Criticisms and Objections to Overcome

As simple and workable as PYOW seems to be, and with as much good publicity as it has received, it was never without its critics. So what kind of obstacles and criticisms has the program had to overcome in order to succeed? Here are the issues that most commonly came up.

It Lacks Hard, Scientific Evidence

Yes, that's true. Despite the fact that several exercise physiologists have agreed that it would be an interesting project, nobody that I know of has ever done a scientific study designed to reveal the body composition differences between kids who can and kids who can't do pull ups. That is to say, the only evidence I have is all the kids I observed with my own two eyes during almost two decades of teaching and coaching.

By the same token, nobody that I know of has ever done a scientific study designed to reveal whether your nose is on your face or not either. Perhaps both studies are too simple and intuitively obvious to interest academia.

Most Kids Hate Pull Ups

Yes, that's also true. Then again most kids hate to fail in public at anything...including reading, writing, and arithmetic. The trick is to start kids off young, present PYOW in the right light (as a privilege instead of an obligation or a job), and to build public success into the program for every participant. Do these things and you'll be amazed how quickly kids learn to look forward to their "opportunity" to get on the pull-up bar and to develop their own God given potential. By the way, the same formula works for reading, writing, and arithmetic too.

It Also Lacks Comprehensiveness

Some people felt that the program was too limited, that it was lacking in comprehensiveness, that it failed to cover all the necessary aspects of a good fitness program, and therefore it fell short of being a program to endorse and to implement.

But in my view, these critics failed to understand that nobody ever said PYOW was a comprehensive fitness program. It never pretended to be. What you have here is a very simple and functional antidote to childhood obesity. Its sole claim is that if you can do pull-ups, you cannot be obese. That's the golden rule of PYOW. Learn to do pull ups, maintain the ability, and you'll be a permanent member of Wall A, and never ever a member of Wall B again."

On the other hand, even though PYOW almost totally ignores the aerobic aspect of fitness (for example), to the degree that it discourages excess body weight, it also reduces the workload on the heart 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that PYOW is definitely heart friendly, right?

PYOW Discourages Other Forms of Exercise

Furthermore, others felt that since PYOW's focus was pull-ups, that it discouraged other forms of exercise. But if these critics had taken a closer look, they'd find that PYOW encourages anything that improves pull-up performance, including other forms of exercise, which also burn calories, and help control or reduce the participant's body weight (their workload on the pull-up bar). It also recognizes the role of good eating habits, getting sufficient rest, and flexibility. Pull-ups however, are still the bottom line, functional acid test for PYOW.

PYOW Is Too Good To Be True

A similar criticism was that anything that simple cannot possibly work. In other words, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. To that charge, I simply go back to the Wall A, Wall B example. As a matter of fact, I contended this criticism was picking on the program's greatest strength…its sheer simplicity, its financial and logistical accessibility.

So, What Exactly Is A Pull Up?

There was some debate over the question, what constitutes a pull up? There was a gym teacher involved in the conversation who originally contended that there should be "no kicking allowed, because that was cheating." I even had one young entrepreneurial lad suggest, "If I can do ten pull ups half way up, that should count for five full pull ups…right Coach?" But after talking it over, we decided to simplify the whole thing by saying that a participant had to go all the way down (straight arms), and all the way up (chin touching the bar), and anything in between was acceptable. In other words, when starting from the original down position, you'd be allowed to kick, twist, scream, or holler, in order to reach that final up position. Our mantra in this regard was "all the way down, and all the way up. Anything else goes." And that's exactly how we defined a pull up at Jefferson Elementary School back in the early 90's.

The Medical Community Recommends A More Complicated Solution Let's have a look at a conventional, comprehensive, solution to the childhood obesity epidemic offered by experts from St. Louis Children's Hospital: Check it out and see what you think.

1. Work together on one positive change at a time. You can set your child up for failure by trying to make too many changes as once.

2. Get rid of the junk food. Make fruits, vegetables and other healthy snacks readily available and eliminate junk food to avoid temptation.

3. Turn off the TV. Get rid of distractions during mealtime and concentrate on enjoying the food and spending time together.

4. Offer options to your child. Rigid guidelines can alter a child's internal sense of hunger and satiety. When offered options, a child learns to make positive choices consistently.

5. Beware of beverages. Juice and colas can add hundreds of calories a day.

6. Limit snacks and control portion sizes. It is unreasonable to give a child a bag of chips and expect him to stop after a few. Help your child out by putting a snack in a bowl ahead of time.

7. Give positive feedback. Take notice when your child makes steps toward changing bad habits, such ass choosing an apple for an after-school snack.

8. Limit "screen time." Encourage active pursuits by allowing only an hour a day for sedentary time with video games, the computer and the television.

9. Do it together. You don't have to plan a workout to get exercise. Family fun, such as playing in the sprinkler, diving into leaves or having snowball fights, burns calories, too.

10. Consider your child's feelings. Teaching you child healthy eating habits is a long-term goal, but be sensitive about when to give it a rest and let him enjoy the things that children enjoy.

PYOW in contrast, says learn to perform pull-ups at an early age, do what ever it takes to maintain that wonderful ability for as long as you want to remain relatively strong and trim. Now, I ask which one is simpler? Which one is more tangible and measurable in terms of progress, and therefore motivation? Which one is easier to understand, afford and to implement? And if it's simpler, more measurable, more affordable, and more implementable, which approach has the best odds of succeeding? If you said PYOW, you win!

Other Exercises Can Make The Same Claims, So Why Just Pull Ups?

