An Old Timey Podcast - 103: The Presidential Fitness Test

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

The Presidential Fitness Test has been a gym class staple for decades. Generations of Americans have performed pull-ups, sit-ups, mile runs and flexibility tests under the watchful eye of their sweaty peers. In the end, a select group of kids were given the coveted Presidential Physical Fitness Award. At the time, it all seemed *so important*! But was it, actually? Whose idea was it? And did it accomplish what it set out to do? Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: “A brief history of the bizarre and sadistic Presidential Fitness Test,” by Phil Edwards for Vox“Tools of the trade: The Presidential Physical Fitness test,” by Elissa Nadworny for NPR“The report that shocked the president,” by Robert Boyle for Sports Illustrated“The soft American,” by John F. Kennedy for Sports Illustrated“The origins of the Presidential Fitness Test,” by Vince Guerrieri for Mental Floss“Remember running the mile in school? The Presidential Fitness Test is coming back,” by Rachel Treisman for NPR“The first 50 years, 1956-2006,” by Julie Sturgeon and Janice Meer for the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports“The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and the Systematisation of Children’s Play in America,” by Matthew T. Bowers and Thomas M. Hunt for the International Journal of the History of Sport “Exercise pioneer Bonnie Prudden dies at 97,” by Kimberly Matas for the Arizona Daily StarAre you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts!Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Now with McDonald's, a McDonald's is only $250. So you can get your gym gains on or just get lunch for only $250. Get more value on the under $3 menu. Limit time only, prices and participation may vary. Prices may be higher for delivery. But-da-p-pah-pah. Here ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast.

I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm Normie C. And on this episode, I'll be talking about the presidential fitness test. Ooh. Ooh, the nostalgia, the tears, the bloodshed. I mean, it's a weird one. A lot of us are traumatized. Some of us, 15% of us, I would say, have great pride.

More on that in a moment. Man, I took that very seriously, that fitness test. Hell yeah, hell yeah. It felt like the biggest, most important thing. But was it? Yes, it was. My mistake. President Bill Clinton wanted me to be physically fit, okay?

Yeah. He took an intense interest in you. It's fine. Don't worry about it. Norm, do you have a little plug for our Patreon? I do. Folks, I want to tell you all about a review we recently got. Oh, no.

So we were browsing our reviews, and we got a negative review from somebody. Real negative. I'm going to read it to you verbatim. here. Please. This was my first time listening to this podcast. After the commercials, the co-host chastised the audience about not subscribing to Patreon with unfunny spanking threats.

When the podcast finally got started, it was silly and incoherent with middle school jokes about turds. I hope the co-hosts enjoyed this foolishness. I'm never listening to this podcast again. So I wanted to apologize to everybody out there. especially those that took my spanking threat seriously. I will not be showing up to your home to spank you. Well, now you're going to have a lot of people who are disappointed, Norm,

because I think some freaks were really into the idea. Now, clearly this reviewer was not into it. I feel like they were checking their windows, peeking through the curtains, wondering when I was showing up to spank them. I want to assure this person, I am not showing up to spank you. It was all in good fun. We have a lot of fun on this podcast. Sadly, the first episode they listened to,

It was when I threatened to spank people. And you know what? It was the one time that we have been immature on this podcast. So I hope they give us another chance. Yeah, I hope they listen to this episode where we will be very mature and very serious. But for real, thank you all for your support on Patreon. And if you do love this small, sexy, independent podcast, head on over there. Patreon.com slash old-timey podcast.

$5 a month gives you every single ding-dong bonus episode of this podcast, plus access to the Discord chat. Join me, won't you? As we travel back in time, back to the source of many a childhood trauma, back to the thrilling, the exhausting, and occasionally humiliating gym class ritual, the presidential fitness test. Your experience may vary depending on your age and where you grew up, but for most of us, the presidential fitness test was composed of the following exercises. Pull-ups! The shuttle run! Sit-ups! Yep.

The one-mile run. Killed it. And who could forget the sit and reach? Where all the greatest athletes excelled. My hamstrings. Many a generation may remember that at the end of the test, the top 15% of boys and girls received the coveted Presidential Fitness Test Award. Meanwhile, the rest of us, dough balls sat, cross-legged on the gym floor, sweaty from the mile run,

humiliated from accidentally farting when we went too hard during the timed sit-ups. As our classmates collected their certificates for being the sveltest, pull-upiest kids in town, we wondered if we would ever amount to anything at all. At the time, the presidential fitness test seemed so important. But was it important? Yes. Whose idea was it? And did it accomplish what it set out to do?

On this week's episode, we're doing a deep dive into the presidential fitness test. And at the end of that deep dive, you will be expected to pull yourself up out of it. And just a heads up, we'll all be standing right there watching you struggle. Okay. That's right. We had an audience when we did the fitness test. Okay, first off, though, Norm, what do you remember about the presidential fitness test? I remember taking it very seriously.

First of all, did you hate it, love it? Oh, I loved it. Okay, yeah, I feel like people either loved it or hated it. I'm a very competitive person. You really are. And so the presidential fitness test was a big deal to me. President Bill Clinton himself needed me to be physically fit and sexy and buff. Okay.

Okay. Norm, this is your time to freaking shine. Were you one of the top 15% of kids? Did you get the award? I did not get the award, Kristen. I was very close. No, as we will find out, when it came to the presidential fitness test, almost doesn't count. Uh-uh.

It's pass or fail, baby. I failed. My downfall was always pull-ups. That's what everyone's downfall. Yeah. Yeah. Could you even do one? Could you do a couple?

I could do a couple. But like. Were you just up there trembling, shaking, trying to pull your little body up? Yeah. Here's the thing. The mile run smoked it. Oh, okay. Sit-ups killed it.

Sit-and-reach, I did okay. Okay. Do you remember which sit-and-reach did you have? I feel like there were, I've heard of different versions. Okay, so it's funny. Before I started getting into this, I assumed that the presidential fitness test was like handed down from the Lord above and we all took the exact same test, you know.

And like there were components of it that were similar kind of across different school districts and states. But yeah, it did vary a bit. So we had the one, and again, I thought this was universal. I'm going to go out on the limb. Maybe I'm describing something that half of people will never have heard of ever. We had a box. And on that box was like a piece of extra wood that kind of jutted out in front of it. And then there was like a ruler taped onto the top of the whole contraption.

It was a very, it took up a lot of space. It was very rudimentary. But that tested how well we could sit and reach. Did you have something different? We had like a red mat on the floor. Uh-huh. And you spread your legs in like a V shape. A V-sit, yeah.

Yeah, a V-sit. And then there was a ruler running down the center of the red mat and you reached as far as you could. Yeah. I don't know why we couldn't do that. We had to have a weird box with a piece of, oh, you would remember this thing. Because, I mean, it was quite a thing. I remember the red mat. Uh-huh.

