Sep
24
OPYOW Opponents…
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OPYOW Is Not Without Critics…
Criticisms and Objections to Overcome
As simple and workable as PYOW seems to be, and with as much good publicity as it has received, it was never without its critics. So what kind of obstacles and criticisms has the program had to overcome in order to succeed? Here are the issues that most commonly came up.
It Lacks Hard, Scientific Evidence
Yes, that’s true. Despite the fact that several exercise physiologists have agreed that it would be an interesting project, nobody that I know of has ever done a scientific study designed to reveal the body composition differences between kids who can and kids who can’t do pull ups. That is to say, the only evidence I have is all the kids I observed with my own two eyes during almost two decades of teaching and coaching.
By the same token, nobody that I know of has ever done a scientific study designed to reveal whether your nose is on your face or not either. Perhaps both studies are too simple and intuitively obvious to interest academia.
Most Kids Hate Pull Ups
Yes, that’s also true. Then again most kids hate to fail in public at anything…including reading, writing, and arithmetic. The trick is to start kids off young, present PYOW in the right light (as a privilege instead of an obligation or a job), and to build public success into the program for every participant. Do these things and you’ll be amazed how quickly kids learn to look forward to their “opportunity” to get on the pull-up bar and to develop their own God given potential. By the way, the same formula works for reading, writing, and arithmetic too.
It Also Lacks Comprehensiveness
Some people felt that the program was too limited, that it was lacking in comprehensiveness, that it failed to cover all the necessary aspects of a good fitness program, and therefore it fell short of being a program to endorse and to implement.
But in my view, these critics failed to understand that nobody ever said PYOW was a comprehensive fitness program. It never pretended to be. What you have here is a very simple and functional antidote to childhood obesity. Its sole claim is that if you can do pull-ups, you cannot be obese. That’s the golden rule of PYOW. Learn to do pull ups, maintain the ability, and you’ll be a permanent member of Wall A, and never ever a member of Wall B again.”
On the other hand, even though PYOW almost totally ignores the aerobic aspect of fitness (for example), to the degree that it discourages excess body weight, it also reduces the workload on the heart 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that PYOW is definitely heart friendly, right?
PYOW Discourages Other Forms of Exercise
Furthermore, others felt that since PYOW’s focus was pull-ups, that it discouraged other forms of exercise. But if these critics had taken a closer look, they’d find that PYOW encourages anything that improves pull-up performance, including other forms of exercise, which also burn calories, and help control or reduce the participant’s body weight (their workload on the pull-up bar). It also recognizes the role of good eating habits, getting sufficient rest, and flexibility. Pull-ups however, are still the bottom line, functional acid test for PYOW.
PYOW Is Too Good To Be True
A similar criticism was that anything that simple cannot possibly work. In other words, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. To that charge, I simply go back to the Wall A, Wall B example. As a matter of fact, I contended this criticism was picking on the program’s greatest strength…its sheer simplicity, its financial and logistical accessibility.
So, What Exactly Is A Pull Up?
There was some debate over the question, what constitutes a pull up? There was a gym teacher involved in the conversation who originally contended that there should be “no kicking allowed, because that was cheating.” I even had one young entrepreneurial lad suggest, “If I can do ten pull ups half way up, that should count for five full pull ups…right Coach?” But after talking it over, we decided to simplify the whole thing by saying that a participant had to go all the way down (straight arms), and all the way up (chin touching the bar), and anything in between was acceptable. In other words, when starting from the original down position, you’d be allowed to kick, twist, scream, or holler, in order to reach that final up position. Our mantra in this regard was “all the way down, and all the way up. Anything else goes.” And that’s exactly how we defined a pull up at Jefferson Elementary School back in the early 90’s.
The Medical Community Recommends A More Complicated Solution
Let’s have a look at a conventional, comprehensive, solution to the childhood obesity epidemic offered by experts from St. Louis Children’s Hospital: Check it out and see what you think.
1. Work together on one positive change at a time. You can set your child up for failure by trying to make too many changes as once.
2. Get rid of the junk food. Make fruits, vegetables and other healthy snacks readily available and eliminate junk food to avoid temptation.
3. Turn off the TV. Get rid of distractions during mealtime and concentrate on enjoying the food and spending time together.
4. Offer options to your child. Rigid guidelines can alter a child’s internal sense of hunger and satiety. When offered options, a child learns to make positive choices consistently.
5. Beware of beverages. Juice and colas can add hundreds of calories a day.
6. Limit snacks and control portion sizes. It is unreasonable to give a child a bag of chips and expect him to stop after a few. Help your child out by putting a snack in a bowl ahead of time.
7. Give positive feedback. Take notice when your child makes steps toward changing bad habits, such ass choosing an apple for an after-school snack.
8. Limit “screen time.” Encourage active pursuits by allowing only an hour a day for sedentary time with video games, the computer and the television.
9. Do it together. You don’t have to plan a workout to get exercise. Family fun, such as playing in the sprinkler, diving into leaves or having snowball fights, burns calories, too.
