High School P.E.

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SierraFatToSkinny
SierraFatToSkinny Posts: 463 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
This weekend I decided to (pre)start C25K. I've attempted running before and always was discouraged with how long I could last. I did some reading and decided that I should run slower. Which helps a lot.

I was alone on the trail and I was proud of how long I was able to run this time. And surprised!

I was thinking back a decade to when as a teen I would walk around the football field instead of run. How uncomfortable I was running with everyone. I was a curvy girl, busty and with a bottom and I just hated the idea of jiggling.

I wish I had been told to wear a sports bra, or had been taught to run slower. Or something.

Has anyone else thought back to their teen days in PE with regret?
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Replies

  • buffalogal42
    buffalogal42 Posts: 374 Member
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    Kind of ... I was a really good volleyball player in junior high and high school. I was fairly thin then (5'9" and 135-140-ish lbs). But I quit before my senior year because a new coach came in and required the girls to be able to run a mile (which I couldn't) and to do 5 push-ups (which I couldn't). Rather than admit to the team why I quit - I knew I'd fail the tests - I said my mom made me get a PT job. Still makes me a little sad ...
  • jennyhart200
    jennyhart200 Posts: 692 Member
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    I got a exception in middle school to take extra math classes instead of PE. My fitness declined and I never got it back on track.
  • 30kgin2017
    30kgin2017 Posts: 228 Member
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    Memories of being asked to sit out of a netball game in primary school as our opponents that week were younger and therefore shorter than me . I didnt stick it out long after that. With time I probably would have improved to be able to play with girls closer to my own age. Grading isnt suppose to be age based but in school it tends to work out that way, except for the kid who didnt get started as early as everyone else.

    I'd given up by the time I got to highschool. Its true that theres little to no focus on the bottom half of the class. I do recall doing a ability test which was to identify what sort of sports you were suited to, this wasnt done till much later in high school. Done earlier it may have given some ideas about what I could have looked into doing. It did produce surprising results for some people who were thought to be excellent athletes but didnt perform well in some areas (cue the star hockey player crying over the fact she couldn't complete the sit up test while the non-athelete aka me could).
  • ninerbuff
    ninerbuff Posts: 48,574 Member
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    I questioned what an A grade would be on the mile for a middle school kid. To get an A then need to run the mile in 6 minutes. Um, that's pretty fast. That's constantly at 10mph for the 6 minutes.
    However unlike when I was in middle school, a lot of kids put a lack luster effort. To get an A in PE now, you basically just have to dress everyday and put in some sort of effort to whatever fitness program they are doing for that day.

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  • Jpedno
    Jpedno Posts: 301 Member
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    Yes. Totally. We had to run a mile with no preparation at all. It was brutal for me so I learned to be apathetic to deal with it. Now I am more active than ever at age 36. I wonder what kind of an athlete I could have been if I had been encouraged in school... and yeah, I wish I had been told about sports bras. That would have certainly helped my confidence level.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
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    I was never a superstar athlete, but PE was always one of my favorite classes from elementary school onward. I had a lot of energy and PE gave me a chance to burn it off rather than sitting around in classrooms. In high school I played football, basketball and track, and when I went to college I always signed up for at least 1 or 2 PE classes a semester as a break from all the studying/class work. Some people totally hated high school - I loved it, and playing sports was the biggest reason.

    A lot of schools are cutting PE and sports programs nowadays and I think it's absolutely criminal. Not only is it contributing to the obesity epidemic, it's also depriving kids of learning the fun of playing sports, the thrill of competition and the sportsmanship that should be taught as part of it. Often when I drive past our local high school, the most strenuous thing I see kids doing during PE is walking slowly around the track with their faces buried in their cell phones. Sad.
  • rachelr1116
    rachelr1116 Posts: 334 Member
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    I hated P.E. I got my first B in P.E. in 6th grade because I couldn't throw a football far enough. I was 5'11" tall by 7th grade and we all had to wear the same uniform and the shorts were super short on me. Combine that with my lack of knowledge of sports bras and I was so embarrassed before class started that I just didn't want to put forth much effort. All through junior high I got counted off for not doing things good enough. I couldn't run a mile without stopping, I was bad at softball, and they made us play dodge ball with the boys and all they wanted to do was throw the ball as hard as they could.

    I surprised my teacher though because I was actually decent at volleyball and when we did gymnastics for a few weeks I was one of the best in my class, probably because I'd been taking ballet since I was 4. I actually briefly joined the volleyball team in high school but didn't make it through the first week of practice because of all the running. I was trying to keep up with all the girls who had been running for years and I just couldn't do it. I wish the coach had noticed me struggling and told me to slow down until I could build up to running faster.
  • ladyreva78
    ladyreva78 Posts: 4,080 Member
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    AnvilHead wrote: »
    I was never a superstar athlete, but PE was always one of my favorite classes from elementary school onward. I had a lot of energy and PE gave me a chance to burn it off rather than sitting around in classrooms. In high school I played football, basketball and track, and when I went to college I always signed up for at least 1 or 2 PE classes a semester as a break from all the studying/class work. Some people totally hated high school - I loved it, and playing sports was the biggest reason.