I did okay in the sit-and-reach. The cheerleaders always crush to the sit-in-reach. Now, how did you do, Kristen? Folks, I don't mean to brag because I am completely uncoordinated. Can't play any sport whatsoever. You should see Kristen play pickleball. It's unintentionally hilarious. When the ball comes towards her, she screams.

But this is pickleball, by the way. It's a plastic ball. It cannot hurt you. And it certainly won't because my screams send it flying in another direction. It's coming toward it. She screams and hits it back. Okay, I will confess, the whole reason we're even doing this episode is because our niece mentioned the presidential fitness. test. And I was like, I thought they got rid of that thing. Turns out, in fact, they did not.

But upon some questioning, I learned that the one area where she excels is also the one area where I excel. Sitting and reaching for things. I have had my feelings very much hurt, though, in the process of researching this topic. Because what I've heard is that that's really not the best test of overall flexibility and really is like the least respected. And to that, I say suck a dick, everybody, because that proves that I'm an athlete. That's right. Uh-huh. Yep.

You're all just jealous of me. When I'm sitting on the couch and the remote is down by my feet, I'm getting it every time. Those ab muscles start flexing. She reaches and grabs the remote. No problem. Yeah, I remember, man, I took it very serious. and I was always so upset I never got one of those coveted blue

it was like a blue patch and it said like presidential fitness award and had the presidential symbol in the middle Yeah it really always came down to in my school Could you do those pull-ups? And if you could do the pull-ups you were in But most of us couldn't Because it turns out that's really hard to do

Especially for children The people who excelled at the presidential fitness test were the skinny little boys. Skinny little boys. That's who I remember being really good at that. Several skinny little boys in my class. And they all just like destroyed the fitness test. It wasn't even close.

No, it never was. That's the thing. It's like it was a specific body type. And they were amazing. Okay, now, do you remember anything humiliating about the presidential fitness test? Or were you so focused running your own race out there that you just didn't even have time for your fellow strugglers? Oh, yes.

Okay. A girl ripped her pants. Oh, no. Oh, no. And she ran out to the locker room. Norm. And the gym coach was like, what's wrong? What's wrong?

And we were all like, she ripped her pants. She ripped her pants. Oh, you know what, though? If you, if we had made a bet on, okay, Norm's got a humiliating story from the presidential fitness test, I would have never suspected my beloved sit and reach. When people talk about it, it's always like the mile run. It's like being last in the mile run. Oh, that's just. Hey, I had classmates who didn't give two shits about the presidential fitness test.

And they just walk to the mile. Yeah, and where are they today? Well, I was like, man. They're kind of cool. They don't respect this at all. And I dig that. They must be Republicans in this Clinton era. No, it was just, you know, there was always like a group of guys or a group of girls who just like didn't do P.E.

Uh-huh. We don't do P.E. And so, yeah, even during the fitness test, they just walked, didn't run that mile. Did you have people in your class like that? Hell no. No, we, I mean, and I guess my memory is really an elementary. school memory. We all took it so seriously. And I think that's where it sets kids up for some humiliation. It's like if everyone's taking it seriously and you are genuinely trying your

hardest and you're not doing well, all eyes are on you. Because that's the other memory I have of it was it wasn't just a test you took kind of on your own. It was like we were all in it together. We all sat and waited for the last person to finish the mile. We stood around and watched someone try to do a pull-up. I mean, it... Well, and I remember I had a buddy when we did sit-ups. We would hold each other's feet. Yeah.

We preferred that over solo sit-ups. Well, that was the rule. You had to hold them, right? I thought you could choose to do either one. Oh, see, again, we're getting some variety, and I just told you that there was some variety in this thing. and yet I'm questioning you already. Well, I don't know.

I am curious where this came from, though. Okay, here we go. The Presidential Fitness Test, as we know it today, started in a way with a different kind of test. It was called the Krause-Weber test, and it was named after the two doctors who invented it, Dr. Hans Krauss and Dr. Sonia Weber. Doctors Krauss and Weber worked together

in the Poster Clinic of New York Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Ooh, the posture clinic. That's right. Not really a thing we have anymore, but, you know, in the 1940s, they created a six-part test aimed at evaluating whether a person possess minimum muscular strength and flexibility. Minimum. Minimum. What if you don't have the minimum? What do you mean?

Minimum strength and flexibility? So, like, yeah, what if you failed the test? It means that you are probably going to suffer from low back pain, from different aches and pains. They're trying to establish like kind of what's the minimum you should be at in order to function well in everyday life? Everyone, I'm stretching already. I'm listening to you and I'm like I feel like I have to stretch. Well, I feel like your spidey senses are good because I am going to ask if you want to take the test right now. Do you want me to do it right now?

The test could be conducted in just 90 seconds and it consisted. of five strength tests and one flexibility tests. Everyone, Norm just took a sip of his energy drink. I don't know if we're going to count that as doping or if we're going to let it slide. But Norm, are you ready? I'm ready. Okay, test number one. So you're going to have to get down on the floor.

Okay. Maybe try to bring your mic down close to you in case we want to catch any grunts and groans. I mean, you seem pretty cocky. This is the minimum test. Okay, I'm down on the floor, ladies and gentlemen. Okay, test number one, lie on your back with your legs. straight. Oh, everyone, he knocked over a bottle of water. We're off to a bad start. Okay, lie on back, legs straight.

Put your hands behind your neck. Okay. And now I'm going to trust you. It says that you should have a person holding your feet to the ground. Can we trust you to not have someone holding your feet to the ground? Yes. Okay. Perform one sit-up. Folks, let the record reflect. He did his one sit-up. Okay. Test number two. All right. Lie on your back with your hands behind your neck. You're doing great. Bend your knees.

Okay. Now perform one sit up. What? That's even easier. Okay. Just do it, bitch. Geez. Okay.

Once again, he excelled. Test number three. Lie on your back and raise your feet 10 inches off the ground. Okay. Keep your legs in that position for 10 seconds. Oh, yeah. One Mississippi. Two, Mississippi.

53, Mississippi. Oh, he's struggling. Oh, he's starting to sweat. Oh, he's groaning. Oh, we used to have to do this in soccer. Yeah, I mean, this is kind of Pilates-ish, too. I'm sure it's been 10 seconds. Okay, thank you.

Okay, good job, good job. Got another one? All right. Test number four. Lie face down. Face down? And you're going to need to grab a pillow from the bedroom. A pillow?

Yeah, I'm sorry. Bite the pillow What kind of test is this? Oh, Jesus Christ. Okay, folks, I have a pillow, and I'm ready to take a nap. Okay. Take a nap for 30 seconds. Wow, he did great.

Okay, test four. Lie face down. Face down. Put your hands behind your neck, put a pillow under your abs. I'm sorry I gave that to you in the wrong order. Okay. Okay. Now raise your chest, head, and shoulders for 10 seconds while another person holds your feet down.