10. Consider your child’s feelings. Teaching you child healthy eating habits is a long-term goal, but be sensitive about when to give it a rest and let him enjoy the things that children enjoy.
PYOW in contrast, says learn to perform pull-ups at an early age, do what ever it takes to maintain that wonderful ability for as long as you want to remain relatively strong and trim. Now, I ask which one is simpler? Which one is more tangible and measurable in terms of progress, and therefore motivation? Which one is easier to understand, afford and to implement? And if it’s simpler, more measurable, more affordable, and more implementable, which approach has the best odds of succeeding? If you said PYOW, you win!
Other Exercises Can Make The Same Claims, So Why Just Pull Ups?
Another common criticism was that you can make the same claims for other activities such as dips, hand stand push ups, and say a seven minute mile. If you can do any of these things, you’ll also be relatively lean and strong.
To that criticism I can only say…”I agree!” And again, we never discouraged students from doing other forms of exercise. The reason we settled on pull-ups was that everyone knows what they are. Where some people may not know what you mean by dips or hand-stand push-ups. And a seven-minute mile takes lots more space, good weather, and lots more time to develop.
But most importantly, only pull-ups are associated with the phrase “Pull Your Own Weight.” And this phrase has many other positive connotations naturally built into it. So we settled on pull-ups instead of dips, hand stand push-ups, or seven-minute miles.
Boys Will Have An Advantage Over Girls
I’ve had an occasional feminist suggest that boys would have an advantage over girls in this testosterone-laden activity.
My response to this one was that “these critics never saw the girls at Jefferson school who, because they often mature faster than boys, were often the best pull-up performers in class. So this criticism was simply untrue.”
PYOW Will Make Girls Masculine
Along the same line of thinking there were some who suspected that PYOW would make the little girls masculine, and give them bulging muscles. Again, the answer was that these critics never saw the girls at Jefferson School. Factually speaking girls don’t have the hormones to develop masculinity unless they take them (i.e., steroids) artificially. So, once again I simply say if they’d seen the girls at Jefferson School, they’d already know they’re wrong!
PYOW Could Prove Embarrassing, And Further Alienate Real Heavy Kids
Another critic asked what about those kids who have gotten real heavy at a real young age? Won’t OPYOW put them on the defensive, on the outside looking in, and feeling even worse about themselves than they already do?
In response, I simply don’t remember any kids who failed to succeed if we lowered the bar enough to allow them to get their chin up and over the bar. And if you succeed regularly in public, there’s very little to be embarrassed about. After several weeks of regular public success, the embarrassment issue was ancient history. We were also lucky enough to have two Total Gyms in house, and on that machine anybody can easily succeed immediately.
You Don’t Need A Degree To Teach It, So What Good Can It Be?
I had one humorous (tongue in cheek) teacher say, “if you don’t have to have a degree to teach it, how good can it be?”
Again, my response was that these critics were attacking PYOW’s greatest strength—its simplicity. Actually many of the parents who became PYOW moms and dads had no degrees at all. They were school dropouts. But the changes that occurred in the kids they worked with, often rubbed off on the parents and put a wind in their sails that they’d never experienced before.
Many teachers noticed that parents got as much out of the program as the kids did. So one of its inadvertent strengths was its ability to generate parental involvement, enthusiasm, and even confidence, which, in at risk populations, is usually a hard nut to crack. Without ever planning to do so, PYOW became the primary parental involvement vehicle for the entire grant.
How About Liability Issues?
Another obstacle that came up at Jefferson School was this question of school liability. All school administrators these days run scared in the face of liability issues and lawsuits, so that’s a legitimate concern.
I confess that in the school setting, every administration will have to make its own call. On the other hand, if leg assisted pull-ups were the most dangerous activity their students experience, they have almost no problems at all.
The other thought is that PYOW is certainly not restricted to schools. It can easily be done in YM/WCA’s, Park Districts, Boys & Girls Clubs or Churches. For that matter PYOW can easily be done in the home by concerned parents. The equipment cost is negligible, the space required is minimal, and as we said before, you definitely don’t need a degree to teach it!
What If There’s No Mandate From The Top Down?
One other criticism has been that K-3 teachers at Jefferson School were mandated to participate, but in other schools, teachers may just choose to avoid participation. What then?
The fact of the matter is at Jefferson School teachers were mandated from top down to participate, and there were definitely teachers who resented it. They felt like they were overworked already (they probably were) and that PYOW was taking time from more important subjects like reading, writing and arithmetic. And nobody could argue that it didn’t take time from these other activities. But it was those same teachers who drug their feet, lacked enthusiasm, and wh shorted their kids in the process. In my view, an unenthusiastic teacher should never be allowed to be a part of a PYOW program anyway.
