Every year it arrives, I always hear students grunt and complain about doing it. I was in English fifth block, which meant my class was one of the first English classes beginning the activity. When I wake up in the morning, running, doing push-ups and sit-ups and all the other stuff is the last thing I want to do.
My class enters the halls around the varsity gym and we hear our teacher tell us to take our shoes off and get in a line, boys on one side of the hall and girls on the other. As I’m doing this I start to think that we’re in some clinic. My teacher writes down our height and weight while we wait for everyone to finish.
Next are the push-ups and sit-ups. I honestly believe they went easier on us this year than last year with the sit-ups. Last year we had to go all the way up, while this year we only had to touch our knees and go back down. (The push-ups on the other hand, are still the same.) It’s my turn for the sit-ups and I ready myself. “Up, down,” I hear the man on the CD say. 47 go by and surprisingly, I maxed out for the guys. “Hmm, that was easier than I thought.” The push-ups are next and I always despise these. I pass by 15 and boys and girls in my class have already given up. By 21, I really see no point in going on, so I stop. Shockingly, I look up and there are only a few people left. My teacher tells us we’re done for the day, and my whole class releases a sigh of relief.
Wednesday comes by quicker than I had hoped. My class takes the walk to the P.E. Gym to start the pacer test. I wait to be in the second group to and watch the first. They start quitting by 20 laps, and soon, the last one stops at 44. My group is next. We line up and wait for the man on the CD to start us off. The ring goes off and I run across with ease. By lap 15, I start to breathe a little heavier, and for some reason my mind tells me to stop at 22.
Here, the Fitness Gram has a bad popularity among the students; I wouldn’t be surprised if it is the same all across the state. The students really see no point in it and just think it is an excuse for the state to make us go through strenuous exercises. We are already pulled out of classes for TAKS tutoring and other things, so there really is no point to pull us out and tell us how fit we are as most of us already know.
charanda j • Nov 29, 2010 at 2:43 pm
Me personally, I love fittness grams. It helps me find something i can work on for the yr… Example if i only did 25 lines next yr i can push myself to do more. Kids that hardly dont workout complains about the littlest stuff “gosh this is to many stairs” or ” im tired of walking” Doing the fittness gram is not Pointless… its a life lesson. Majority of the kids don’t think so but, they will look back on this. And regert they didnt try.
RED • Mar 31, 2010 at 11:12 pm
i have no problem with the fitness gram, i hope it reminds people to go outside and get some exercise. People who don’t do anything during the grams just makes themselves look bad and its pointless. If were up to me i would start everyday with PT (physical training) maybe less people would complain about the stairs….
Sarah McD • Mar 22, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Fitness Grams weren’t called fitness grams in the early nineteen hundreds. They were used to test the fitness of a could-be soldier as they were selling prospetive draftees then.