<p>In the study, they administered the Kraus-Weber Test \u2014 a pass-fail fitness test which consisted of a single rep each of six basic exercises like sit-ups and leg lifts \u2014 to students in the U.S., Switzerland, Italy, and Austria.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly 60 percent of U.S. students\u00a0failed one or more\u00a0of the test exercises. Eisenhower was troubled \u2014 not least because the findings implied that our kids were unfit for military service, hence the slightly patriotic flavor of the whole endeavor.<\/p>\n<p>In 1956, he founded the President\u2019s Council on Youth Fitness (now known as the\u00a0President\u2019s Council on Sports, Fitness &amp; Nutrition).<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"What-Was-the-Presidential-Physical-Fitness-Test?\">What Was the Presidential Physical Fitness Test?<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>The test evolved throughout the decades, but recent versions typically consisted of at least five of the following exercises:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Sit-ups (timed for one minute)<\/li>\n<li>Push-ups (as many as possible without resting)<\/li>\n<li>Pull-ups (as many as possible) or flexed arm hang (as long as possible)<\/li>\n<li>A 30-foot \u201cshuttle run\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The \u201cV-seat reach\u201d (to gauge flexibility)<\/li>\n<li>A one-mile run<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you scored above the 85th percentile, you were eligible for the Presidential Physical Fitness Award. But is that a reliable way to gauge your fitness level?<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"Is-the-Presidential-Fitness-Test-an-Effective-Measurement?\">Is the Presidential Fitness Test an Effective Measurement?<\/h2>\n<p>Yes and no. The good thing about this test \u2014 and any fitness test \u2014 is that it gives you something to track and improve on. In that sense, Eisenhower and Co. were onto something.<\/p>\n<p>Now that I\u2019m a fitness pro, however, I\u2019ve come to recognize the Presidential Fitness Test as essentially flawed. Because you were pitted against other kids in your age group nationwide, success depended not just on being fit, but on being fit-ter\u00a0than other students.<\/p>\n<p>Through the magic of the Internet, I tracked down Debby Franzoni, the P.E. teacher who administered those tests at my elementary-school back in the \u201970s and \u201980s. She agreed the test had its problems.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were taught to teach to those who got into the [85th percentile] or above because they were the ones going on the athletic teams,\u201d Franzoni said. Anyone below the 50th percentile \u201cwould do best in French Club.\u201d Ouch.<\/p>\n<p>But in 1987, the test changed. \u201cInstead of being pitted against each other, kids were tested to see if they fell within a healthy standard in each component,\u201d Franzoni says.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, it was no longer about identifying exceptional performers, but about improving the health of the entire class. Her students\u2019 average pass rate went from 50 to 90 percent \u2014 a win for the future psychological well-being of kids everywhere.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"Taking-the-Presidential-Fitness-Test:-Then-Vs.-Now\">Taking the Presidential Fitness Test: Then Vs. Now<\/h2>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-144565 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/bod-blog-assets.prod.cd.beachbodyondemand.com\/bod-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/25123123\/presidential-fitness-test-600-crunch.jpg\" alt=\"kids doing sit-ups | presidential fitness test\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" title=\"\"><\/p>\n<p>In elementary school, I swallowed the whole thing hook, line, and sinker. I even\u00a0trained\u00a0for it, banging out sit-ups and shuttle runs in the backyard. I was middling at dodgeball and mediocre at freeze tag, but boy, could I nail those Presidentials.<\/p>\n<p>If memory serves, I bested over 90 percent of the country\u2019s 10-year-old population with my 60-second score on the flexed-arm hang.<\/p>\n<p>Nowadays, the Presidential Fitness Test has been replaced with comprehensive health and fitness programs like\u00a0Let\u2019s Move\u00a0and, more recently, the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, which touts itself as \u201cmore than a test.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But for a fitness nerd like me, the allure of those original,\u00a0uncompromising fitness standards\u00a0still looms large. That\u2019s why, on a recent Sunday morning, I put on my sweats and headed to the track to put my fitness-obsessed 45-year-old body to the test (again).<\/p>\n<p>I compared my results against the standards for 17-year-old boys on\u00a0the chart found here.<\/p>\n<h3>The Results<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Pull-ups:<\/strong>\u00a020 (over 85th percentile)<\/li>\n<li><strong>V-sit-and-reach:<\/strong>\u00a07.25\u2033 (over 85th percentile)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sit-ups:<\/strong>\u00a053 in one minute (just below 85th percentile)<\/li>\n<li><strong>30-foot shuttle run:<\/strong>\u00a09.6 seconds (just below 50th percentile)<\/li>\n<li><strong>One-mile run:<\/strong>\u00a08:30 (far below 50th percentile)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As much as I hate to admit it, these scores are fairly accurate reflections of my athletic strengths and weaknesses. I\u2019ve always had decent upper-body strength, and over the last few years, I\u2019ve worked to develop good flexibility.<\/p>\n<p>But running speed and explosiveness were never my strong suits and haven\u2019t been training priorities, so those results are predictably subpar. Maybe that\u2019s because I\u2019ve fallen into a common fitness trap: playing to my strengths while avoiding my weaknesses.<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line, the Presidential Fitness Test isn\u2019t a foolproof measure of fitness (if I turned in these scores as a teenager, I wouldn\u2019t get the award) but it can be a fun way to challenge yourself and see where there\u2019s room for improvement. See you at the track.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If your school days are behind you, you probably remember a gym-class rite of passage: the Presidential Physical Fitness Test. For all of you folks lucky enough to avoid this public school tradition \u2014 which, thankfully, ended in 2012 \u2014 this battery of tests was given twice a year to schoolchildren. Picture a horde of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-3476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-fitness"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}