And because of this issue, I recommend that PYOW should only be used by teachers who understand the concept, see the importance of it, and who will enthusiastically work with kids in the program. Furthermore, teachers who enthusiastically want to participate will be the exception, not the rule. Let the enthusiastic teachers light the fire and lead the way. Let them show their colleagues what can be achieved through an incredibly simple program.
Pull Your Own Weight Is Selfish
There were a couple people who interpreted the phrase Pull Your Own Weight as “selfish.” That is to say, in a social context, they understood it to mean take care of yourself…ONLY, and forget about other people. But in my view they were missing the point. From a social standpoint the idea was, “if you’re unable to take care of your own affairs, the odds of you being in a position to help others is worse than bad. On the other hand, people who learn to pull their own weight in all kinds of ways, are almost always in positions to show others how to pull their weight, and in the process they’ll develop self respect, as well as a healthy (as opposed to a condescending) respect for other people.” This little “teach ‘em to fish” recognition we called Pull Your Own Weight Plus.
PYOW Gets Too Much Good Publicity
The final criticism I’ll mention is one that came from Dr. Peter Flynn who was the Superintendent of Davenport Public Schools back then. He complained to me one day “That PYOW program gets more good publicity than all the rest of the (20 some school) district gets combined.”
Another tongue in cheek criticism for sure, but my answer was simply, “If your school or your school district appreciates good ink, PYOW is hard to beat.” That’s pretty much the gamut as far as criticisms and obstacles, now let’s talk about some other lifelong lessons that are packed in between the lines of Operation Pull Your Own Weight
Sep
24
A School PYOW Success Story
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A ‘Fitness Success Story In A Public School System
PULL YOUR OWN WEIGHT
by Rick Osbourne, M.S.
According to the most recent report from the President’s Council on Physical Fitness: “There is poor performance by large numbers of boys and girls on tests of arm and shoulder strength and endurance. Many have insufficient strength to handle their own body weight in case of emergency and are often unable to carry on daily work or recreational activities successfully and safely.”More specifically, “64 percent of today’s children aged 6 to 17 fail to meet the Council’s standards of a healthy youngster: 35 percent have at least two heart-disease risk factors and 42 percent have high levels of cholesterol.”In the midst of couch potatoes and junk food junkies; in an era when at least 1/3 of our student population is physically in trouble and funds for physical education are being reduced on a regular basis across the country, I would like to spotlight one fitness success story in our nation’s public schools that deserves our close attention.
For the past two years, Bob Ascher, supervisor of physical education for the Public Schools of Newport News, VA and former president of the Virginia AAHPERD, has conducted a citywide pull up contest.
The results you ask? The first year it produced in excess of 500 kids who progressed from being unable to do any pull ups to being able to do at least one pull up. The second year produced in excess of 800 kids who achieved the same distinction. In other words, more than 1,300 kids in 2 years made the transition from being unable to do any pull ups to being able to do at least one pull up.
That is, 1,300 kids can now literally PULL THEIR OWN WEIGHT in a way that they could not before. The third year’s results will be reported in the spring of ‘89, but it does look promising!
The most interesting aspect of all this to me is the fact that Ascher’s pull up contest attacks simultaneously 2 of the most fundamental problems of our functionally unfit students. Obviously upper torso strength is directly affected and encouraged by the contest. But equally affected by the contest is the problem of student obesity.
The pull up, by virtue of using the student’s own body weight as its major resistance factor, takes into account not only his strength, but also his body weight at the same time. The student in this contest can only progress if he loses fat, or if he increases his upper torso pulling muscle mass (strength) in greater proportion than his overall body weight. That is to say a student must improve his body composition if he expects to make significant progress in pull ups (or dips, or hand stand push ups, etc) (1)
How did all this occur? Well, Ascher, in conjunction with a retired football coach and physical education teacher from Cleveland named Chet Rojeck, conceived the idea. Ascher had a group of kids who could not physically pull their own weight. Rojeck had designed a simple machine (later to be called the Pull Up Trainer) that would allow anyone to do pull ups immediately, in repetition, without pain, strain or injury. In short Ascher had the problem and Rojeck had the means to resolve the problem.
The contest was conceived as a voluntary program (to date, only about half of the schools in the NNPSS have participated which makes the numbers even more impressive). The logistics of the contest are basically a simple data gathering process since pull ups are being tested at all the public schools already.
There is a boys’ winner and a girls’ winner for each age level. Ties are decided by weight (the heaviest is the winner).
The contest is well publicized before and after in the local media. Rewards for achievement are given out and the results of the contest are published in the local newspapers.
Rojeck, whom I have met since hearing of Ascher’s success story in Newport News, is a veritable Don Quixote of fitness in this country. Quixote, as most will remember from the Cervantes tale, was the elderly yet inexhaustible representative of truth who travels the length and breadth of Spain on horseback trying to right the unrightable wrongs of the world.
Similarly, Rojeck is a white haired gentleman who is past retirement age. And like Quixote, he travels the entire USA (but in a van, not on horseback) without complaint delivering his unique and practical form of the truth to whomever will take the time to listen.
