In July of 2025, President Donald Trump reinstated the Presidential Physical Fitness Test,[1] a standardized evaluation of fitness for American school-age children. It includes a one-mile run, pull-ups or push-ups, sit-ups, a shuttle run, and a sit-and-reach (flexibility) test.

Fitness tests for American youth have been administered in various forms since the mid-20th century.[2] The earliest version of the Presidential Fitness Test was introduced by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956,[3] then revised and popularized by President John F. Kennedy.[4] Several iterations of the test were implemented over the years until it was discontinued in 2012. The Obama administration replaced it with the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, which minimized the competitive structure and promoted setting personal fitness goals for lifelong health.[5] Thirteen years later, the test was reinstated by Executive Order to “promote the physical, mental, and civic benefits” of exercise and create “a national culture of strength, vitality, and excellence.”[6]

There are two justifications provided for a national interest in physical training. The first concerns “America’s declining health and physical fitness,” including “rates of obesity, chronic disease, inactivity, and poor nutrition.”[7] The second concerns building a culture of “excellence” and good character.[8] We will evaluate the latter justification here.

Forming Character in Sports

The idea that physical training can be used to form character is ancient. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates describes the education of the guardians. Physical training (called “gymnastics”) and poetry would form the guardians to be courageous and just, to serve the city well.[9] In “The Soft American” (1963), President Kennedy drew on this ancient Greek tradition of gymnastics to advocate for the role physical training might play in combating indolence in American citizens. Kennedy wrote that “physical fitness is the basis of all activities of our society. And if our bodies grow soft and inactive…we will undermine our capacity for thought, for work…”[10] Holding American youth to elevated standards of fitness might play a formative role in character.

Certainly, physical training can be used to form virtue.[11] There are two reasons why this works. First, sports involve efforts, infelicities, and difficulties of various kinds. This means they provide opportunities to be refined—if we use them to that end. They certainly provide more opportunities to be edified than playing on screens, a growing pastime of American youth.[12]

Second, virtues are formed by repetition or intentional practice. We become just by performing just acts and temperate by doing temperate acts, repeatedly, until they define us in a stable way.[13] Sports employ the logic of “practice.” We can harness this practice space to develop relevant virtues like courage and patience.

How This Process Goes Awry

This process can backfire in several ways. Here are three.

1. We may form vices, not virtues.

Physical education can be used to develop good habits of thinking, feeling, and acting. However, it is not always (or even usually) the case that we practice the right things. If we consistently envy our peers, then we practice relating to others in ways that have costs for our communities. If our actions are imprudent, our inclinations uncourageous, or our motivations awry, then we develop habits of mind that make us worse citizens, not better ones.

2. We employ physical training alone.

Sports are not a stand-alone strategy for character development. For starters, not all virtues can be formed in sports. Consider fair-mindedness and gentleness. These traits are rarely relevant in an athletic setting. Second, physical training cannot instruct students concerning what is valuable or worthy of their time and attention. We need other forms of instruction for these things.

This seems an obvious point. I am making it to point out that the problem of declining national character must be addressed in broader ways than through physical training alone.

3. We focus on externalities.

When I coached cross-country and track, I sometimes had athletes who put forth considerable effort to meet modest objectives. Other times, I had athletes who performed at a high level but hardly expended any effort at all. Physical outcomes often tell us very little about the content of one’s character.

The Presidential Fitness Test is competitive and objective. In many cases, this can be productive, since it can call students to a higher standard, and the competitive element can be fun. Often, when we submit ourselves to difficult physical objectives, even when we fail to meet them, we improve with respect to ourselves while striving to attain them.

Health Essential Reads

This striving and struggling are the whole point of using sports to develop character. These are what should be praised as evidence of civic progress, rather than the hitting of standards themselves.

Final Thoughts

A national interest in physical fitness has two potential benefits—improved health and growth in virtue. This is an ancient idea with relevance today, and it can offer practice in discipline and opportunities to practice virtue. But we need to be sure we practice the right things, use training in tandem with other character development strategies, and focus on character gains—not just physical outcomes.