Oh, is he struggling? Oh, he is, folks, he's not doing great. I mean, the sounds alone. Oh, my. Okay. All right, that's enough. Did I do it? I think it's been 10 seconds, yes.

Holy crap. Was that a little hard for you? It's like a Superman. Okay. Now, I hate to give you this info. You're going to be in that same position again. Uh-huh. This time, keeping your knees straight, raise your feet.

Keeping my knees straight. Okay, lie down. Lie down on that pillow. Okay. Hands behind your neck. Okay. Pillow under your abs. Now raise your feet, keeping your knees straight.

Okay. No. Knees, legs straight, Norm. Okay. Now lift those feet up. Oh. Yeah, yeah. Now keep that for 10 seconds.

That's enough. Keep going. Oh, God. Folks, I am not timing this at all. Okay, that feels like 10 seconds. Are you ready for the last test? Yes. First of all, how are you doing so far?

Feel good. Feel good. Okay. A lot of core stuff. Yes. Okay, now stand up. This is your final test. Okay.

Do I need the pillow? No. Okay. Sorry, the mic's at my crotch. Let me raise it up. Okay. All right, now what? Okay.

So you're standing now. You're in your bare feet, so that's good. Keep your feet together. Okay. Now without bending your knees, touch the floor with your fingertips for 10 seconds. Without bending my knees. Without bending your knees. Oh.

Oh. Oh, my God. No, you can't do it. Oh, one, two, three, four, five, six. Folks, he is struggling. This man is having a rough time. This is the minimum test, by the way, minimum assessment. Okay, you did it.

You did it. Oh, my God. Oh, who. I guess I am not very flexible. Now, Norm, you just took the Krauss-Weber test. How do you feel? Oh, I feel a little sore. Uh-huh.

But I feel stretched out. Okay. Okay. It seemed like it humbled you a little. That last one did. Yeah. Touch the floor. I was like, no problem.

And then the further I got down, I was like, oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. There's a lot of ways left to the floor. Okay, so I pass. So that means I have the minimum strength and flexibility of a human being. Yeah, basically.

Okay. So doctors Krauss and Weber created that test, and they administered it to the people who came to their clinic complaining about lower back pain. They tested 4,000 people. And of those 4,000 people, about 80% of them were deemed normal as far as pathology was concerned. You know, nothing was showing up on a test like, this is why they're. person should be having this back pain. But when that group of otherwise normal, healthy individuals were asked to perform that test,

they failed at one or more of the test areas. And when those people were given a series of exercises to strengthen the core muscles or exercises to help improve their flexibility, their low back pain eventually went away. It was incredible. Those people had been in pain, but the only thing wronged. with them was just that they needed to work on their core strength. How about that? How about doing some spine cracks? You know, like those chiropractor videos on YouTube. I am addicted to watching those videos. That's what you need. I don't know if that does anything,

but man, it's fun to watch. It is satisfying. Yeah. So, you know, they came up with this test, but they wondered if perhaps they were witnessing a troubling new trend, a trend that America Americans as a whole were becoming less fit. And that that lack of fitness, that lack of core strength, would create much greater problems down the road. Not just for individuals, but maybe for the country as a whole. That's right. They're right, Norm says. Hey, Cold War.

Oh, you're, man, you are with it. You see where this is going. Listen, we had a lot of these, like, covert, we have to raise a little army and, you know, take down the Russians. Like, I know the deal with the Cold War. Is that what this is all about? Raising soldiers? Hold, please. For a while, their research didn't really go mainstream.

But that all changed, thanks in part, to a fascinating woman named Bonnie Pruden. Dr. Hans Krauss actually met her when he was out mountain climbing. At the time, there weren't many women mountain climbers. But Bonnie had never been intimidated by a physical challenge. She'd always been active. She'd been a Broadway dancer. She'd climbed her first mountain while she was on her honeymoon in Europe, and she had loved it.

In fact, she would become the first woman to be awarded the National Ski Patrol badge, which I'm guessing is a great thing. Otherwise, why would you brag about it? Listen, I was in Boy Scouts. Getting badges was a huge deal. Okay. I would probably explode if I received the National Ski Patrol badge. What do you think would have meant more to you? That badge or the presidential fitness? Presidential Fitness. Wow. No question. No doubt.

But just a year after that honeymoon trip, Bonnie was skiing in Vermont when she hit a rock and broke her pelvis in four places. She was just 23 years old and her doctors told her that she would never go mountain climbing again. she'd never go skiing again she'd walk with a permanent limp and she'd never be able to have children Whoa Yeah serious accident Yeah

Just feels like the doctor's just piling on there No kidding Also you're ugly Also what's your favorite food? Oh you can't have that anymore Sorry No more corn dogs Bonnie Luckily the doctors were wrong She did ski again she did climb again

She had two daughters Oh, well, hell yeah. Yeah. Shout out to Bonnie. Bonnie sounds cool as hell. Later, when her daughters were in school, Bonnie was upset to discover that the school didn't offer physical education classes to girls. So Bonnie did something. Only for boys?

Yeah, I guess so. What's up with that? Isn't that awful? Future topic? Sure. All right. So Bonnie did something about it. She offered a free fitness program to local kids.

after school. Her program became really popular, and in just a few years, it really grew. And one year when she got a new batch of students, she decided to administer the Krause-Weber test to the children, the test that Norman just, you know, passed with flying colors. Let's not talk about that last element. Way better than those kids. Norm kicked those kids. 30-year-old man destroys children at physical fitness test. So she administered this test And holy Toledo Bonnie was

unpleasantly surprised by the results The test was supposed to evaluate Whether a person had the minimum level of muscular fitness And a ton of the children Who showed up to her classes Couldn't even pass this minimum test Soon Bonnie and Dr. Hans Krauss

teamed up to administer the test more widely Hans They Norm, he escaped Nazi Germany. Oh, hey, good for him. No kidding. Anyway, just thought you should know. They administered the test to 4,000 children in the United States, and the results were atrocious.

But hey, hey, maybe those bad results were indicative of a worldwide trend, right? Maybe everybody sucks. Can I make a prediction? Sure. I feel like the United States was way behind other countries. How dare you? How dare you? Where's your patriotic pride? But yeah, they gave that same test to 3,000 children in Switzerland, Austria, and Italy. And what Bonnie and Hans discovered didn't look so good for the old U.S. of A, they found that 58% of American children failed at least one element of that test.

Man, more than half. Yeah. What's your guess for the European kids? What percent of them failed at least one element? 20%. 8.7%. Oh. Yeah.

They kicked our asses, our chubby little asses. Man. Yeah. It was shocking and deeply troubling. We'd been bested by Italians. Italians! You hate to see it. Bobita Boopi, am I right?

You are right. It's probably all those Hydrox cookies. The kids have been eaten. Sure. But by this point, Oreos had really taken over, right? It's close. It was close. It's kind of the beginning of the end for Hydrox around here.

