If you grew up and were in grade school or junior high in Canada between the 1970s and 1980s you might remember a thing called the Canada Fitness Test. All students had to take part in the fitness test. The six activities, to be performed in a strict and controlled manner, were imposed upon the school curriculums by the Canadian government.
The test events were gruelling, and sometimes extremely discouraging for the young participants and included exercises like the endurance run, push-ups, crunches, the standing long jump, and every Canadian kid's favorite, the flexed-arm hang. Now, while the ParticipAction movement was a good thing, some parts of this forced fitness testing were not liked by the children that had to perform them.
I was always left wondering how some 14-year-old kid could possibly be expected to do forty push-ups and run 2.4 kilometers in under eleven minutes. And how were we supposed to hang forever in a flexed-arm hang? What kind of fitness level does a flexed-arm hang measure anyways? By today's standards of full body workouts, compound lifting, and sport-specific training, the flexed-arm hang seems like a pretty useless exercise.
Awards based on results included bronze, silver, gold, also known as "The Award of Excellence", and the lowly "ParticipAction Award" that everyone, at the least, could earn by going through the rigors of the mandatory physical testing. While the ParticipAction movement remains, the Canada Fitness Test was removed from the curriculum sometime in the early 1990s and has not been replaced by anything comprable. As a matter of fact, in order to cater to the ever-growing population of today's "not-so fit" children, we have begun to emphasize participation over performance. Awards for excellence have been replaced with awards for participation. In an attempt to get more average or non-fit kids involved in physical activity, the other children lose a step when it comes to physical excellence. Results aren't as important as long as everybody tries, right? Uh, that doesn't win many games in today's ultra-competitive world of sports, or earn any gold medals at the Olympics.
Similar to the Canada Fitness Test, in the United States, the President's Fitness Test was established in 1956 by President Eisenhower and became mandatory in 1989 under Ronald Regan. The test is still in use today in grade school gymnasiums around the States.
Oh, and my best result, a silver, I believe, was earned on the strength of a strong endurance test, definitely not the flexed-arm hang. Post your results, if you can remember, or comments on the CFT at the bottom of the page.
Web Links for reference:
http://www.ask.com/questions-about/Presidential-Fitness-Test
http://titanous.com/cadets/fitness_test.pdf
http://keithrichmond.blogspot.com/2008/03/remember-canada-fitness-tests.html
Comments
I too have some Silver badges hanging around here somewhere.... the flexed arm hang kept me from getting gold. I was 12 yrs old when I wrote away and got that fitness program into my public school! I work in an elementary school, and boy do we need another fitness program for our gym classes, today, childhood fitness is not good.
I come from Australia where we had a similar program called "Life, Be In It". They had ads all over TV and even opened up gyms and sports centres during the late 70's and early 80's. Coming from Australia you were expected to participate in sport but now Australia's leading preventable cause of death is heart disease...lol how strange. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VonH_NGRtHc
I checked out a few of the Life. Be in it. videos. Interesting. :)
The article stated: "Awards based on results included bronze, silver, gold, also known as "The Award of Excellence"
Actually, there was a separate badge above and beyond the gold badge know at the "Award of Excellence". I should know, I've received several gold badges in grade school, and boy did I covet that "Award of Excellence" that maybe one or 2 kids in my school managed to acquire.
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