Gym class sucks, don’t it? Especially when you compare the useless gym classes of today to what high school kids of yesteryear were going through.

Anybody who went to public school undoubtedly remembers gym class—more accurately, they remember how much it sucks. Ignoring the difficulties that awkward, hormonal teenage boys have with unwanted erections caused by seeing their nubile female classmates prance about in hot pants, a realization will quickly come upon all but the densest of students:

This class is completely worthless for its intended purpose.

At best, you’ll be playing basketball or soccer or some other team sport which will give you a decent cardio workout. At worst you’ll be doing nothing physical at all, instead sitting in a classroom listening to a bitter divorcee lecturing you about why men are the devil and why girls should stay away from them, all under the guise of being a sex education class.

Physical fitness programs have largely existed in some form or another as long as there has been some method of paying trainers. While the idea of “physical education” being a field of study in schools (i.e., a body-and-mind hardening device meant to build character in the youngfolk) can arguably be traced back to the Spartan agoge, the deliberately cultivated brutality of this particular system—far beyond the useful, moderate amount of social shaming I advocate in my own writing-–would make any sensible person not want to cite this as a good starting point. Well, that and the deliberate taking of children from their homes, political repression, and constant pederasty that characterized the culture of that Peloponnesian city-state…

Here‘s a few ideas to fix it.