Illustration by John Cuneo
During a commercial break from the Duke Belmont game I flipped to C-Span. President Bush was encouraging me to get off my comfy couch and go work out for at least 30 minutes. You have to respect his fitness level. See this great article. He continued by speaking about the presidential fitness program. That brought back a lot of happy memories of elementary school glory and I started wondering if I would still be able to meet the standards I achieved handily much younger. So I decided to look it up. Here's what I found:
While I plan to verify my assumptions in the next day, I think I'm still in the game. The curl ups, sit and reach, and running I got, no problem. The pull up or push up option, I'm not so sure about. I'm still doing about 40 push ups every day but wimpy style so I'm not sure if I can do 25 right angle push ups. I'll have to try to work on that. (My wrist problems bring me down on that one.)
I noticed that according to the chart, we peak physically at 15 then the numbers start to descend again. What's up with that? If logic follows at this point I'm back to a ten year old level.
Anyway, I also found out when I was at the Presidential Fitness page that they've started a program for adult. If you do well enough you can get a medal from the president. You get points each day for the amount of time you work out and once you get 20,000 points you win! According to the website 20,000 points is about six weeks of running five miles every day. You can get the details here. Anyone want to go for bronze with me?
7 comments:
That sounds like a great idea! Good luck and happy running.
Ohhh the presidential fitness requirements. I have MISERABLE memories of trying to achieve those standards.
Fun! Just a few days ago I decided to check out the military's physical fitness requirements. I thought it would be especially fun because I haven't exercised in 2 months. And I did pretty great. Which makes me nervous about the military. But it seems Pre. Bush has higher standards. So go get 'em Katy!
Just like the Utah lovebird, I have bad memories of doing this! I was never very flexible - nor a good runner. So I got beat down year after year. But I think I could do at least one pull up... hopefully. I'll try next time I go to the gym!
Wow Kristen, for me the pull up was by far, the most difficult part of the whole endeavor. I think I'll try to do one at the gym too but I doubt I'll get more than half way. Push ups are much easier.
k, so when are we going to do this? I want to see if I can get this presidential award. I am still worried about the 1 pull up though. :)
Yeah, I could never do a full pull-up...and still can't. But somehow I did get the pres. fitness award a couple of times when I was in elementary school.
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