Pulling Up Short

While participating in the annual Presidential Physical Fitness test in junior high, students were given a choice to either perform our max number of pull-ups or to do a flex-hang which measured how long we could hold ourselves with our chins just over the horizontal bar. My flex-hang time was so embarrassingly brief that my PE pulled his pencil from behind his ear, focused on my chart on his clipboard, and said, “I’m just gonna give you credit for a half a pull-up, that will will probably be worth more.” I tried to contort myself in a way that would hide my redfaced shame from my teacher and classmates. But I couldn’t since I also failed the flexibility test. On that day, I made myself a promise: No matter what it took, no matter how hard I had to work, no matter how much blood, sweat, and tears would be shed, no matter the obstacles or odds, I would respond to that childhood humiliation with a Herculean effort of Hollywood proportions to complete a singular, lifelong quest: To find someone to blame for my failure. Well, cue the Rocky Theme music because I’ve finally found that someone: My parents. In Outside, Alex Hutchinson (who has notoriously tight hammies) describes a recent study that Reveals Which Fitness Traits Are Primarily Genetic. None of these studies are entirely definitive, but this one provides some pretty good evidence that my genes are almost entirely to blame for my lack of pull-up prowess and the fact that my junior high PE teacher described my one mile time test as the battle of the bulge.