Ascher listened and put Rojeck’s idea to work and presently has a public school fitness program that could serve as the Quixotian ideal for the rest of the schools in the country to follow. I would like to take this opportunity to publicly salute Bob Ascher and the public schools of Newport News, VA (and Rojeck, too) for recognizing the problem and for being bold enough to stand up and do something about it. Such understanding and appropriate action are qualities that we need to see a lot more of in today’s world.
For more details on Ascher’s Pull Up contest, I suggest you write directly to: Robert C. Ascher, Supervisor Health and Physical Education, Newport News Public Schools, 12465 Warwick Blvd., Box 6130, Newport News, VA 23606-0130.
(1) Basically exercise that uses the body weight as its primary resistance factor (somatatrophic exercise) shares in this unique and ultimately practical characteristic. By the same token, exercises in which extrinsic weight is the primary resistance factor takes only raw strength into account and therefore cannot make this claim.
(Rick Osbourne is a fitness consultant in the Chicago area and is available for workshops and other speaking engagements. He can be reached at 630-495-3445.)
Sep
24
How Nature Defines Fitness
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Mother Nature Defines Fitness In Functional, Not Cosmetic Terms
In nature, out in the wild, animals who are overweight (unfit) are not tolerated, and obesity just can’t happen. If an antelope for example, gains a few extra pounds, he gets one step slower and becomes easy prey for Mamma lion. If Mamma lion picks up a few extra pounds, she won’t catch up to the antelope. As the result she’ll naturally miss a few meals, eventually sheds the excess weight, and she’ll be back in the hunt.
Moving a little closer to home, if a squirrel picks up extra weight, he’ll be unable to climb trees or leap from limb to limb with total abandon. He may even miss, fall, and become a tasty treat for the local cat. And if a robin in your backyard picks up a little extra luggage, she’ll have a harder time getting off the ground and into flight. At that point the local cat might just make a meal out of her as well.
I could go on and on here, but I’m sure you see the point that, out in the wild (even the suburban wilderness), where survival depends on an animal’s ability to avoid a predator, or a predator’s ability to catch up to its prey, there’s simply zero tolerance for excess body weight if an animal wants to continue breathing.
The Lone Exception to Mother Nature’s Ironclad Rule
The only instance in with Mother Nature temporarily tolerates excess weight is in animals that hibernate for a certain period of the year. The bear for example, is an animal who, before going into hibernation takes on extra calories, packs on an extra layer of fat, and then he goes to sleep for several months, eating nothing. He’s effectively living off of the stored fat in his system. But when he awakes in the spring, the excess weight will be gone, and he’s back in the position of having to earn his daily meals by catching up with his prey every day, and his excess weight will be gone for the season.
Obesity and Domestication
Other than that, excess weight is found only in domesticated animals. That is to say you’ll find fat pigs, and hefty heifers out on the farm. You’ll see fat dogs and occasionally even fat cats who have become so domesticated and dependent on their human masters that they’ve fattened up to the point of being physically incapable of surviving in the wild. Animals that don’t have to physically earn their daily bread, or physically avoid being turned into someone else’s daily bread, have the option of becoming overweight. But any animal that has to catch his prey, or run from a predator, can ill afford the luxury of being overweight.
And What About Our Closest Ancestor?
Before moving on to the domesticated human species let’s take a quick look at man’s closest cousin, the monkey (or the gorilla). In fact let me ask, can you even imagine seeing a fat monkey or gorilla out in the wild? If a monkey gains much weight, climbing trees with the greatest of ease, and swinging from limb to limb Tarzan style, becomes a physical impossibility. The result? No fat monkeys in the jungle!
What Can We Learn From Mother Nature?
So Mother Nature basically defines fitness (or the lack of it) in functional terms, not in cosmetic terms. That is to say, she wants to know what you can do with your body, not what do you look like? On the other hand it’s also no secret that there’s a definite sense of beauty found in a well developed, fully functioning, and confident human physique, and in many cultures, including the ancient Greeks, they celebrated it.
But in nature it’s function first and beauty second, not the other way around. With all that said, let’s ask what can modern, domesticated man learn from Mother Nature, and how can we apply this knowledge to the childhood obesity epidemic sitting out on our front doorstep? Let’s talk about that right now.
The Peace Corps’ Solution To Obesity
In light of our previous comments about Mother Nature and her intolerance for obesity at almost any level, one solution to the obesity problem would be to chuck the modern lifestyle that encourages poor eating habits and inactivity, and go back into the wild. It’s not as if that has not been done before. Certain kinds of scientists do it on a regular basis in order to study nature in various ways.
I have a good friend who volunteered for the Peace Corps and served a year in Africa (Gambia to be precise) and he confirmed that overeating and lack of physical exercise are non-existent in the Gambian tribal cultures where he lived for a year. This guy, by the way was trim when he left, and even trimmer when he came back. There are also missionaries who represent various church groups who go into the third world, and who actually benefit physically from the lack of junk food and television sets.