    A lot of schools are cutting PE and sports programs nowadays and I think it's absolutely criminal. Not only is it contributing to the obesity epidemic, it's also depriving kids of learning the fun of playing sports, the thrill of competition and the sportsmanship that should be taught as part of it. Often when I drive past our local high school, the most strenuous thing I see kids doing during PE is walking slowly around the track with their faces buried in their cell phones. Sad.


    Minus the cell phone that was what my PE classes looked like. I hated it. It was such a waste of time. The most exciting thing we did was walk around the tennis and basketball courts instead of the track...
  • not_a_runner
    not_a_runner Posts: 1,343 Member
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    I was overweight until I was a senior in high school, so I dreaded PE. I lost about 60 lbs and found out I really enjoyed working out, so I actually took an extra PE class my senior year. I ran "the mile" 3 times one day, and my teacher encouraged me to do a 5k race. I did one that summer, and then many many more over the next few years.
    I also did 3 pull ups during our yearly fitness test, before this I could barely do the timed hang.
    Another memory, we would go to the weight room maybe twice a year. Not enough to really accomplish anything, but I enjoyed this even when I was heavier. Probably never would have set foot in a weight room if it wasn't for PE class. I guess I would consider myself a powerlifter these days. I'm doing my 3rd competition in April.
    I wish I'd gotten into fitness much sooner and realized it wasn't so bad, I probably would have enjoyed being on the cross country team, the team mates aspect would've been good for me. Now they have a program where they have lifting a few times a week for the kids who are in sports.
  • sammyliftsandeats
    sammyliftsandeats Posts: 2,421 Member
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    I'm super uncoordinated so the sports we played in PE were not meant for me. I took a class in Grade 12 called Superfit because I didn't want to be without physical activity my senior year (PE was an elective by then) and we used the weight room but my teacher definitely encouraged the boys to lift more than the girls. We girls did ab exercises with the medicine ball and that was pretty much it. Poo.
  • smotheredincheese
    smotheredincheese Posts: 559 Member
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    I wish my P.E. lessons had been more focused on fitness and physical activity, and less on competitiveness.
    I have terrible co-ordination, I'm clumsy and short sighted and as a shy teen I hated group activities so netball, hockey etc were my worst nightmare.
    P.E. lessons basically taught me that I was a fat awkward lump and that sports are not for people like me, and I held on to that belief for years until for some reason I decided to start running and discovered that exercise can be fun.
  • RachelElser
    RachelElser Posts: 1,049 Member
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    ugh, HS gyms was a joke- I am not athletic, I have no coordination, I admit it. The asshats in my school thought it would be funny to purposefully hit me in the face with the basket ball or volleyball or whatever. I told my gym teacher I would be score keeper and when she protested I asked her if she would be paying for my glasses when they broke because she couldn't keep her class under control. The other two teachers were nice, we did archery and fly fishing- not exactly good work outs!
  • angmarie28
    angmarie28 Posts: 2,799 Member
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    i hated PE and refused to participate alot of the time, i hated that they would force you into playing sports, make me look like an idiot because i couldnt play worth a crap, i debated with my PE teacher and he let me run stairs instead, but i just walked them. I hate high school PE, i find it embarrassing for un-athletic kids
  • yayamom3
    yayamom3 Posts: 939 Member
    edited January 2017
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    I hated running my entire life until, in my forties, I did C25K. Now I enjoy it. I often look back on my PE days. If someone had actually taught me to run, instead of just saying, "Get out there and run," my entire fitness journey could have been different. Also, if girls had been taught to lift weights (not just the guys on the football team), it would have made a huge difference in my life, as well.
  • girlwithcurls2
    girlwithcurls2 Posts: 2,264 Member
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    I hated PE. Put me off sports until I was 45. I'm in better shape than I was when I was 12...
  • RunsWithBees
    RunsWithBees Posts: 1,508 Member
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    I absolutely hated gym class! My older sister was super athletic and everyone expected me to be just like her. I wasn't! I was short and fat and had no muscle strength. Then I had a growth spurt and ended up being 5'11" (much taller than my sister!) and thinned out but still seemed to have little to no muscle strength. Now in my 40's I finally realize that I was built with more slow-twitch muscle fibers than fast-twitch, which means that I am built for ENDURANCE rather than quick bursts of speed or strength. Even now in middle age I can outrun my athletic 20 year old son when it comes to distance! If I had only known this back then, I wouldn't have spent half my life feeling like such a weakling and hating exercise, but better late than never, because I love it now!
  • French_Peasant
    French_Peasant Posts: 1,639 Member
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    I was a thin, shy, bookish, tongue-tied, freckled, pale-skinned, red-headed, gangly (till age 16, ballet class and bosoms) girl, with no particular athletic talents or abilities, but I look back on every single one of my gym classes and teachers, from elementary school through sophomore year of high school, with joy, affection, and pleasure. And this was going to very big public schools. From the scooter races and parachute in elementary, to roller skating and volleyball and flag football in middle school, to softball, gymnastics, ping-pong, floor hockey, and racquetball in high school, we always had a blast, although at the time I may not have realized it. The older I get, the more I realized how blessed I have been by many of my teachers, including those forcing us to get our butts out there and try a run around the track.

    "Adult PE" would be a great class concept for some gym to put together, complete with gym uniforms and knee-high socks. :D
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    I loved PE...but I played a lot of sports.

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