No, for real. What do you attribute this to? Oh, gosh. Do you have like an actual answer for? I have their answer, but I'm curious. I'm curious what you might say. Let me think. What era is this, 50s?

We're in the 50s now? Okay, so the rise of the television. Yep. We have the rise of maybe like frozen foods. Sure, sure. Hydrox cookies. Boy, you just want Hydrox to be at the center of everything, don't you? I guess that's...

You're doing really well. The only thing... So the two main things that they mentioned were the rise. of television. Mm-hmm. So people were spending more time inside, just sitting, and the rise of the automobile. People were walking a lot less. Kids driving themselves to school.

That's right. It's dangerous as hell. Crashing Dad's car. I'm tired of walking. You know, we recently removed our television from our bedroom. It's true. Mm-hmm. We had our first night last night without the television.

And you didn't sleep in it. I was up with. Playing video games. I came up to bed. Kristen was snoozing away and I didn't want to wake her up. So I just, I slept in the other room. You sweet man. Yeah.

Well, she hadn't been getting good sleep lately. Thank you. Yeah. Anyway, enough about my troubles. See, it's good that you mentioned that because people heard about how great I am at the sit and reach and they were like, I can't relate to her anymore. But now they know I've got issues too. Yeah. They're like, I'll never be superwoman.

I'll never be able to sit and reach for things like she does. So they published their report and laid it all out there. American children, regardless of whether they were wealthy or poor, whether they lived in the city or the country, they were all just squishy little dough balls. Pumping fresh. They needed time outside to run and play. They needed tougher chores. Otherwise, what would become of them? What would become of all of us?

A man named John Kelly read their report with great interest. He was an Olympic rowing champion, and during World War II, he'd served as the National Physical Fitness Director, which is not a thing I knew we ever had. Hell yeah. But you know on this podcast, we know him best as Grace Kelly's father. What? Yes. The Honorable, hang on. He deserves the trumpet fanfare.

Grace Kelly's dad? Yeah. Kristen, how do you feel about this? You've often been called the Grace Kelly of podcasting. Yeah, I have called myself the Grace Kelly of podcasting for a long time. Sometimes people say you can't make up your own nicknames, but they're wrong because I am the Grace Kelly of podcasting. So it is fun to mention my peer's father here in this report. By the way, he was hot as hell.

Oh, should I look him up? Yeah. The easiest way to get to the right John Kelly is to just go to Grace Kelly's Wikipedia page and then click on her father. Grace Kelly, father, nude. I wish. I'm not getting anything. Oh, hell yeah. Oh, he was a buff boy.

Yeah, no kidding, right? Do we need to just take 90 seconds to look at that picture for a while? Yeah, his rowing photos are just... Something else. He makes that goofy little outfit look good. That little striped tank with a little shorts. Oh, yeah. He could rock that today and people would be like, hell yeah.

Okay. So Grace Kelly's dad, aka the hottest man who's ever lived, read the report and he was horrified. So he passed it along to his senator. Senator was horrified. So the senator went and sent it all the way up to the President of the United States. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ooh, Ike.

And that's how, in 1955, the president invited Dr. Hans Krauss and Bonnie Pruden to the White House to discuss their findings about the physical fitness or lack thereof of America's children. Mr. Eisenhower probably took this very seriously as the former Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces during World War II. Okay, Norm, tell us more. Why would this matter so much? Who gives a shit? Eisenhower was Supreme Allied Commander. he was in charge of all soldiers in the European theater of World War II And so Obviously you would want your soldiers

To be in peak physical condition To win the war And he's probably thinking about The new Cold War with Russia And we've got to raise some soldiers To fight an inevitable war that's coming Because of nuclear weapons And so yeah

let's get our kiddos in shape. Norm, it's like you're inside the man's head. If there was ever a president to want to take this issue on, it was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Of course. So he hosted this event, and it was a big deal. All the hottest athletes were there. We're talking Tony Trabert. Who?

I'm sorry, have you ever heard of tennis? We're talking Jack Fleck. What? Golf. And Willie Mays. I know Willie Mays. I just thought it would be funny to like, you know, name some of these people who were like such a huge deal. You're going to open up with Jack Fleck.

Yeah, sorry, I'm not a big golf guy. I have no idea who Mr. Fleck is. Oh, I'm a huge, huge fan. A reporter for Sports Illustrated covered the event. And sure, in 1955, it might have been a little surprising to see a woman sharing the stage, presenting data that she gathered. But don't worry, the reporter just stuck to the facts. They did not feel the need to mention Bonnie Prudence divorce.

Wait, what? I thought this was so bizarre. Okay, so Bonnie Prudence there. Divorce. Yeah, she's at the White House presenting this data. And this reporter from Sports Illustrated, before they went into like a quote, they wrote the following weird-ass sentence. Miss Pruden, who as the former Mrs. Richard Hirshlin herself mothered two children,

put it this way. That is the weird. First of all, like, oh, we have to know she's divorced. We also need to know her ex-husband's name. Also, what a weird roundabout way to be like, she's the mother of two kids. Yeah, that's bizarre. It feels a little bit like she'd try to hide this from me,

but I've got the inside scoop. Hey, well, you remember from the J.C. Penny series, the woman he married was a. suspicious divorcee. This is 1955 though. I mean, it's just amazing that it was, I mean, it feels like that same level of suspicion is being put on this woman. What's this divorced woman doing at the White House?

Yeah. And don't let her fool you. She herself mothered two children as the former Mrs. Richard Hirshland. God. Imagine if we like kept doing that today. Like what if the Kansas City Star wrote an article about this? podcast. And they were like, Norman Caruso, who's got a tiny penis, is the co-host of an old-timey podcast. It's not even a subtle roast. If they were like, here's something that this person

probably doesn't want to be able to know. So Bonnie Pruden and Hans Krauss argued that their data showed that the modern American lifestyle, which in many ways was so nice, was actually making Americans less fit. People didn't walk anymore. Instead, they drove cars. They didn't spend as much time outside. They argued that Americans needed to be made aware of the downsides of modern living and that they needed to incorporate movement and exercise into their daily lives in order to just balance things out. Man, this is interesting because, man, this is like a problem today, too, that you hear a lot about. Yeah. I think about the automobile and I'm like, I would never associate it with, well, people are just lazy today, taking the automobile.

Well, it is kind of funny, right, that they're kind of spotting this trend. And it's interesting to read articles from back when this was happening because these articles were talking about like, oh my God, it's becoming less and less common for people to use their bodies at work. You know, there are jobs now where people just sit all day. Can you believe it? And it's like, well, that's kind of all we do now. I mean...

Yeah, well, which is why, like, during my days, I alternate hours between working on the podcast and then, like, doing something around the house. Like touching the floor with your fingertips? Right. Mm-hmm. For an hour. Because, like, I have to move around. I have to, like, use my hands. So, yeah.