Answer This Simple Question
But presuming that you’re not an Indiana Jones kind of scientist, or that you’re not the missionary type, and the Peace Corps just doesn’t fit into the schedule right now, what are your naturalistic options here in domestic captivity? In order to best answer that question let me pose another question. How many activities can you make the following statement about? I CAN’T BE OVERWEIGHT AS LONG AS I CAN STILL DO ____________________! Use your imagination and see what you can come up with.
Three Easy To See Examples…
There are lots of answers to that question. How about running fast or running long? I mean people who are overweight can’t run fast or long right? Let’s test the statement and see if it makes sense? I can’t be overweight as long as I can still run fast or run long. Does that work for you? It sure does for me. Let’s try another one.
How about jumping high or long? I know people who can get way off the floor on a vertical jump test. These same people can jump lengthwise as well. But those who can perform these feats are definitely not overweight. So here we go again…I can’t be overweight as long as I can still jump high or jump long. Another winner, right?
Let’s try one more to make sure we have it straight. How about climbing on climbing walls, or on the sides of mountains? I’ve seen lots of photos of climbers and I’ve never seen one who’s carrying any excess weight. So, I can’t be overweight as long as I can still climb the wall or the mountain. That’s one more in the winner’s circle, right?
So what kinds of conclusions can we draw from these observations that are pertinent to the childhood obesity issue? Would you agree with me if I said “if a child learns to run fast or long, climb a wall or the side of a mountain, or jump high or long, you can safely bet on the fact that they will not be overweight?” It’s really quite simple. Where you have functional ability, whether it’s in the wilds of darkest Africa or in the suburbs of Chicago, you will find no instances of overweight/obesity.
But My Kid’s A Musician Not An Athlete…
But you say “Wait a minute. What if I live in the city and my children don’t have the time, the opportunity, or the desire to learn to run, jump, or climb? What if my kids are more into music or drama or academics? Aren’t there any naturalistic, functional options for them to choose from?” The answer is…there sure are. Let’s have a look.
Dips On The Parallel Or Monkey Bars
Dips are an exercise performed on parallel bars or monkey bars in which the participant starts in the up position (graphic A), lower yourself down into the down position (graphic B), and then push yourself back up again. The exercise works the chest and the triceps primarily, and it’s most often seen in gymnastic oriented activities. Dips are an exercise in which the entire body weight is the resistance factor and if you can do any of them the odds of being overweight are very minimal.
Dips, like all body weight exercises, pay for fat loss and for strength (muscle) gain. That means that if you improve your ability to do dips, you’re either losing fat, gaining muscle, or both. Which is just another way of saying your body composition is improving and your percentage of body fat is going down. So let’s give dips our little test right now. I can’t be overweight if I can still do dips. This one works for me.
Hand Stand Push Ups
Another good example is an exercise known as handstand push ups. As the name indicates, in this exercise you flip upside down and stand on your hands instead of your feet, and balance yourself. Then you lower yourself down, touch your nose to the floor, and push yourself back up into the starting position. (see the graphics)
The one factor that comes into play for this exercise is balance. You can be strong and lean, and have a poor sense of balance which undermines your ability to perform hand stand push ups. But other than that, the scenario works. This exercise pays for any performer to lose fat, gain strength, for body composition improvement, and a reduction in percentage of body fat. Shall we try our test? I can’t be overweight as long as I can still do hand stand push ups. Absolutely true, right? It works once again.
Superman Push Ups
The third example I’d like to talk about is called the Superman Push Up, because when the participant is doing the exercise they look like Superman flying over Metropolis looking for Lex Luthor or some other super villain doing bad things to good people. All that aside, the participant performs this exercise with an exercise wheel in hand, starting in what is the conventional push up position. They roll the wheel out until they’re stretched out (graphics) in the Superman position, and then roll back up into the starting position.
This exercise is very challenging to the core muscles (the abdominals and the lower back) and if done wrong it can cause lower back problems. However it definitely pays the participant to lose fat, gain strength, improve body composition, and reduce your percentage of body fat. As for the test, let’s give it a try. If I can still do Superman Push Ups, I can’t be overweight. Yep, that works again, doesn’t it?
Sissy Squats
Sissy squats are basically leg extensions that use the participant’s own body weight as the resistance. Blocking off the front of the ankles and the back of the knees, you lower yourself backwards until your thighs are parallel with the ground. If you bend at the waist this exercise is much easier than if you remain straight from the knees up…in other words if you avoid bending at the waist.
Sissy squats isolate the quadriceps and they pay for fat loss, strength gain, improved body composition, and reduced percentage of body fat. In other words sissy squats are not really for sissies, and if I can still do the most difficult variety of sissy squats, I can’t be overweight? That’s absolutely true.
Rope Climbing
The fourth example I want to talk about is Rope Climbing. If you’re in school you may have seen this done in the recent past. If you’re out of school you may have to recollect your days in gym class. Either way, if you can start at the bottom, climb to the top, and let yourself back down under control (avoiding a roper burn, which is the potential negative factor with this one), that’s a pretty darn good trick.
