Why do we train?

We know we can’t just coach sports anymore.

We have already dispelled with the notion that sports units should make up the bulk of our country’s physical education classes. We know that only a small fraction of high school athletes go on to compete in the NCAA (only 1% of high school basketball players end up at the NCAA Division 1 level, for example), and an even tinier fraction go on to play professionally. Even among those who do succeed at sports’ highest levels, athletic success certainly does not automatically lead to a quality life. To compound all this, we know that in America only 26% of adult men and 19% of adult women are meeting recommended levels of physical activity at all, and that guidelines recommend that resistance training (which is often ignored in high school PE) make up a significant portion of this activity.

What, then, should we be prioritizing in PE?

To answer that question, we require an almost philosophical understanding of why we’re training in the first place. The common explanations are that physical activity boosts mental acuity, improves mental health markers, and decreases the incidence of preventable chronic illness. All of that’s true. But if we are honest we must also acknowledge that those reasons are insufficient if they don’t lead us somewhere worthwhile. What good is a long life if the substance of those years is uninspiring? What good is mental acuity if we lack challenges worth solving? In a world that requires significantly less of us physically now than ever before, of what good is excellent personal strength and conditioning at all?

Taking a large step back, we have to look at what constitutes a quality life, and we must examine the root of our happiness. When we do that, we find that being part of a community, helping others, and experiencing a sense of personal progress and improvement are critically important to our mental state.

The result of this awareness is that we need to train in order to live heroically. We all need to be able to rescue ourselves from bad situations, and more importantly, rescue others. We need to be able to defend ourselves and defend our families. We need to be present parents for our children, which means being able to play and explore with them rather than sit on our phones, complaining of bad knees and a weak back. We need to be able to serve our communities, in professional or volunteer roles. We need to be able to carry groceries, recover from a fall, grab a child before she runs out into traffic, lift an elderly family member into bed. These are heroic abilities - and training for such exertions must become the focus of American physical education.

Sports have an enduring place in our culture; they need not be eliminated, only placed in proper context. They are a means to an end -- a place to develop character, build physical capacity, forge relationships and coping skills -- and not an end unto themselves. The greatest athletic feats possible on a field or court still pale in comparison to the work of soldiers defending our country; fire fighters battling for our homes and cities; police responding to our worst crises; single mothers on their feet all day, working multiple jobs for their kids.

And then there are the more elite standards of performance we may be called to meet. In 2020 alone there are numerous such examples. A massive explosion shook Beirut, Lebanon; in the instant chaos ensued, a housekeeper was taped on security footage racing, without any prior warning, to carry a child to safety. A prior-service U.S. Marine sprinted to catch a baby, thrown by its mother, who was attempting to save her child from a burning room. A high school wrestler intervened during a violent altercation at a gas station, potentially stopping a kidnapping. And these are only the extreme examples that made the news. Daily acts of heroism surround us.

The urgency with which we train our athletes must be not only matched, but exceeded by the urgency with which we train our defenders, our parents, our first responders, our citizens. What kind of life are we living if we’re not preparing ourselves for physical heroism? Are we currently using PE to ready our young men and women to thrive in such situations? Do they have the physical capability? The mental fortitude? The moral compass?

Sports aren't enough. The next level of physical training and preparation awaits.

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The question of how we train students in physical education to begin the process of living a physically heroic life will be the topic of the next essay, and the unveiling of American Strength Class' curricular north star.