Hey, I get it. You know, Grandma Gatewood, who we did a wonderful series on, talked about how automobiles made people, like, lazy. I mean, it's just, it changes your lifestyle. And yeah, if you're not thinking about it, maybe you wouldn't take some extra time to be active or whatever. But, you know, hearing that from Grandma Gatewood, who, like, walked thousands of miles. It's like, okay, well, you're just, like, a kooky lady that's walking everywhere, you know. Put some respect on her name. My God. No, mad respect for Grandma Gatewood. It's like, hey, come on. Like, Automobiles are very useful.

Well, honestly, that's one of the things I liked about the way they presented their research. Personally, I am kind of skeptical about the data. But what they said was like, hey, we're not trying to get rid of these modern conveniences. We just need to make some changes. Yeah, we need to be aware of what's going on. Right. After they shared their findings, Dwight D. Eisenhower was somber. He said that their research was even more alarming than he'd imagined.

He said, how can we go back to being friends when we just shared a bed? What? Sorry, you said he was somber and somber's a musical artist right now. That's one of his songs. Dear God. But we have to keep it in. Hell yeah, because we've got the Gen Zers listening to the podcast. Okay, I did see our demographics.

Number one age group? What? 25 to 34. Hello, young people. Oh, my God. Yeah. We're cool with the youngans. Apparently, unless they're listening to us ironically to make fun of us.

And they're horrified by the number of times we mentioned turds. This is that podcast, the guy with the tiny dick hosts a podcast and he wants to spank everybody. It's so cring. It's so cringe. Let's all listen. Just as Norman predicted, Dwight D. Eisenhower thought back to his experience in World War II. when, as he recalled, more than 50% of American men were physically unfit to serve. Whoa, that's a way higher number than I thought.

It's also way higher than his accurate. He might have been just very moved that day when he said that. But it was true that when World War II started, you know, on the heels of the Great Depression, where so many people didn't get adequate nutrition, the military rejected about a third of its applicants. Wow. Due to poor nutrition. Hydrox. And the fitness of American military applicants remained a big concern through the 50s.

That data moved the needle for Dwight D. Eisenhower. He wanted to take action. When that Sports Illustrated article came out, it ran under the eye-catching headline, the report that shocked the president. And it expanded on the concerns about what that data might mean for the future of America. It mentioned a study out of West Point that said that nearer, Nearly 13% of the cadets who scored in the lowest category of their physical aptitude test needed psychiatric help or ended up getting a psychiatric discharge. But when they tested the most physically fit cadets, they found that none of them needed psychiatric help.

They're perfect. In other words, washboard abs equals a washboard brain. Am I right? Absolutely. Hey, they say your gut is connected to your brain. I mean, it is kind of interesting. I know abs and guts. It's just a joke. But it is kind of interesting.

The mind-body connection and everything, but I also get upset because I'm like, it can't all be that simple. No. But they seem to really want to make it that simple here. And when you think of it that simply, you're going to come up with a very simple, solution. So, you know, there's this really strong case for getting more fit. This is an alarming thing.

Also, the mental health, too. But the article also pointed out some skepticism over the data that Hans Krauss and Bonnie Pruden had been shouting from the rooftops. A senator from Missouri wrote a letter to the president essentially saying, this data is ridiculous. It can't possibly be correct. Okay, that is how I feel. 58% of American kids versus only like 8.7... You think it's too high? Yeah. Well, it was only a sample of 4,000 kids, right?

Right. Mm-hmm. What state was it from? So it was along the East Coast. Okay. Yeah, I mean, the data does seem like... It seems way too high to me. Way too high.

But, I mean... I don't know. It could be accurate. But it just, it makes me skeptical, too. And it seems like the kind of thing that if we're going to do a big initiative, maybe this needs a little more research. Well, hey, if Eisenhower is dead set on raising his little army. And he is. Then, like, he's going to fudge the numbers a little bit to make it happen.

Well, he didn't fudge the numbers. He just got a call from Grace Kelly's dad. And he said, come on over. Okay, okay, fair enough. And he had a golfer over who you've never heard of. Mr. Fleck. That's right. So, yeah, the president did think the data was correct, and he acted on it.

In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order, creating the president's council on youth fitness. He named his vice president, Richard Nixon, chairman of the council. Richard Nixon? That's right, baby. Wow. The next year, the council created the presidential fitness challenge. Let's get physical.

But oddly, the Presidential Fitness Challenge didn't have much of anything to do with the Krause-Weber test. Their test, the whole reason for this initiative had been about core strength and flexibility. As I demonstrated earlier. Yes, beautifully. But the Presidential Fitness Challenge didn't really address those things in a super direct way. And that's because the Presidential Fitness Challenge came about at a time when the United States was really comparing its. to other countries. I guess they hadn't heard that comparison is the thief of joy.

Words to live by. The Cold War was a thing, baby. The U.S. was super worried about losing the space race, and that started to translate into losing everything, including, I guess, a literal race against those speedy little Russian kids. And that's why, according to some experts, the first iteration of the presidential fitness test didn't so much test a child's strength or flexibility as much as it tested a child's military readiness.

That's right. Norm, you were so good. You sniffed this out so fast. Thank you. The challenge included pull-ups, the standing broad jump, sit-ups, the shuttle run, the softball throw. The softball throw, wow, okay. Why? Why do you think? Throw a grenade. Norman, holy crap!

Yes, that's exactly why they included that. Yeah, that makes sense to me. Oh, I was shocked by it. The 50-yard dash and the 600-yard run. Well, now I kind of ruined this next part, but how did the council settle on these exercises? Norman, you're never going to believe it, but when they threw it the soft bow,

it was really about grenades, okay, you get it. There was also a thought that if you can do a pull-up, maybe if you're in the Navy, you can pull yourself up a ladder. You can pull yourself up out of a foxhole. Or those ropes that hang down the side of a ship when you're loading soldiers into a landing craft. There you go. I'm surprised they didn't just straight up have like a gun shooting test. Can you hit the target?

Might as well. Well, and it's funny. This was never explicitly stated as military preparedness. Well, yeah, of course, they're not going to do that. So I think maybe target practice would have been a little too on the nose. They could have been like BB gun, shoot the soda bottle, shoot the soda can or something. I don't know. Sure.

You could make it fun for kids. Right away, the presidential fitness challenge was a little controversial. A lot of people had a problem with it, including some fitness experts. They were like, this isn't really testing fitness. This is a weird military thing. Oh, so they called them out. Yeah. people also had an issue with the past-fail nature of it.

Because, you know, a kid who can do five pull-ups, you know, obviously that's a very fit kid, but so is a kid who can do three. But if the cut-off is four, then the person who gets three is in the same category as a person who can't do even a single pull-up. Fail. Yeah. Hey, that's what I hated about it. Being lumped in with the rest of us losers.

I'm just saying, if you can do five pull-ups, you're basically. agree God. I agree. I freaking agree. Honestly. Five pull-ups. Holy moly. Any number of pull-ups, I'm impressed.

