Mar 13, 2019 Requirement 7 of the Personal Fitness Merit Badge has us doing the following: Outline a comprehensive 12-week physical fitness program using the results of your fitness tests. Be sure your program incorporates the endurance, intensity, and warm-up guidelines discussed in the Personal Fitness merit badge pamphlet. Dec 02, 2010 Part of the requirements for this badge include doing some fitness tests periodically and recording a fitness plan over a period of 12 weeks. There are some worksheets available for this on the web, but the ones we looked at didn't really fit in with the fitness plan which LC and his merit badge cou. The use of activity logs can help children and teens keep track of their exercise programs and physical activity. Focus on the positive. Praising participation over winning and encouraging positive behaviors are important, especially if a child is less active and interested in sports. A fitness program is no more than defining your exercise and nutritional program, setting your personal fitness goals, and then executing upon your plan. The fact that you have made the decision to take an active approach to your personal fitness and begin a fitness program is the first step. Muscle-strengthening and bone-strengthening physical activity should be included at least 3 days a week. Children naturally build strong muscles and bones when they run, jump, and play. Formal weight programs aren't needed, but are safe when properly designed and supervised. Fitness at Home.

Every Saturday morning while most of Charlottesville, Va., is still asleep, 15 to 20 “zombies” emerge from the fog near a suburban elementary school. Bleary eyed with mussed hair and wearing rumpled sweats, they walk slowly, stiffly, raising right leg straight out to meet right foot to right hand, and then left foot to left hand and so on. The “zombies” could be mistaken for those in The Walking Dead.

But instead, they are Boy Scouts and their dads from Troop 111 chartered to Grace Community Church. They’re simply doing the Zombie Walk, a warm-up exercise in preparation for an hourlong fitness session designed and led by the Scouts themselves.

“We do it every Saturday, rain, shine or snow,” Scoutmaster Mike Nelson says. It’s a way for Scouts and their fathers to bond while instilling the idea that physical fitness is important for a healthy life.

The routine, which the troop has been doing for the past two years, builds muscle and endurance and prompts friendly competition.

“Yeah, we try to torture each other,” Life Scout Connor McGuiggan says.

Physical Fitness Program Definition

Comrades in Fitness
Each session is performed round-robin style. The group forms a circle, and a Scout chooses the first exercise. After the first set, a Scout or dad to his left picks the next exercise and so on. As the workout progresses, the moves become more challenging as Scouts and dads try to one-up each other. Someone might call for a 50-yard bear crawl and the next guy follows up with even more punishment: “backward bear crawl this time!”

Groans.

“There’s lots of joking around, but it’s all in good fun,” says Connor’s dad, Tom McGuiggan.

The camaraderie and competitive spirit make every workout unique and challenging. But what if you’re 40 minutes in and just can’t do another rep of burpees? No worries. Connor says anyone can take a breather any time without judgment: “We’re a team; we support each other.”

SEAL-Inspired
Troop 111 looks to the Navy SEALs for workout inspiration. SEALs perform their training on a concrete surface called the grinder, which led the troop to call its workout “The Grinder.” Like the SEAL workout, the troop’s exercises are made up of bodyweight calisthenics.

For a greater challenge, Troop 111 performs certain strength exercises using gallon-sized plastic milk jugs filled with water, which weigh about 8 pounds. They call these homemade weights “character builders” and use them to add resistance to squats, lunges and other exercises. “We’ll walk a distance for five minutes holding the jug straight over our heads,” says Nelson. “It builds muscle and mental toughness.”

And, hopefully, a lifelong love of exercise. “Fitness is an integral part of our lives and it prepares us for the challenges of the day,” says Tom McGuiggan. “If a Scout is physically fit, he will be mentally awake.”

Nelson and McGuiggan are convinced the weekly workout has helped members of the troop perform better in scholastic sports like soccer, cross-country and lacrosse, and is ideal prep for the troop’s annual 50-mile hike.

‘Man Makers’
One of Connor McGuiggan’s favorite exercises is a grueling move that combines a burpee, a pushup and the character builder. Start by standing in front of your water jug. Bend down, place your hands on the ground and kick your legs back into a pushup position. Next, do a full pushup and then, in the up pushup position, grab the water jug with your right hand and push it forward and pull it back. Do another full pushup and then use your left hand to push the character builder forward and back. Finally, do another pushup and then jump your legs forward and explode upward to a standing position. Repeat.

“We call these ‘man makers.’ They get you in better shape,” Connor says.

But the real benefit of these workouts, if you ask Troop 111’s adults, is the bond the workouts create between dads and sons and among the Scouts. Says Tom McGuiggan: “Watching these kids grow and mature as young leaders every Saturday, man, that’s absolutely money.”

Scroll down to view detailed descriptions and illustrations of select Troop 111 exercises for you and your Scouts to try at home.

JEFF CSATARI is the author of the New York Times best-seller The Belly Off! Diet.

Take the Troop 111 Challenge
Have a troop hike or long bike ride on the horizon? Use it as a reason to start a regular Scout-led fitness program. It’s the best way to ensure that everyone is in top shape to get the most enjoyment out of a physically challenging outing. Plus, research shows that group exercise boosts motivation, creates a feeling of community and holds members accountable to prevent straying from goals. And for Scouts, it’s an awesome opportunity to knock off requirements for the Personal Fitness merit badge and other awards.

