President's Adult Fitness Test

I don't know about you, but I have not-so-fond memories of the President's Physical Fitness Test from my younger days. Back then, we spent a couple of PE classes each school year taking part in various activities like the 50 yard dash, the shuttle run, situps, the flexed arm hang (for girls, or pullups for boys), and the standing broad jump. I was never a particularly athletic child, and these tests just reinforced that I never would be. I remember the PE teacher standing with a clipboard, ready to record my efforts, with a shake of the head as I limped across the finish line. As I recall, we were measured on some sort of scale ranging from poor to excellent. I typically ranked in the poor to satisfactory categories, and would occasionally rate good for situps (for some reason I could always knock out a bunch of those). Meanwhile, the jocks in the class collected their awards at the end of the year, a certificate signed by the President showing how athletically accomplished they were.

I recently discovered that there's a President's Adult Fitness Test. It takes the idea of the torture...oops, I mean fitness tests...we did as kids and adapts them for adults. This time, though, the criteria seem to make a lot more sense to me. I never quite understood the purpose of the shuttle run, where we ran back and forth between two lines on the gym floor, stopping to pick up erasers and put them down at the next line. How that would help me later in life was a pretty big mystery, as far as I was concerned. But the criteria for this adult fitness test seem useful to me: the tests attempt to measure aerobic fitness, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and body composition. Those are solid, relatively easy to understand goals that contribute toward a healthy, active lifestyle. They're also a reminder to me that being active and fit require more than taking a walk every day. In order to be more well-rounded in my fitness efforts, I need to pay attention to strength training and stretching. It's additionally important to take a look at my body and weight with a critical eye, checking to see that I'm at a healthy weight and shape for my height and body type. So while I may never earn one of those coveted certificates from the president, it's possible that I can reach a level of health and fitness I can be proud of.