Sit and Reach Test Exercise physiologists and fitness trainers may use the sit and reach test—which measures lower back and hamstring flexibility —to assess your baseline flexibility.

Whether you loved it or loathed it as a kid, the exercises can still be a revealing measure of health — now that no one’s forcing you to do them.

Trump reinstates school fitness test, citing health crisis, but critics warn of body shaming and outdated methods.

Before then, the Presidential Fitness Test received some tweaks. At its core, though, were five parts meant to encourage and assess the fitness of America’s youth.

Started in the late 1950s by President Dwight Eisenhower, the fitness test evolved into five parts: curl-ups, a shuttle run, pull-ups or sit-ups, a sit-and-reach and a one-mile run.

Children had to run and perform sit-ups, pull-ups or push-ups and a sit-and-reach test, but the program changed in 2012 during the Obama administration to focus more on individual health than ...

It felt like a military recruitment exercise, she said, with all of her classmates watching as she struggled to run a mile and complete a sit-and-reach, a pull-up and other exercises.