From an Athlete Who Hated the Presidential Fitness Test

Isn’t’ it time we stop confusing performance with worth?

Greetings Strong Humans,

This week I want to start with a story…

I was born in 1981, which means I grew up in the era of chore charts, food pyramids, and the Presidential Fitness Test.

In elementary school, things were already complicated. I hit puberty at 11, early, awkward, and out of sync with my classmates. At home, physical ability wasn’t something to explore or enjoy. It was something to be good at. Period.

There wasn’t space to ask what I liked, what felt good in my body, or what kind of movement lit me up. I wasn’t taught to love it, I was taught to perform.

So even when I became an athlete in the ’90s, and trained hard, and competed often… I still dreaded that one week each year: Presidential Fitness Test time.

You probably remember it too. Run a mile. Do pull-ups. Push-ups. Sit-ups. Touch your toes. No real prep. No scaling. Just a public test. Pass or fail.

Even as someone who could do most of it, I found it joyless and alienating. I wouldn’t even try because I was self conscious, and didn’t want to be embarrassed or stand out in anyway, and I sure wasn’t the only one!

I didn’t know it then, but that model was shaping the way so many of us came to view fitness, not as something that belongs to us, but something we had to prove.

This July, the Presidential Fitness Test was officially reinstated. It’s now backed by a newly rebooted President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition, fronted by a group of elite professional athletes.

Now, I have huge respect for these athletes and what they’ve accomplished. But I have to ask: are they the right voices to decide what health looks like for the rest of us, especially for kids still learning how to move, how to grow, how to be in their bodies?

Because this isn’t just about measuring ability. It’s about the message underneath it all:

“If you hit the numbers, you’re fit. If you don’t, you fail.”

We’ve seen where that message leads, especially for young people. Especially for girls, and especially for those who don’t fit a specific mold.

You don’t have to go far to find someone who was turned off from movement altogether because they were made to feel behind, embarrassed, or simply not “built for it.”

There was no space for curiosity, for building skills, or for celebrating your own growth, just comparison. No wonder so many of us grew up thinking fitness had to hurt, or that it “wasn’t for us.”

But here’s what I’ve learned, both through science and experience:
Movement that feels good? It sticks. When it’s joyful, exploratory, and progress-oriented, people come back to it. Not because they’re being tested, but because they’re finally connecting with their bodies.

We don’t need one-size-fits-all standards handed down by people whose lives revolve around elite performance. We need real-life leaders. Teachers. Coaches. Parents. Community builders. People who understand that for most of us, the goal isn’t a medal. It’s longevity. Confidence. Health. Energy. Resilience.

Fitness isn’t about pushing to the edge, it’s about finding your own edge and learning how to dance with it.

Moving with intention and joy,
Coach Christine