Hi, guys!  I was cruising around the internet tonight; I was actually looking for reviews and stuff for that Fitness Challenge board game, but then I ran across this, and I think I’m going to maybe do it instead, depending on what my friend that was going to do the game with me thinks. 

https://www.presidentschallenge.org/

It’s the Presidential Fitness Challenge; I remember it from elementary school.  I was always so bummed each year when so many of my friends got patches and I could never seem to earn one, no matter how hard I tried.  I’ve been looking at the adult program, and they have different levels; I think I could earn a patch!  Heck, I might even be able to earn a medal if I try really hard!  Maybe down the road a bit. 

At any rate, it looks really cool.  And you can do it in groups, so if anybody wanted to maybe do it along with me, I could make us a group.  It looks like you can join as many groups as you want, so if you had a work group or something that wanted to do it all together, you could all have a group as well.  I think.  It’s 6am and I haven’t been to sleep yet (I’m a night owl, but this is pretty late even for me ) so I might be misreading some of it. 

But I thought some of you might be interested.  I’m going to look at it some more later when I’ve slept; I think I might do it!

Summer

Hey Summer,

I think this looks cool.  I’m still looking around the site, but I like the idea.  Let me read about some more.  Thanks for posting this. 

Do they still do this in school?  I don’t think they do this in my area.

We did it when I was in elementary school (I can’t remember about high school; my high school experience was a little different than most, and I never did wind up taking a traditional high school PE course), which was at least ten years ago.  I’m not sure whether they still do it at my old elementary school; I’ll try to remember to ask my mom, as she still teaches there.  There’s a different PE teacher than there used to be, and the new one doesn’t have it quite as together as the old one, and isn’t quite as gung ho.

The website seems to point to it still being done at schools, though.  I’ll try to remember to ask my mom.  Maybe my little sister, too; she did do the traditional PE program at our high school.

Hey Summer,

I know they’ve cut a lot of the P.E. classes.  I guess I hadn’t given it much thought until I saw your post.  How sad.

Ok - I’m in. I logged into the presidential fitness site and signed up for the Presidential Champions.  We’ll see how long it takes me to get that bronze medal…

Eeee, yay!  I was going to skip walking tonight, but now maybe I will after all. 

This sounds like a great program.  I wonder if Canada has something similar?  Any Canadians out there more knowledgeable than I am?

The one thing I can’t find on the web site is how much each activity is worth in terms of points.  Can anyone point me to the site?

Thanks muchly!  And good luck to everyone undertaking the challenge!
Julie

Hmmm.  I’m googling around now.  So far the closest thing I’ve found is this:
http://www.fitnesschallenge.ca/
which looks like it’s only for elementary school kids.  I’ll probably keep poking around; if I find anything that’s specifically Canadian, I’ll post it here. 

As far as which activities are worth how many points, I haven’t found that yet, either.  I did find this:
2. Get active.
You’ll earn points for every activity you log. Points are based on the amount of energy each activity burns. So the more active you are, the more points you’ll get. This program has a 750-point daily cap to encourage staying active every day. Earning a Bronze award takes 20,000 points. For example, if you run 5 miles every day, you can reach that amount in about six weeks. More moderate activities will take a little longer.
I did the math on it, and if I did it correctly that breaks it down to about 476 points for a 5 mile run. 

Annnnd I went and took a screencap of my activity so far, which gives the points for each one, so that might help give you an idea too.  You can see that at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/92099034@N00/160522726/

Hope that helps at least a bit. 

I am a teacher (technology) in a K-5 school in NJ and my students do the Presidential Fitness Test- maybe it’s called “Challenge” now… I heard some of the 5th graders talking about how well they did, etc.
I remember doing the tests in elementary school, too.
-Lori

I’ve been doing this for a couple months now. Very cool way to track your progress and work towards a goal.