Stick it to your PE teacher

[sniffle12]

Anybody with a truly dreadful experience of PE who is now loving exercise care to share their stories?

I have asthma and our PE warm up was to sprint round the field. All the asthmatics were already struggling 3 minutes in, and the teachers never asked how they could help, they just decided we were rubbish. Cross-country again was just 'start running, keep running till we say stop'. No mention of key things like breathing techniques or pacing (you know, actual teaching). I decided at about 11 that I was just unfit and rubbish despite being a slim, energetic girl who had loved PE at primary school.

In the final two years if you hadn't picked PE GCSE, you just played hockey every week, no exceptions. We were taught in a group of 45.

Fast forward and now I'm just finishing Couch 2 5K, I run three times a week and now I've taught myself pacing and breathing I can run even with asthma. I regularly play badminton with DH, do YouTube yoga, and go trampolining. I'm absolutely loving being active and finally being in tune with my body and feeling that it's working with me not against me

Watching with interest, it is one of my greatest regrets that my PE teachers were sadists and made me dislike any form of exercise with a passion. I truly hope things are different for this generation.

Well done on your achievement ..

Shame you had to bash teachers in the process.

Yup

I am a slow runner. I'm short and scrawny and cannot sprint. I detested school sport. Come sports day I was always last, behind the overweight kid and the one with asthma. Always got shouted at for being shit.

Turns out I'm built for distance. I'm still not very fast but I'm doing it.

2 half marathons last year and in training for the full marathon...

Fuck you Mrs W.

Bertrand having been a teacher I would a) never bash teachers and b) know that today's PE curriculum and delivery is a world away from what it was a few decades ago. But I think the vast majority of people agree that in your typical school a few decades ago, PE teachers did not particularly encourage those who didn't take naturally to everything.

I am a teacher OP and totally agree with you. PE at school did nothing to help my mental health issues as my PE teacher liked to call out those of us who were not sporty or skinny. She once called me chunky in front of a class of sporty girls. I went home and cut myself. Years later I am obese and still scared to exercise as I think everyone is laughing at me - I am still that mortified 13 year old hating herself.
Whilst things are much better I still think some PE teachers approach pupils the same way ....

Dd isn't at all talented at PE and has inherited my lack of ability at any ball games. She still enjoys PE though as her PE teachers are encouraging and recognise effort. I wanted to put in a good word for PE teachers. None of mine were horrible in the 80s despite me being a bit useless. Most of my teachers were nice apart from one RE teacher and one English teacher.

At primary most were nice apart from reception and year 5

Indeed pieceofpurplesky, I have left the profession now but 5 years ago I still had asthmatic children coming to my classes after PE unable to breathe, puffing away on inhalers.

I'm surprised that in this day and age, PE teachers still don't sit down with asthmatic children and say 'how can we make this easier?' Of course I can only talk from my experience in that school, there may be great inclusive PE teachers out there elsewhere.

I love your thread title!

In my school the known asthmatics were actually v sporty as they were properly treated so were on all the school sports teams.

I was unco-ordinated, couldn't catch and got out of breath. I now know I'm hypermobile so my joints hurt and have exercise-induced asthma - I wasn't unfit after all, I just never had a chance. If I'd been bad at maths I'd have had extra support but instead I just got picked last on the team and spent most of PE avoiding it.

Now belatedly trying again with the nice people of FitnessBlender and a lovely supportive physio.

@BertrandRussell like OP, I have also been a teacher.

I had one very supportive PE teacher but the others were awful. It was a girls school and I have no coordination so things like hockey and lacrosse (bastard game) beyond me. I started senior school overweight and unfit and left it 7 years later the same way.
Bizarrely now aged 47 I find myself fitter than I've ever been in my life. I run, spin, Zumba and do weights. None of which involve balls or teams.

I wasn't good at PE but our PE teachers were always positive, enthusiastic and encouraging. They also planned PE so that we could try different sports - telling us that they hoped we would find one we liked. This was in the 90s.

My PE teachers were horrible (and my mum, herself a teacher agreed with this due to their totally negative attitude). I thought I was rubbish at all sport until I did C25K and learnt to run.
9 weeks it took, thats all, and if I'd been taught at 11, the next 30 years I could have been running happily.
Now I've run a marathon, do triathlons, and am very much looking forward to another season of open water swimming.

I hated PE, freezing cold on a hockey pitch, open air unheated swimming pool, only best students got nice treatment (all girls school 40 years ago!).

Now I train every day, either swim a mile or run 5-10k, sometimes both. Have run 10k races and my first half marathon last year. Love how I am fitter now than ever, exercise is my escape. I guess team or competitive sports were and are not my thing:)

Meant to say I am short sighted, not diagnosed until adulthood so that can't have helped. Also I really hated the kit - short short skirt so my fat white legs were on show. If I could have worn joggers it would have gone much better

I was average at PE up to year 9 but the PE teachers vey much had favourites and I wasn't one! Year 9 I suffered a bad knee injury (playing rounders for the school!) and year 10 I had glandular fever so I did very little PE the last 3 years and when I did I struggled. Looking back the way I was treated by the PE staff would be very much frowned upon now (getting up in my face in front of the whole year calling me a liar etc). I learnt to hate exercise thanksto them.

