Recently you may have noticed tweets, hashtags and posts about “The Fitnessgram Pacer Test” but you’re left scratching your head, unsure about what it is and maybe even embarassed to ask.
Don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place!
I’m going to explain everything there is to know about the pacer test and why it’s suddenly become so popular again.
Table of Contents
- What Is The Fitnessgram Pacer Test:
- Here’s How The Pacer Test Works:
- The Fitnessgram Pacer Manual:
- Why Is The Fitnessgram Pacer Test So Popular Again?
What Is The Fitnessgram Pacer Test:
PACER stands for “Progressive Aerobic Cardio Endurance Run” and it is an actual cardio endurance program
developed in 1982 by Leger and Lambert.
The Fitnessgram Pacer Test was designed to measure your cardio endurance and a high level
measurement of overall performance and fitness levels.
It’s supposed to be a fun alternative to distance running.
In a nutshell, you run as long as you possibly can back and forth down a 20 meter course.
The pacer test comes with an infamous audio that set the pace of your run. In the beginning
the test is quite easy, but after a few cycles it gets extremely hard.
Here’s How The Pacer Test Works:
– stand at the starting line
– start the music, listen for the word start – run
– touch the end line before the beeping sounds on the audio
– turn around and run back
– repeat
– if a student doesn’t reach the end by the beep, it’s a miss. 2 misses and you have completed the PACER
The Fitnessgram Pacer Manual:
That’s the jist of it. However, if you want to know all of the nitty gritty details about the pacer test, you can download the official
manual here.
Click Here to Download the Fitnessgram Pacer Test Manual.
Why Is The Fitnessgram Pacer Test So Popular Again?
So why is a “fun” cardio endurance test created for students in the 80’s suddenly all the rage on social media?
Two words – Fake News… oh and Memes.
Last year someone created a fake news article that claiming that the fitnessgram pacer test was outlawed for being
cruel and unusual punishment to children.
Now if you’ve ever been ‘fortunate’ enough to take the pacer test, you can probably relate to it being called cruel
and unusual punishment. Nobody looked forward to taking the pacer test in gym class.
Overnight, the fake news article went viral and memes containing the soundtrack from the fitnessgram pacer test started
popping up everywhere. The articles and memes became so viral that people still believe it was actually banned. However, snopes
has confirmed that this is FALSE.
While this post may have taken you on a terrifying trip down memory lane. Hopefully it also explained all the
recent hype behind the pacer test.
If you have any more questions, let me know.
P.S.
If you’re a gym teacher and you decide to download the pacer manual, don’t tell your students where you got it.
I don’t want to get beat up by a bunch of middle schoolers.