The rope pays for fat loss, strength gain, improved body composition, and reduced percentage of body fat. And I can’t be overweight as long as I can still climb a rope. The statement is absolutely true then about rope climbing, sissy squats, Superman push ups, hand stand push ups, and dips. If you can do any one of them, and maintain the ability, you are not now, and you never will be overweight. Now there’s an interesting thought in the midst of an obesity epidemic, wouldn’t you agree?
Any One of These Will Work For Any Body
I’m here to say that any one of these exercises, alone and by themselves, could serve as a functional antidote to childhood obesity, adolescent obesity, and adult obesity without a pill, without a health club membership, without a degree in Physical Education, and with hardly any time or expense to speak of. It’s perfect for students who are into music, debate, art, and drama instead of sports and athletics. And they’re all natural, something that Mother Nature might expect of her own animal population out in the wild.
And Then There Are Pull Ups
Are there any other exercises that would immunize and vaccinate any human being, including all children, against being overweight? You could discover more if you really put your mind to it. But there’s one more in particular that I want to mention because for my money it’s the best example. But you’re going to have to move on to the next chapter to discover everything I want to tell you about a wonderful little exercise called PULL UPS. Check it out…
Sep
24
Pablo
Filed Under Educators Fitness Info | Leave a Comment
Pablo: The Little Boy Who Didn’t Know He Couldn’t…Yet
When Pablo came into this world he had one big advantage, which was that he hadn’t yet learned that he couldn’t do certain things. As the result he tried doing all kinds of things and he discovered, much to his amusement, that some of the things he tried he could do, while others he couldn’t do…yet.
For example, he discovered that if he wanted to do so, he could stretch his arms, his legs, his fingers, and his toes out so they felt longer, or he could pull them back in so they felt shorter. He found that if he reached out and touched things he could find out what they felt like, hard, soft, cool, warm, smooth, rough, etc. He also found that if he could wrap his fingers and thumb around an object that he could kind of control it and bring it in closer. He could throw it on the floor, which is when he discovered that he could expect Mom and Dad to fetch and bring it back to him…a couple of times anyway.
He tried laying on his stomach, and rolling over to his back. Mom sat him up and he found that to be an interesting experience. He watched Mom and Dad do the things that they could do and Pablo wondered if he could do them too? The most interesting thing they did was to stand on their feet and legs, balance, and move around wherever they wanted to go. Mom helped Pablo to hang on to the high chair to help him to stand up and that worked out pretty good. But when he let go and tried to move across the room like Mom and Dad, Pablo fell right on his face. Dad picked him up, dusted Pablo off, and consoled him.
Mom And Dad Encouraged Pablo
But Mom and Dad kept encouraging Pablo to walk, the falls became easier, and one day several weeks after he began trying, he took his first four steps…and then he fell again. But four steps, that was something to celebrate, at least his Mom and Dad thought so. They kept encouraging him and Pablo kept walking and doing all kinds of new things all the time. Mom and Dad thought Pablo must be a very bright boy. And one of the other things Pablo learned was that if you keep trying to do the thing you want to do, the odds of doing it become better and better until you succeed.
In fact during his first four years of life, Pablo tried and learned to do all kinds of things all because he didn’t yet know that he couldn’t do them. And if he didn’t know that he couldn’t, then maybe he could. Not only that, but the only way Pablo could find out whether he could or couldn’t do something, was to try it. That way he knew for sure. In other words, if he didn’t try something, he’d never find out what he could do and what he couldn’t do. It was about that simple. And Pablo wanted to know. For all these reasons Mom and Dad always thought that Pablo must be a very bright young boy.
Then Pablo Turned Five And Went To Kindergarten
Then when he turned five years old, Mom and Dad enrolled Pablo in kindergarten along with lots of other five year olds, and instead of comparing what he could do yesterday to what he could do today or tomorrow, the teacher taught Pablo to compare himself to the other kids in class. The teacher was very good at this kind of thing and she saw all kinds of things like some kids were tall and some were short, some had blonde hair and some had brunette hair, some were skinny and some were stocky, some were fast runners and some were slow runners. And most importantly to the teacher, there were some kids who were smart, some who were average, and some who were below average and she placed them all in groups that reflected this assessment of them.
Pablo Was Labeled Average
As it turned out the teacher put Pablo in the middle group, but he had no idea why. Anyway he learned this new way of looking at himself from the teacher. Then he found out that when he tried stuff because he didn’t know that he couldn’t, the way he’d always done, some of the kids would laugh and make fun of him if he failed to do what he was trying to do. They thought less of him when he tried and failed, and the teacher seemed to think less of him too.
From this experience Pablo learned that it was embarrassing and painful to fail in front of the other kids and he never knew that before. But once he learned that lesson, he decided to avoid trying when other people were around and in doing so, Pablo would avoid having the other kids make fun of him, laugh at him, and make him think less and less of himself.
