Muscular Fitness and Health

The emperor’s tailors: the failure of the medical weight loss paradigm and its causal role in the obesity of America

“…In the 1940s, Krause raised concerns about diminished physical abilities in young people. He and his associates designed the Krause–Weber Tests for Muscular Fitness [16], which eventually led to the first President’s Council on Physical Fitness, held in July 1956.…”

Improving the Physical Fitness of Youth: A Report of Research in the Sports-Fitness School of the University of Illinois

“…The 92,93,94,95) fails to appraise the agility, dynamic strength, and power components of motor fitness. Other studies, especially those of Larson (IOI), have shown that all-around athletic ability is predicted mainly from these elements rather than from balance, flexibility, and static strength.…”

“…That this interest should find expression in peacetime distinguishes it clearly from similar trends observed during World Wars I and II and serves to free it from much of the emotion and jingoism normally coincident with wartime movements. The Kraus-Weber tests of minimum muscular fitness, administered to children in the United States, Switzerland, Austria, and Italy, and first reported in 1953 (94,95), revealed marked deficiencies in strength and flexibility in American children as compared with samples of European children. The tests used were heavily criticized for failing to distinguish sufficiently between "fit" and "unfit" children, and for the undue emphasis placed on one of the test items (a flexibility test) which accounted for the largest number of failures (20, 6i, 127).…”

Setting the Scene – Bridging the Gap between Knowledge and Practice: When Americans Really Built Programmes to Foster Healthy Lifestyles, 1918–1940

“…[113] In the same issue of the Journal of Health, Physical Education, Recreation Carl Nordly, past president of the AAHPER, urged local, state and district associations to better understand the importance of a shared vision and the need to work together in common cause. [114] Troubled by a 1953 report that children in Europe and Japan were more 'fit' than those in the United States, [115] what became excessive attention was quickly directed to 'fitness testing'. Shortly thereafter the Soviet Union's successful launching of Sputnik resulted in calls for increased attention to mathematics and science.…”