Another common criticism was that you can make the same claims for other activities such as dips, hand stand push ups, and say a seven minute mile. If you can do any of these things, you'll also be relatively lean and strong.

To that criticism I can only say…"I agree!" And again, we never discouraged students from doing other forms of exercise. The reason we settled on pull-ups was that everyone knows what they are. Where some people may not know what you mean by dips or hand-stand push-ups. And a seven-minute mile takes lots more space, good weather, and lots more time to develop.

But most importantly, only pull-ups are associated with the phrase "Pull Your Own Weight." And this phrase has many other positive connotations naturally built into it. So we settled on pull-ups instead of dips, hand stand push-ups, or seven-minute miles.

Boys Will Have An Advantage Over Girls

I've had an occasional feminist suggest that boys would have an advantage over girls in this testosterone-laden activity.

My response to this one was that "these critics never saw the girls at Jefferson school who, because they often mature faster than boys, were often the best pull-up performers in class. So this criticism was simply untrue."

PYOW Will Make Girls Masculine

Along the same line of thinking there were some who suspected that PYOW would make the little girls masculine, and give them bulging muscles. Again, the answer was that these critics never saw the girls at Jefferson School. Factually speaking girls don't have the hormones to develop masculinity unless they take them (i.e., steroids) artificially. So, once again I simply say if they'd seen the girls at Jefferson School, they'd already know they're wrong!

PYOW Could Prove Embarrassing, And Further Alienate Real Heavy Kids Another critic asked what about those kids who have gotten real heavy at a real young age? Won't OPYOW put them on the defensive, on the outside looking in, and feeling even worse about themselves than they already do?

In response, I simply don't remember any kids who failed to succeed if we lowered the bar enough to allow them to get their chin up and over the bar. And if you succeed regularly in public, there's very little to be embarrassed about. After several weeks of regular public success, the embarrassment issue was ancient history. We were also lucky enough to have two Total Gyms in house, and on that machine anybody can easily succeed immediately.

You Don't Need A Degree To Teach It, So What Good Can It Be?

I had one humorous (tongue in cheek) teacher say, "if you don't have to have a degree to teach it, how good can it be?"

Again, my response was that these critics were attacking PYOW's greatest strength-its simplicity. Actually many of the parents who became PYOW moms and dads had no degrees at all. They were school dropouts. But the changes that occurred in the kids they worked with, often rubbed off on the parents and put a wind in their sails that they'd never experienced before.

Many teachers noticed that parents got as much out of the program as the kids did. So one of its inadvertent strengths was its ability to generate parental involvement, enthusiasm, and even confidence, which, in at risk populations, is usually a hard nut to crack. Without ever planning to do so, PYOW became the primary parental involvement vehicle for the entire grant.

How About Liability Issues?

Another obstacle that came up at Jefferson School was this question of school liability. All school administrators these days run scared in the face of liability issues and lawsuits, so that's a legitimate concern.

I confess that in the school setting, every administration will have to make its own call. On the other hand, if leg assisted pull-ups were the most dangerous activity their students experience, they have almost no problems at all.

The other thought is that PYOW is certainly not restricted to schools. It can easily be done in YM/WCA's, Park Districts, Boys & Girls Clubs or Churches. For that matter PYOW can easily be done in the home by concerned parents. The equipment cost is negligible, the space required is minimal, and as we said before, you definitely don't need a degree to teach it!

What If There's No Mandate From The Top Down?

One other criticism has been that K-3 teachers at Jefferson School were mandated to participate, but in other schools, teachers may just choose to avoid participation. What then?

The fact of the matter is at Jefferson School teachers were mandated from top down to participate, and there were definitely teachers who resented it. They felt like they were overworked already (they probably were) and that PYOW was taking time from more important subjects like reading, writing and arithmetic. And nobody could argue that it didn't take time from these other activities. But it was those same teachers who drug their feet, lacked enthusiasm, and wh shorted their kids in the process. In my view, an unenthusiastic teacher should never be allowed to be a part of a PYOW program anyway.

And because of this issue, I recommend that PYOW should only be used by teachers who understand the concept, see the importance of it, and who will enthusiastically work with kids in the program. Furthermore, teachers who enthusiastically want to participate will be the exception, not the rule. Let the enthusiastic teachers light the fire and lead the way. Let them show their colleagues what can be achieved through an incredibly simple program.

Pull Your Own Weight Is Selfish

There were a couple people who interpreted the phrase Pull Your Own Weight as "selfish." That is to say, in a social context, they understood it to mean take care of yourself…ONLY, and forget about other people. But in my view they were missing the point. From a social standpoint the idea was, "if you're unable to take care of your own affairs, the odds of you being in a position to help others is worse than bad. On the other hand, people who learn to pull their own weight in all kinds of ways, are almost always in positions to show others how to pull their weight, and in the process they'll develop self respect, as well as a healthy (as opposed to a condescending) respect for other people." This little "teach 'em to fish" recognition we called Pull Your Own Weight Plus.

PYOW Gets Too Much Good Publicity

The final criticism I'll mention is one that came from Dr. Peter Flynn who was the Superintendent of Davenport Public Schools back then. He complained to me one day "That PYOW program gets more good publicity than all the rest of the (20 some school) district gets combined."

Another tongue in cheek criticism for sure, but my answer was simply, "If your school or your school district appreciates good ink, PYOW is hard to beat." That's pretty much the gamut as far as criticisms and obstacles, now let's talk about some other lifelong lessons that are packed in between the lines of Operation Pull Your Own Weight