Pablo Learns To Stop Trying
By the time his kindergarten year was over, Pablo had switched gears when it came to trying new things. Prior to kindergarten, as you will recall, Pablo didn’t know that he couldn’t, so he would try it and find out whether he could or not. And back then when he failed nobody made fun of him, his Mom and Dad encouraged him to keep trying, and so he’d persist until he learned how to walk, how to talk, and how to do all kinds of very difficult things, because he just kept going until he finally learned to do what he wanted to learn to do.
But once in school Pablo learned that failing in front of the teacher and the other kids was embarrassing, painful, and that the simple solution was to stop trying in front of them. At least then he had an excuse. After all…he wasn’t trying, right? And when he stopped trying, he could no longer find out if he could or he couldn’t do things. But at least he wasn’t embarrassed, at least the other kids weren’t laughing at him and making him feel bad about himself, because they wouldn’t know if he could or couldn’t because he refused to try.
Pablo Learns To Shoot Himself In The Foot
Now the problem that developed over time was the more that Pablo refused to try, the less he learned about what he could and could not do. And the less he learned, the more his teachers and his peers just presumed that he couldn’t learn to do new things, otherwise he would. Nobody wants to be labeled a dummy.
By the time he’d reached junior high school Pablo was no longer in the middle group, he had been labeled a slow learner, and a low performer. Even Mom and Dad threw their hands up and bought into what the teachers said about Pablo. Apparently he was not bright like they’d originally thought. After all, all parents think their own kids are bright, but some of them have to be wrong, right?
Pablo Even Began To Believe His Teachers
Worst of all Pablo began to believe what the teachers and his peers said about him. He began to feel angry and frustrated when he was in school…which by now, he absolutely hated. He began getting in fights with other kids and giving teaches a hard time, so now he was also being labeled a behavior problem too. Pablo finally dropped out of school without graduating, without a high school diploma, and then he went looking for work.
He applied for job after job, but found that the market for young people who’d dropped out of school, and who were also considered behavior problems, was pretty bad. And the jobs he was offered paid so little that they guaranteed Pablo would stay on the bottom of the heap, no matter how hard he now tried.
Let’s Go Over How All This Happened…
Now you can use your imagination and finish this story any way you’d like, but the main thing to understand is that Pablo, like almost every other kid who comes into this world, was born with a gift of curiosity which he turned into knowledge of many amazing things. He knew he didn’t know that he couldn’t do something unless he tried it and failed. Then he discovered that if he kept trying, sooner or later he’d often succeed.
So Pablo explored his environment, watched Mom and Dad, and he tried to do the things that he saw them doing. And this entire time Mom and Dad always encouraged and even expected him to be able to learn and do all these wonderful things, if he persisted, which he usually did.
But when he was enrolled in school with a teacher and with other kids, they taught him that if he tried and failed, that they’d make fun of him, and think less of him. And in the long run, they convinced Pablo that he couldn’t do much of anything, and that it was no longer worth trying.
Pablo learned to hate school, his peers, and eventually to hate himself, all because he was systematically taught that he couldn’t do things, and for whatever reason, he and his parents thought the school system knew what it professed to know. After all, these people have college degrees and they are smart, right? But once Pablo himself bought into their suggestion that he couldn’t…his fate was sealed.
The First Really Good Question
Now, the first real question at this point is…who’s to blame? How would you answer this controversial question?
* Is it the overworked and underpaid teacher who’s given the task of sorting out the strengths and weaknesses of 25 to 30 kids each year in order to begin the selection and labeling process that we now call “education” in the 21st century?
* Is it the school administrators who are hired to oversee and operate the system?
* Is it local school board members who are elected to oversee and direct the administrators, and the school system?
* Is it the country, state, and federal educational administrators who concern themselves with marketing unfunded mandates like No Child Left Behind.
* Or is it Pablo’s parents who presumed that the people who made up the system knew what they were doing when it came to educating Pablo?
* Or Pablo himself who should have been stronger
* His peers who should have been more compassionate and understanding
* Or do each one of these parts kind of go along with, and feed on the others while under the hypnotic presumption that questioning the system that’s served this nation well so for over 200 years, is a sign of disrespect, disloyalty, is unpatriotic, and cannot be tolerated?
* And if you choose this last one, then who’s in charge of evaluating the bloody system and what it’s producing?
The Second Really Good Question
The second real question is, what can we do about this problem? What would you tell Pablo, his peers, his parents, his teachers, his school administrators, the school board who oversees the system? I know what I’d tell them. I’d say it’s the expressed goal of this school system to teach Pablo and all his peers that the only way to find out if you can or you can’t do something is to try doing it. And just because you can’t do it today doesn’t mean that you’ll be unable to do it tomorrow…so long as you keep on trying. No, there really is no substitute for persistence.