Here’s how to start:

• Establish a regular meeting time for a workout.
• Ease into the routine with a short circuit of bodyweight calisthenics, a bike ride or troop swim.
• Each week or month, allow a different member of the troop to plan and lead the workouts. Make sure every member can complete the workout. Leave no buddy behind.
• Mix up the exercises. To keep motivation high, plan different types of physical challenges, such as group road or mountain bike rides; exercise circuits using loaded backpacks or water jugs for resistance; cross-country runs or obstacle courses; relay races or capture-the-flag games; or active games like volleyball, soccer, softball, basketball or street hockey.

The idea is to make fitness fun and allow friendly competition to foster motivation until a workout no longer feels like work.

The Troop 111 Workout

LEARN MORE about the BSA’s SCOUTStrong Healthy Living Initiative, including how you can earn the SCOUTStrong Presidential Active Lifestyle Award at scouting.org/scoutsource/BSAFit.

For many Scouts, the Personal Fitness merit badge is one of the last speed bumps — or roadblocks — on the journey to the Eagle Scout Award. In the hands of an effective merit badge counselor, however, it can be more of an on-ramp to a lifetime of better health.

Marianne King is one of those counselors. The owner of Marianne King’s Fitness for Life in Pittsburgh has taught the badge for more than a decade. While many of her Scouts have been athletes, she’s perhaps most proud of the Scout with attention-deficit disorder who discovered he could focus better after completing the badge’s 12-week fitness program. “For me, that was an outstanding change for him,” she says. “It wasn’t just, ‘OK, I got a little muscle.’ It was, ‘I was able to feel better mentally.’ ”

Connecting Mind and Body
The mind-body connection is important, but it’s often overlooked, says Dan Smith, another veteran Personal Fitness counselor. “Oftentimes — and this is true not only with the kids but with some of the leaders — they think that Personal Fitness merit badge is Physical Fitness merit badge,” says Smith, an Eagle Scout and assistant professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri.

Bsa Physical Fitness Plan

“It’s important for me from the get-go to educate them about the fact that this isn’t just about physical fitness. This is about physical health; it’s about spiritual fitness; it’s about social engagement; it’s about the total person.”

One way to emphasize the holistic nature of fitness is to introduce the six dimensions of wellness defined by Dr. Bill Hettler in the 1970s. (They are occupational, spiritual, emotional, physical, social and intellectual.) That’s what Rick Armstrong does. A lecturer in kinesiology at the University of Rhode Island, Armstrong shows how the dimensions of wellness fit together. “One of them is just an individual piece. You really need all of them to come together to be whole and healthy,” he says.

Sample Physical Fitness Program Boy Scouts Activities

Honesty: The Best Policy
Whether he’s teaching Scouts or college students, Armstrong likes to show two pictures of actor Hugh Jackman. In one, a still from The Wolverine, Jackman looks “ripped beyond belief.” In the other, a shot from US Weekly, Jackman looks far more ordinary — even a little flabby. Armstrong’s point: “These actors and actresses specifically train for the instance when they’re taking the picture or they’re in the movie. They exercise and they maintain their fitness, but they’re not going to look like that throughout an entire year.”

Moreover, the people who show up on the covers of fitness magazines work a lot harder than the average Scout is likely to. “If you want to look like that, it’s probably more work than you’ve ever done in your life,” Armstrong says.

Working out is not a waste of time, however. “That doesn’t mean you’re going to look like these people. But by being physically active and exercising, you’re going to have these health benefits for the long term,” he says.

Your Mileage Might Vary
Smith agrees that major fitness gains might be elusive, but Scouts should see some results if they work hard. He thinks Scouts should register improvements in most, if not all, of the badge’s fitness tests over 12 weeks. “What we’ll typically see the biggest change in is their overall mile time. We see some strength changes, too,” he says.

Sample Physical Fitness Program Boy Scouts Merit

Since six-pack abs are unlikely, Smith emphasizes to Scouts that the badge is more about future quality of life than current results — which he admits is a challenge with 13-year-olds who can’t always see past their next meal. “They’re not really focused on long-term stuff, but I think the process of the merit badge itself helps many of them to come to the realization that these things make a significant difference,” he says.

Variety Is the Spice of Life
King believes a Scout’s biggest challenge lies in setting up an exercise program and documenting his results. She works with each Scout to develop an appropriate program, helping him select options from various categories, including cardiovascular and strength training. “This is my passion, my business,” she says. “I can bring a little more to the table for them.”

She also emphasizes that Scouts don’t have to stick with the same set of exercises for 12 weeks. (Requirement 8 mandates the same fitness tests throughout the 12-week period — not the same exercises.) “You can’t do the same thing over and over again expecting different results,” she says. “We talk about that; we talk about how the body needs different challenges.”

King also offers her Scouts an Excel spreadsheet they can use for recordkeeping, but they’re welcome to use a notebook or anything else. King’s spreadsheet includes space for weight and reps for strength training and type, time, distance and intensity for cardiovascular activities.

A Scout Is …
Despite her interest in physical fitness, King also spends a good bit of time on requirement 4d, in which the Scout must explain how personal fitness relates to the Scout Law and Scout Oath. Many are surprised by the deep connections. “They’re kind of shocked,” she says. “When they can apply it to what they say every week in Scouts, it hits home a little bit more.”

And when it hits home, perhaps they realize that the Personal Fitness merit badge is less about Eagle and more about life.

FIND MORE LEADER GUIDES TO POPULAR MERIT BADGES AT SCOUTINGMAGAZINE.ORG/MBCLINIC