That is the most impressive, like, bodyway exercise, in my opinion. Yes. If you can do pull-ups. So, yeah, there were some haters. But those losers probably couldn't throw a softball to save their lives. Yeah. So the test moved forward. But it was kind of funny because if you heard that list of exercises and thought to yourself,

wait a second. Back in my day, we did a totally different set of exercise. for the presidential fitness challenge. Yeah. Then I'd say, you're probably right, me, Ma, because the 50s were a really funny time in American culture. We thought of ourselves as World War II heroes. Back off Russia. You guys didn't do shit over there.

Greatest generation. And now we were worried that communism would envelop the world like a warm red blanket. We had to show ourselves that we were different. And one of the ways we did that was by embracing freedom. Freedom of choice. This wasn't a mandate passed down by the federal government that absolutely every school had to do no matter what in the exact same way. No, we were so chill. There were like suggestions and guidelines and you could totally make it your own.

So if you wanted your kids to climb the rope, have them climb the rope. We don't mind, whatever, just as long as they're ready to throw a grenade one day. That's right. You be your own presidential fitness challenge. And speaking of America, not being like the other girls. One way to improve physical fitness, especially if you're wanting to get closer to addressing the areas that the Krauss-Weber test evaluated, would be to hold essentially a group fitness class. Okay, yeah. Do you agree?

Sure. Now, why do you agree? You got one person up at the front of the room, everybody else is following along. Yeah, I'm instructional and community effort, I guess. Sure, and you're targeting specific muscles. Everybody's got their form down. For a long time, American gym classes, when they existed at all, had done exactly that. There'd been an instructor at the front of the room.

Everyone followed along. But Americans had gotten away from that a while ago, and they stayed away from that model because at first it smelled a little Nazi-ish. And by the late 50s, it started to smell a little commie-ish. Really? To have everyone doing the same thing at the same time. I know that's ridiculous. That was, again, one of these, like, we're differentiating ourselves.

In American physical education, we moved more toward a group sports model as opposed to a gym. I mean, our gym teacher never, like, stood at the front and did calisthenics with us. No. Did yours? Oh, yes. What? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?

Kristen, you didn't have the gym teacher with the shopping cart with a boom box in it, and they stood at the front of the class and, like, led the exercises, and we all had to do it together. No. No. In high school, I signed up for a special class for that because I wanted that. I'm talking elementary school. I'm talking elementary school. We did sports.

And let me tell you, I know people get very triggered by the presidential fitness test. to me, it's not triggering because I was up there failing on my own. You don't know true pain until you have failed all your classmates because you're on their team for something. Way to go, Pits. Did you hear that a lot growing up? Oh, yeah. Thanks a lot, Pits. No, we had our gym teacher had a shopping cart full of like, you know, exercise equipment,

and then there's a big boom box in it. Uh-huh. And, you know, she'd play a song, and we would. The whole class would do exercises, and sometimes we would do dances. We did the electric slide. Uh-huh. You know, the YMCA, all that stuff. The stanky leg.

The stanky leg. Yep. I don't think she should have had you guys twerk so much. But you know what? It was a different time. Have you seen my ass? I have. Okay, that's fascinating to me that you had that.

Yeah. Because, yeah, apparently that was a model that we kind of got away from for a while there. Well, it was alive and well in the 90s in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Well, and it's effective. Damn right. As you can see, I passed the Kraus-Weber test with flying colors. So for the most part, with Norm being maybe the exception, I don't know, reach out. We were moving toward more of a group sports model with an annual or semi-annual presidential fitness challenge thrown in the mix.

Over the years, the name of the challenge evolved, as did the challenge itself. But the program, this weird little program that impacted all of us, had staying power. Even before he came into office, President-elect John F. Kennedy Jr. championed it. He wrote an essay for Sports Illustrated titled The Soft American. Oh, wow. He wrote, in a very real and immediate sense, our growing softness, our increasing, lack of physical fitness is a menace to our society. Could you read that again with the accent?

No. He talked about how all of our abundance had made us weak, weaker than our European counterparts. Uh-oh. It had made our children weaker than previous generations. He argued that a healthy body reinforces a healthy mind, writing, quote, physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it's the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. Hardcore.

That's why all of your favorite writers have buff bods. Mm-hmm. It makes a lot of sense now. He cited the work of Hans Krauss and Bonnie Pruden. He pointed out that despite all the efforts that had been made to publicize our need to get moving, there had been no noticeable improvement in Americans' health. He argued that everyone needed to get out and get some exercise, not just our chunky youngsters.

Chunky youngsters. After Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson picked up the torch. Under his presidency, the test was more formalized, and from that point forward, children who scored in the top 15% of their presidential fitness test would receive an award

and the lifelong admiration of their peers. Am I right? You know what I heard. What? I always heard there was a second shooter. on the grassy knoll. Uh-huh. And I heard it was a chunky youngster.

It was a soft American. Yeah. It was like, lay off. Yeah. Leave us alone. Of course, the test changed over time. In the 70s, they dropped the softball test when they decided that throwing a softball is more of a skill. It's not really an indicator of your physical fitness.

That is the truth. That seems like you're not very good at throwing softball. I am awful throwing a stuff. I love playing softball, but I cannot throw the damn thing to save my life. So whenever I play in the adult softball leagues, I'm like, I have to play first base because I cannot throw this thing. I can catch it. I just can't throw it. See, I make things easier by being terrible at all of it.

They also eliminated the broad jump. They added a mile run. There it is. They also added the sit and reach. Oh, beautiful. And they can never get rid of it. No, I mean, our little niece is doing the sit and reach. It's the one area where we excel. We have to keep it.

They said, you know, we got to make sure these Midwest gals feel like they're doing something. So we're keeping the sit and reach. Unanimous decision by Congress. But a lot of people, including a lot of physical education teachers, continued to criticize the test. As early as the mid-70s, people in physical education, not just teachers, but administrators too, raised concerns about the negative impact of the test. It was humiliating for a lot of kids. And so in that sense, we were testing physical health, but really doing a number on mental health. Then there were concerns about whether the presidential fitness test actually did anything.

For most students, it was a thing done once or twice a year, but it was nothing we had to ever really prepared for. You never really got a chance to work on the skills. Right. Right. We got like no warning for the presidential fitness test. And it was like, it's funny because it meant a lot to all of us. And I kind of feel like if there had been some effort of like, hey, we are preparing for the

presidential fitness test. It might have been kind of exciting. Yeah. Send us home like a month early, a little letter and maybe a photo of the president. Or Grace Kelly's dad Or whichever one's going to move the needle. Or a high quality photo of Grace Kelly's dad.

