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Thread: The President’s Physical Fitness Challenge

  1. #1
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    Default The President’s Physical Fitness Challenge

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    I thought this was an interesting video about how PE in school was thought of in the early 60s:

    The Motivation Factor

    This didn’t involve barbells generally; but then again, Mark was 5 or 6 when this was made. I’m sure however that he remembers the President’s Physical Fitness Challenge as I did. I don’t recall the standards but I do remember them as being no joke. I do remember that one of them was the standing broad jump and being a very short, scrawny, NOT athletic, little kid, my PE teacher was shocked that mine was one of the best in the class. So much unrealized promise for the future!

    La Sierra High School’s program was mentioned in the video and more about that school is here:

    High School Fitness (1962)

    For perspective, the sentiments expressed here were thought of as a matter of national security in that this was the height of the Cold War. In the La Sierra clip, it mentioned that their standards exceeded that of Annapolis at the time.

    Things have changed quite a bit…

  2. #2
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    Many things are different now. We will be celebrating Pride Month while the Chinese are taking Taiwan, for example.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post
    Many things are different now. We will be celebrating Pride Month while the Chinese are taking Taiwan, for example.
    The coming food rationing will be determined by how marginalized academics of a certain persuasion consider you to be. And half the country will be willingly starve in order to avoid being labeled a bigot.

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    One of the greatest things about "Starting Strength, the philosophy," is that strength uber alles.

    As a kid born in 1970, I participated in the presidential physical fitness challenges and, despite being a super active, normal, healthy, sports-oriented, bike jumping, ball throwing normal kid...I never won shit and I couldn't meet any of the standards, except for situps, as I recall. Genetically i was (still am) very tall, with long levers, lower levels of muscularity and higher levels of bodyfat. This made me "skinny fat" in today's parlance, and although I was super active year round playing sports, and I had good eye-hand coordination and all that shit, I was just too weak to powerfully and accurately move my body through time and space. So my sports and athletic career never really got anywhere.

    Sadly, despite loving to lift weights and loving to work out in the gym (fucking bodybuilding magazines were full of worthless advice for someone like me, despite the fact that I consumed massive amounts of them regularly) , it was not until age 40 or so that I finally discovered SS the novice linear progression and I learned the lifts and I learned the philosophy did I finally get that strength was the most important thing.

    And so, it has been. And it has greatly improved every facet of my life. If only I had been "strong like bull" in my younger years, things could have gone much differently for me. Presently, women literally proposition me and touch me in public because of arms, shouldrs, traps and back - not all day, every day, but it happens in a way that it never did when I was a much younger man. So for all the haters of the SS programs, who claim it does not build muscle - EAT SHIT, then get stronger! The searing hatred that I have for EVERYONE (doctors, coaches, teachers, the President's Council on Physical Fitness, etc.) that failed to push the simple message of strength through barbells is profound without end. Even though I coincidentally share most of his political views, Rip is a godless asshole of person. I think we all agree on that. But because of his simple, straightforward, honest, integral and unpolished message of strength through barbells he deserves a throne in the Pantheon of intellects affecting human accomplishment, and for that ALONE I feel he MAY someday qualify as a saint. No cap.

    Thanks Rip, and may Bill Fixx twist in agonized hell forever, in a duet of screaming 69 with Ancel Keyes.

  5. #5
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    edit for Jim Fixx, the guy credited for the running/aerobics mania that persists today who shit the bed of a heart attack at the grande olde age of 52.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by FatButWeak View Post
    One of the greatest things about "Starting Strength, the philosophy," is that strength uber alles.

    As a kid born in 1970, I participated in the presidential physical fitness challenges and, despite being a super active, normal, healthy, sports-oriented, bike jumping, ball throwing normal kid...I never won shit and I couldn't meet any of the standards, except for situps, as I recall. Genetically i was (still am) very tall, with long levers, lower levels of muscularity and higher levels of bodyfat. This made me "skinny fat" in today's parlance, and although I was super active year round playing sports, and I had good eye-hand coordination and all that shit, I was just too weak to powerfully and accurately move my body through time and space. So my sports and athletic career never really got anywhere.

    Sadly, despite loving to lift weights and loving to work out in the gym (fucking bodybuilding magazines were full of worthless advice for someone like me, despite the fact that I consumed massive amounts of them regularly) , it was not until age 40 or so that I finally discovered SS the novice linear progression and I learned the lifts and I learned the philosophy did I finally get that strength was the most important thing.

    And so, it has been. And it has greatly improved every facet of my life. If only I had been "strong like bull" in my younger years, things could have gone much differently for me. Presently, women literally proposition me and touch me in public because of arms, shouldrs, traps and back - not all day, every day, but it happens in a way that it never did when I was a much younger man. So for all the haters of the SS programs, who claim it does not build muscle - EAT SHIT, then get stronger! The searing hatred that I have for EVERYONE (doctors, coaches, teachers, the President's Council on Physical Fitness, etc.) that failed to push the simple message of strength through barbells is profound without end. Even though I coincidentally share most of his political views, Rip is a godless asshole of person. I think we all agree on that. But because of his simple, straightforward, honest, integral and unpolished message of strength through barbells he deserves a throne in the Pantheon of intellects affecting human accomplishment, and for that ALONE I feel he MAY someday qualify as a saint. No cap.

    Thanks Rip, and may Bill Fixx twist in agonized hell forever, in a duet of screaming 69 with Ancel Keyes.
    I wonder how man of us look back on our underachieving athletics careers and wish someone had introduced us to a novice linear progression in our teens. I was a 6'1 170lb rugby player who was told to do long distance runs and circuit training in the off season and then had to compete with 240lb guys and wonder why I never went beyond high school level. What I really needed was a 400lb squat and 50lbs of bulk. Still, better late than never.

    I wonder how much a SS coach could get a reasonably talented teenage male to over 5-10 years of solid training. Not a complete genetic freak, just a committed reasonably talented kid who trains consistently and eats well.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jdcuth View Post
    I wonder how much a SS coach could get a reasonably talented teenage male to over 5-10 years of solid training. Not a complete genetic freak, just a committed reasonably talented kid who trains consistently and eats well.
    I'm pretty sure the technical term for that is Chase Lindley, SSC.

  8. #8
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    starting strength coach development program
    Quote Originally Posted by Jason Donaldson View Post
    I'm pretty sure the technical term for that is Chase Lindley, SSC.
    I see the experiment has already been successfully run….

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