Fast forward 17 years and I have just ran my first half marathon. One of the teachers still works at the school and a public footpath runs through it near the sports pitch - it takes every inch of inner strength not to walk past sticking two fingers up to the bitch to her

Secondary PE was pretty much an exercise in humiliation and hanging around. Communal changing rooms, Queen Bees getting to pick teams, PE skirts and knickers and waiting in the cold.

Now I work out at least twice a week, either gym, classes or parkrun. No team sports but I might try them when the dc's are older.

yes! went to an all girls school, 2 horrible female PE teachers, always made us wear short hockey skirts whatever the activity including running along pavements. The skirts were very short, some of us, myself included were overweight teenagers and I was always made to be the goalkeeper in hockey because I (being nicknamed Walrus) was apparently big enough to block it. Was also made to do shot put and discus as was big. Hated PE. Now I exercise all the time, I run half marathons, do body pump, body combat, body step, body balance, hips bums & tums classes, always out walking dog as well as walking those at the local dog rescue. Get twitchy when I can't exercise.
PE was just humilation as I recall. Horrible horrible!

Yes! Also went to an all girls school. PE was hideous. I really hope, for the sake of my DDs that things have changed. I was 'useless' at PE at school. Hated it. 20 years after leaving I've run the London Marathon and exercise most days.

Similar story here. I was hopeless at PE. I couldn't run more than 3 minutes without agonising stitches and shin splints. I've never mastered catching and throwing, but I'm proud to say that I swam my first length at 16 in adult lessons, my first mile at 17, learned to ride a bike at 19, did C25k at 32 and my first HM 364 days later

Gymnastics/ dance wasn't so bad, but athletics/ team sports were hopeless. I was always small for my age so wasn't fast and had a lot less reach than the others. The queen bees chose the teams, and I was inevitably substitute or goal keeper. There was no chance to improve.

I was that bad that it took the PE teachers years to realise that it was genuine. My first secondary PE was the MN cliche. Fortunately in y11 we finally got some choices and had a new fitness suite so it did get better.

Better kit would have helped (minging green gym knickers and skirts). As an adult, I can choose the right level of clothing to be comfortable. In the middle of winter, I can choose long sleeves, gloves, hats and thermal leggings.

There really was a gap in explaining the absolute basics for those of us who hadn't walked in already physically equipped, and that's not a common practice in any other subject.

It has improved in the last 20 years. When I used to do casual supply, I didn't mind a day on the fields in PE if I was dressed appropriately, and the kit, attitude and options are generally better than they were.

I'm glad it's improving - I still remember out of all the subjects that are streamed, why isn't PE one of them?

Remember the bemusement of being expected to jump a 1.1m hurdle when 1.4m tall.

For me though it was the reliance on team games that was a pisser. stuff like badminton and athletics I would've liked but when you are small and a late developer there was no provision made for this. Naturally, there was no swimming offered at secondary school even though we were near two pools.

Turns out I have pretty good genetics for strength and hypertrophy and stamina for running and swimming - not that I'm fast for. Thing is, conventional PE isn't that good for people to whom these are strengths.

And I have never picked up a rounders bat in the last 25 years - long may that continue. Why anyone mistakes a game of rounders for a workout is beyond me.

Fantastic OP

PE really was so badly taught. It's not surprising so many people gave up on exercise.

Thank you for this post. I think I still feel like that one who never gets picked or the one who everyone sighs about when you get put in their team. I find myself thinking "I can't" far far too much and "I'm not built for sport/fitness stuff" as well.

I'm actually very strong and I would like to try to work with my body and help it get stronger and leaner and fitter... you've inspired me.

Good work, OP
I too was a PE hater in the late 1990s. As someone above said, if it didn't involve a team or a ball it wasn't done - despite the fact that our school had a swimming pool.
I was uncoordinated and never picked first and it was torture every week. By the time I was 15 my mum - a teacher - helped me get out of it via a series of notes as long as I promised to come and be a helper at her school's cross country club every week. Thats the only reason I wasnt overweight by 18.

The thing that got me was that they had the sporty girls, and there was an effort to involve the "chavvy" girls. This involved not making them take their makeup off and playing dire dance music throughout the session. This made it even more torturous for about a third of us! Why they didn't stream PE and let those of us with no ball skills do some circuits or something I'll never know. It's not like they bothered to teach the skills properly.

Only now I am seeing a personal trainer do I feel like I'm learning about exercise and fitness properly. I do still get panicky when she tries to make me do something too reminiscent of PE though!

Gosh that was a long 1am rant. Sorry. Also, fuck you, Mr Munn.