And yeah, if we got that like a month in advance, I feel like I would have practiced. Okay. I would have been sitting and reaching every evening. Other people criticized it for being so competitive. It didn't really encourage kids

to set their own individual fitness goals. It was kind of pass-fail. you know yeah it was it was uh cutthroat it was brutal out there if you weren't a skinny little boy that's right also it wasn't really doing anything it had been made to make us less doughy but in those decades we all got dolier than ever we're getting doier and doer i kind of hate when people make that criticism because it's like you know there are so many factors at play here I don't think anyone ever thought the presidential fitness test was going to fix this, did they? I mean, you hear the test and you're like, yeah, that's not going to fix anything.

It will only humiliate large numbers of people and motivate the skinny little boys who aren't quite good enough at pull-ups. That's what I think it did. Worked on me. For a while there, it seemed like maybe the presidential fitness test was a thing of the past, a bygone. Relic. And after the 2012-2013 school year, the test, as we once knew it, was phased out under the Obama administration. Damn Obama. Did Reagan do anything with the presidential fitness test? I mean, everybody, like, here's the thing. I didn't go too deep on this thing because, like, some of it is, you know, oh, they brought in Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah, that's what I always heard.

Yeah. There were little tweaks. I heard George Bush, Sr. brought Arnold. There were some celebrity endorsements for sure. But you know, you were so rude about that golfer and that tennis guy that I'm not going to bring up Arnold Schwarzenegger, someone no one's even heard of before. He's the only man to have killed the predator, so he's a big deal. We're really grateful to him. Hell yeah, we are.

Yeah, I always, like George Bush, like, made him the head of physical fitness of the country or something in like 1990 or something. Yeah, it was definitely a big real thing. Hey, I read in his book that he was honored to receive that. Oh my God. He worked his ass off to transform the presidential fitness test. Yeah, Arnold Schwarzenegger, famously great guy. That's right.

So the program got phased out, but it never really went away. It was instead replaced by the presidential youth fitness program. Well, that's just the same thing. Exactly. Exactly. So it took a more holistic approach to fitness. They still tested kids, but they used an assessment called Fitnessgram. And under that era, the test became less about beating your peers and more about running your own race, so to speak. Hmm. Norm's looking like an angry boomer right now. No, no, no. I'm just... I'm going to give you an example. In that era, students didn't have to run a mile anymore. Instead, they did a pacer test, which tests. how long they could run at a certain pace. So if you were a slower runner, you'd finish first,

not last while all of your peers sat and waited for you. Okay, hang on. Let me think about this. It tests your pace. How long can you maintain a certain pace before you have to stop? Yeah, but what if you excel at sprinting? Well, then everyone gets to watch you be amazing. You know, it kind of takes away the humiliation.

Obviously, there would be some level of embarrassment, potentially, that you're one of the first outs. But I just don't think it compares to what I remember from elementary school, which was all of us waiting on the slowest kids and them just being embarrassed and sad, you know. Yeah. I'm telling you, though, I had those classmates that just didn't give two shits and walked the whole mile. I don't know. we had wildly different experiences. The other thing is, in my elementary school, I believe as part of that test, we were weighed and our BMI was taken.

And I guess if your BMI was in a certain range, they sent you home with a note for your parents. And I remember it was a brightly colored note. Wow. And only, you know, certain kids got it. It was just. I don't remember that. Oh, man.

Again, I don't think it was required everywhere. But I just remember it being a thing that like, man, that sucks. Yeah. BMI seems like a really outdated thing. It is, yeah. But I also think there's got to be a better way. There's got to be a better way to address these things that doesn't involve just really humiliating kids. Sure.

So that was what it was like in the Obama era. After they'd take the test, the fitness gram would take a student's data and use it to make long-term and short-term fitness goals tailored to that individual student. But you know what? If that sounds like the pacification of America, then rest easy, everyone, because in the fall of 2025, President Trump signed an executive order bringing back the presidential fitness test, which I would argue never really went away. But, you know, still, at the time, experts expressed hope for more resources for teachers, and also that there might be a shift toward focusing on how a lot of things, affect health like food and stress and sleep.

And I can't say that that has happened. But I can say that if you go to the White House website, you can look up the criteria for the presidential fitness test. And you can download your own award for, quote, obtaining the gold standard of physical fitness. So I can just say I did it and print it out. It's honor system. Oh, I'm definitely doing that tonight.

You can make your dreams come to a norm. I'm going to frame it and put it behind me on the set. But you know what they also? Is it signed by Trump? Bitch, what do you think? Of course it is. You know it would be awesome. What?

Is like a recording of him attempting the presidential fitness test. Oh, what I wouldn't give. What I wouldn't give for that. That'd be amazing to watch. But, okay, now this, this I loved, underneath that award, which you can download, is another certificate that you can also download. It's your very own participation award. Oh, what?

So you can print out your participation award? So if you're like, I'm a piece of shit, I'm never going to pass. It says I'll just print out the participation one. As long as you participate, Norm, again, honor system. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, if you can print out both of them, like, just take the one that says you'd pass. And that, folks, was a brief history of the strange, sort of beloved, sort of traumatizing, minimally effective thing we all did, the presidential fitness test. Wow.

I tell you what, didn't really do anything, but it felt so vitally important at the time, didn't it? Well, the presidential seal was on it. I mean, I felt like it would, I was being called into service. It really cheapens it to know that it's just on the website and we can get our own participation awards, doesn't it? I should really stop going around to restaurants and saying that I'm a veteran. What? Because I participated in the presidential fitness.

You know, now that you mention it, Norm, I do think that is wrong. I think that is wrong to do that. You know, it'll be funny. If someone was like, stolen valor, let me see your presidential fitness badge. And I don't have one. No. Download it quick. Yeah, it's right, I can download one now.

No, all jokes aside, I did think it was a very big deal. Yeah. And I never got the award. Uh-huh. But, yeah, it makes a lot of sense the time period and era that was a thing. Yeah. Norm, you mentioned you never got the award. Right.

I was freaking close. I'm telling you, if I just did those pull-ups, would have gotten it. Well, listen, I'm on the website right now. I've picked your group. You can be a boy or a girl. Sorry, we don't have room for non-binarys, I guess. So I've got you down as a boy. I've got you 17 plus. You are definitely plus, plus, plus. So it has three categories. Now, here's category one. It's core strength. You can either do 57 curl-ups in one minute or plank for 150 seconds. You think you could do either one of those? What's a curl-up? It's a sit-up. I mean, I don't know why they call it a curl-up.

I think sit-ups probably woke. So they call it a curl-up. I could probably plank. I bet you could plank. Yeah, I could plank for 150 seconds. Okay, now this one's tough. Cardio. Could you do a mile run in six minutes and six seconds?