I would say that in order to succeed the system must convince Pablo and his peers that there is absolutely nothing wrong with failing to perform, and there is everything wrong with failing to try. After all, in the big picture, human life is all about exploring and testing our limits from day to day, plotting and planning how to push those limits back over weeks, months, and years.
Winning And Losing In Education
To the degree we achieve that goal, the system and everyone in it wins. To the degree we fail, everyone loses. As the old saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. So the job of educational systems around the country is to do everything possible to produce strong links who know that if they only keep their eyes open, think for themselves, and relentlessly persist, persist, and persist, they can probably learn to do whatever they really need to do in life.
It’s the job of school systems to strengthen each and every one of those links, every day, every week, every month, and every year, and to make sure Pablo knows that if he keeps on trying, there’s very little that he can’t accomplish. On the other hand, Pablo needs to know that if and when you ever give up on yourself and stop trying, you are limiting yourself, you are shooting yourself in the foot, and you are dooming yourself to future failure after failure. For me this is the biggest lesson any child can learn during their formative years, and teaching kids to really believe, down deep in their gut, that they can do it as long as they persist…is what education in the best sense, is all about. And pull ups are no exception to this rule.
Sep
24
Winning Their Hearts
Filed Under Fitness Motivation | Leave a Comment
How To Win Their Hearts…
“Do you know how to win a five year old boy’s heart? Well, you drop down to one knee, look him right in the eye, and listen as if what he’s telling you is really important…cause it is.
And if you happen to speak at all, whatever you say from that position will be infinitely better than anything you can possibly say from on high.
Oh, and by the way, five year old girls? They’re just the same.”
…A wise old teacher/coach somewhere, sometime, someplace
Sep
24
The National Institute of Medicine Weighs In With A Disturbing Report
Filed Under Childhood Obesity, Educators Fitness Info, Fitness Press | Leave a Comment
A Brief Summary of the National Institute of Medicine’s 9/10/06 Report…
http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/36/984/11722_reportbrief.pdf
The Full Report…
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11722.html#toc
Sep
24
OPYOW Speakers
Filed Under Childhood Obesity, Educators Fitness Info | Leave a Comment
If you need someone to give a presentation to your group on the topic of Operation Pull Your Own Weight, the following people are available.
Rick Osbourne: Call 630-495-3445 or email Osbourne.rick@gmail.com
Sep
24
Sponsorship Opportunities
Filed Under Childhood Obesity | Leave a Comment
Operation Pull Your Own Weight:
In Search of Corporate Sponsors
A successful Childhood Obesity Prevention strategy must be simple, understandable, practical, affordable, and above all, MEASURABLE. But despite all the media attention this issue has generated over the last several years, the strategy with those qualities apparently has yet to surface, and has yet to be implemented, because childhood obesity continues to grow unabated, like a forest fire raging out of control.
The Kids Thought OPYOW Was “Cool”
In the light of that forest fire, I’d like to introduce you to a childhood obesity prevention strategy called Operation Pull Your Own Weight (OPYOW) that is simple, understandable, practical, affordable, and infinitely measurable. Not only that, but OPYOW has four years of experience working in the trenches with at-risk-kids, that demonstrates its viability and its acceptability to kids at the elementary school level. In other words, kids saw OPYOW as “cool,” and they actively wanted to participate.
Seeking Corporate Sponsors
The details of OPYOW have been spelled out on www.pullyourownweight.net, a web site dedicated to IMMUNIZING KIDS AGAINST OBESITY FOR A LIFETIME that I’d encourage you to explore. I’m currently in the process of soliciting corporate sponsors who would be interested in trumpeting the virtues of being able to Pull Your Own Weight to kids from sea to shining sea, while resolving a huge, international problem, saving our nation and others hundreds of billions of dollars, and creating some extremely positive ink for themselves in the process.
For Details, Check Out The Web Site
If this note has piqued your curiosity, please check out the web site for Operation Pull Your Own Weight (www.pullyourownweight.net). Then call or email me if you’re interested in discussing the possibilities further. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sincerely,
Rick Osbourne
Executive Director
Operation Pull Your Own Weight
630-495-3445
osbourne.rick@gmail.com
Sep
24
About…
Filed Under Childhood Obesity | Leave a Comment
About Rick Osbourne…
Rick Osbourne is a former Physical Educator who spent seventeen years in the teaching ranks. Four of those years he spent designing, organizing, implementing, and overseeing Operation Pull Your Own Weight at Jefferson Elementary School in Davenport, IA. For the past decade he’s made his living by writing professionally.
Osbourne earned his BA (Physical Education and Journalism) at Northern Illinois University, his MA (Sports History and Philosophy) at Western Illinois University, and he did post graduate work (Sports History and Philosophy) at Arizona State University. He’s been married for 33 years, and with his wife and kids, has lived in the western suburbs of Chicago for over two decades.
Sep
24
Contact…
Filed Under Childhood Obesity | Leave a Comment
Rick Osbourne
Executive Director
Operation Pull Your Own Weight
630-495-3445