Holy crap. I know. That's an insane time. I agree. But it's the Presidential Fitness Test Award that you. you're going for. I don't think I could do that. Six minutes and six seconds. Okay, then we've got upper body. Okay. Could you do 13 pull-ups? No. I don't think I could do one. I could maybe do one, but it would take everything out of me and I would collapse and be taken to the hospital. Maybe the last thing

you did. Yeah. Your dying words would be download the Presidential Fitness Award. Get your phone out. I don't have much time. I want to be buried with that. this. We're doing something special with the Discord today. So normally for our Patreon monthly bonus episodes, we will ask our patrons a question or to tell us some story that's on the theme of the episode. And we don't normally do that for main feed episodes, but this one's special, baby. This one's presidential. So we asked people to tell us their memories of taking the presidential fitness test. I'm very excited. Yeah, this is definitely a topic where we need to hear the memories of the listeners.

Okay, so Norm, should we go to our Discord and read some of the memories and traumas that people have shared with us? Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious how other people did on the presidential fitness test. Brianna, right away, I aced everything except the pull-ups. Try as I might. Never got that metal. Yeah.

Same, Brianna, same. I think the pull-ups got a lot of people. Anna Mae says, I got in the position to do a push-up and proceeded to immediately fall on my face. The coach paused and then said, I'm going to count that as one. That's called a pity push-up. Oh, Boob Wizard 420 says, I wish I could tell a tale, but I went to Catholic school and we were exempt. The Pope's fitness test, however. Was there a Pope fitness test?

Yeah, you ran around in a little hat. Put on this hat and run around. Oh, Dorito to the veg says they weighed everyone and put our weights on display. Oh, my God. That's when I learned to hate myself at eight years old. That is terrible. See, that's what I'm saying. Like, some schools, I mean, they just did horrible stuff.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that would be embarrassing. Kids bodies are growing and changing. And people would be making fun of you. Yep. Oh, you know, even if no one made fun of you, it would just be, you would feel on display. and like all of a sudden this number is the most important thing in the world. Yeah.

Okay, Elk says, I was not very athletic, but for some reason, I aced the arm hang slash chin up hold thing, whatever. I just clinched everything and held on for two and a half minutes. Did you guys do that thing? Oh, yeah. That hold? Yeah. Yeah. That was the one where people would really start shaking.

Oh, yeah. And your hand would get all slimy. Oh, I just have to ask elk if they were basically an. elf and weighed 30 pounds. You know they were. Yeah, so those little people that could just, yeah, you can just hang forever. Sat in polyurethane titty says, I broke my nose doing pushups. My arms gave out and I fell literally face first into the gym floor and broke my nose.

Best presidential fitness test ever. Oh my gosh, the dedication. That's right. You know, that maybe deserves a medal. Injured while doing the test. Mm-hmm. Trans Am Princess, here we go. Not to brag.

Okay, I am. I got the award every year. Oh. Not sure when my fitness got bad, but I am so extremely out of shape now. It doesn't matter. You were once glorious. Yep. You got to put those badges in like a shadow box.

Yeah, they can't take that away from you. Yep. Accidentally naked said, this will be TMI, but I got my very first period during the one-mile run. I bled through my soft shorts. So F-F-F-E? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are those? I just, they were a type of gym short back in the day.

Is it those like plush-looking ones? I don't know what you mean by plush, but I think you are. Like soft-looking material? Uh-huh, uh-huh. Had to tie my jacket around my waist for the rest of the day. It's a nightmare. That is the other thing I remember is like in sixth grade, we didn't have gym clothes to change into.

So you just ran a mile and then sat in those clothes for the rest of the day. Yeah. Ridiculous. Yeah. Okay. Should we read one more and then move on to the slop? Well, we can read a few more. Okay.

Find us a few more. Okay. Okay. Full grown ass man says, I always wanted to do the rope climb. I would have been so freaking good at it, but I guess that wasn't part of it by my time. Or maybe it was an area rule thing? I don't know, but I'm still pissed. I never got to do it.

Oh, okay. A rope climb? We did. We had rope climb on ours. Did you really? Yeah. I'm so, here's the thing. I would be terrible at a rope climb.

Yeah, and I've always wanted to try it. It's, it was similar to pull-ups for me. It's like, yeah. Yeah, I struggled on the rope climb. Mm-hmm. Also, you would burn the hell out of your hands. Oh, I'm sure. Especially if you slid down that rope.

Ooh. Oh, Kristen. Yeah. Here's one. Kristen's night guard says, I was a very small cheerleader when all of that was a thing. So I crushed the sit-in-reach out of pure flexibility. I'm telling you, those cheerleaders were so good at the sitting-inch. And me.

And tall Midwest gals, too. And me, that's right. And then there's me. Casey Ho says, I got that award every year until when puberty hit me hard and my ass grew and I couldn't do the three pull-ups anymore. And I ended up with the National Award instead. and I hated the color red. Also, being the tomboy of the class, I was mortified that all the boys did better than me

when they, in my humble opinion, just sucked it everything. I was shattered and wanted to sue. So that's interesting. So in some schools, they gave out other awards for people who almost made it. Oh, man, that seems, sounds really familiar. We didn't have that.

It was like either you, you got it. or you didn't. Yeah, I don't think we had that either. I think it was just the presidential. Okay. You want me to read one more? Yeah, let's read one more. Ashley says,

I was such a horribly awkward and uncoordinated child and was so horrifically bullied that my mother, who worked for the school district, convinced the school to arrange for me to do it in private. Oh. I had the upper body strength of a dead worm. The flexibility of a Victorian-era school. Marm and the endurance of a Vegas casino marriage.

I sobbed through the entire thing, crawled half the last lap of the time mile, only to dramatically collapse and refuse to continue until the gym teacher got fed up and literally dragged me the last half laugh. That is amazing. I do love the upper body strength of a dead worm. Oh, I love the Victorian... Marm. Mm-hmm.

Oh. It seems as though the history hose also struggled with the presidential fitness test. Although we did have a few people who won the coveted award. Shout out to them. I hope they're as proud as they should be. We salute you. Yes, we do. I respect the hell out of you.

And now we are moving on to the slop, which is the special, a special time for the people on the pig butter tier on Patreon. That's right. And Norm, do you want to tell them what we're going to do? So I think we're going to watch the RFK Kid Rock workout video, right? We sure are. Oh, God. We're going to watch it and react to it. Uh-huh.

Well, folks, we just watched RFK Jr. and Kid Rock workout in Asana. I'm very turned on right now. Yep. I'm probably going to have to cancel my evening plans. I am too horny. Yep. So. And we have to wrap this episode up right now.

Yeah. Yeah. I got to go. We can't go on. I got to go. You know what they say about history hoes? We always cite our sources. Norm, calm down.

That's right. For this episode, I got my information from Sports Illustrated, Fox, the Department of Health and Human Services, plus more. Check the show notes for a full list of our sources. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old time. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast.

Join the Reddit community, R-slash old-timey podcast. Follow us on Facebook and YouTube and Instagram at Old Timey Podcast. You can also follow us individually on Instagram. I'm at Kristen Pitts-Karuso and he's at Gaming Historian. And until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio. Bye. Bye. See ya.

See ya.