The Motivation Factor

The mic is hot and the game is on. You're listening to News for the Nation podcast by Aces Nation, where we talk about nutrition, sports performance, the journey of a student athlete, and more. I'm Claire. I'm Zach. Time to level up. Welcome back sports fans. Today we are going over the documentary The Motivation Factor. I hope everyone gets a

chance to watch it after this episode. Claire and I both enjoyed it very much and we're excited to just have a conversation about our thoughts on the documentary, kind of like what it meant to society back then or what society was like at that point and how How others in the documentary describe the changes that have gone on and maybe the art thoughts about them as well. So Claire, I liked it. I mean, I know you did too off air.

You said that you did. Well, tell me just off the top of your head, one thing that stood out to you from the documentary, just anything that pops in your head that that kind of stood out. I think the main thing was. Not. knowing anything and going into it, I thought it was just going to be about like PE class and how it was just

required and they all participated. But I was really surprised and interested in the types of exercises they were doing and the fact that it was more like kinesthetic, plyometric, and maybe what we would consider more of like accessory work. based. So I thought that was cool and that was required in school and versus just going to gym class and saying, OK, today we're going to play football or today we're going to play

soccer. They're really working their body from like a functional fitness perspective, which was very interesting. Yeah, yeah, I think the thing that stood out to me was like in most of the videos they were showing, those dudes were

jacked. and like they were right that makes me think based on all the other episodes we had or we've had is what was the nutrition like provided at that high school you know what were they able to eat at that school and why was it why is it so much different now yeah or i would even think of like what were they eating at that time in the 60s i would argue that most of what they were eating was probably home -cooked meals agreed they were probably drinking a lot of milk And

there wasn't a lot of fast food, super processed, super high sugar, fat foods. I think they had a pretty, a relatively nutrient dense diet and a lot of home coach meals. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think because the La Sierra High School, when it was still around, is located in Carmichael. If anyone doesn't know, I looked

it up. It's near Sacramento. So up there, I would say by Probably surrounded by more farms than typical like Southern California area would be so Maybe they had to do with it too, but you're right definitely different Societal happenings I think life is a little slower. So yeah, you're right. But yeah, everyone in that video was Super fit and yeah, honestly for the most part the people who had gone through it They still looked

fit Yeah, when they were interviewed. Yeah. And they still did all of the things that they did in high school. Every single, maybe not every single, but some of them said every single morning they still go through that routine and it just helped them wake up, feel energized, start their day off right. It's the stretching, the exercises and running and that's what they start their

day off with. And I thought that was really cool that however many years later, Um, they're still incorporating it into their life Yeah, I think one thing that was kind of sad for me to realize at the beginning was that Uh, well, I actually let me let me throw this out first I don't know and maybe I missed this in the documentary because I was watching it and there were things going on around me at the time but uh Did coach laprati start that before for the presidential fitness

thing? Did you get that vibe? I don't think so. OK, anyways. All right. So let's let's just move forward with that. Right. Like I think it's sad that JFK did not get to experience the longevity of that. Right. And yeah, his life was cut short. And so he didn't get to see something impact so many people positively based on an initiative that he had. Yeah. And I think the country. Yeah.

I think the documentary did mention that because of that, it was cut short in the sense of like it wasn't initiated afterwards by anybody else.

And that's kind of sad to see too of like only one person is finding this important enough to encourage an initiative and try and get more kids involved in movement outside of sport, but also In the school day to where you're not sitting for six plus hours at a desk Yeah conspiracy theorists, you know look into that one for us, please Yeah, I thought that was just Fascinating

and stuff. But alright, so there was that and then for I We we know you and I because we talked off air that the whole program set up by coach the proddy at La Sierra which became like the flagship place that JFK adopted as like hey, this is the poster school for what the president's physical fitness needs to look like He was a

former vet World War two. We looked it up Not not sure what branch I don't think we got that far as we got that information from where the source we got but anyway, so when I watched it I What it looked like to me was a bunch of military formations, right and like and kids doing movements that I've Seen similar things happen from Army guidelines for physical fitness so it was it was interesting to see that and I know that he got most of his stuff from ancient Greeks and

I know that throughout the documentary they were talking about all these different cultures from before that time that had implemented certain things. What was the country that they mentioned where they had like 1 ,400 people out on a field all doing synchronized movements at once? I don't remember. Czech? Was it Czechoslovakia? Might have been. Could have been. And it was an Eastern European country, I think. So for that time being.

And it was before the 1900s, I believe, where this was made a spectacle by that country as well of being physically fit. So just interesting. But one thing that I noticed from the videos they were showing, almost all the videos, which I can only think of the exception of one, it was like the same footage being recycled. They were only showing us like the bend to toe touch and the arm opening, like the chest opener associated with that massive group of people doing jumping

jacks. Yeah, I wonder if that's because most of the movements they did, they did the same thing every day. Like it was that was the program. They just repeated the same movements in order as essentially kind of like a warm up program. I think that. Yeah, I think that gym footage

that we saw was their warm up. Yeah, I did remember them saying in the documentary the I don't know what they're called the little angle bars where they were like walking over it with their hands, you know, with their their legs dangling and their hands were like waist height, you know. Yeah, I did hear them say that that was mostly a finisher, something they did at the end of their workout. OK, the parallel bars. Yeah, yeah, even though they did go up and down and stuff.

Yeah. Like that was something they did at the end. That was mentioned in the documentary. You know what? Oh, go ahead. No, no, not you. I was gonna say, you know what I found very interesting watching this is a lot of the things I've seen

in CrossFit were reflected. in that documentary of like certain types of movements of when they were talking about push -ups of the test of as many push -ups as you can do was too easy because they would be there counting to like a hundred hundred fifty plus push -ups at a time they had to make it harder so they started doing like handstand push -ups or you know other variations of push -ups that were more difficult to challenge them more or the same thing with like the the

parallel bars. Same thing like you see that those movements in CrossFit. And so it was just interesting to kind of see those similarities that in the CrossFit community, some of those movements are known to be very, very difficult. They were walking on their hands. So like things like that, that you see in certain fitness modalities now that were implemented then as well. I just thought

that was interesting. Yeah, and they did say in the documentary about like one point they were like well push -ups became too easy for us So we started to do handstand push -ups because they were to make them a little bit harder So that that was one of the videos that was different than the other ones I remember that quite a bit, but let me pose this question to you and maybe you don't have to answer Maybe it's just rhetorical, but I just thought about this way you were mentioning

push -ups you know things like The push up and like sit ups if you will um have I guess for I don't know since the world war two or maybe the world war one era been Pushed to america as like the measure of your physical fitness level, right? I mean, like some mile distance time is also added in there. Some pull -up test is in there. My question is, or my thought, I guess is, is that a measure that has stood the test of time because it really does give us that?

Or is that just something we had and we haven't revamped that? you know is that just something that they they had technology or understanding of at the time and now we haven't revamped that so is it like actually showing us that are we keeping it because it's legit or are we keeping it because we don't know how to formulate the um like new physical Yeah, yeah, like the new benchmark or are we not changing it because the people who are in positions of power aren't ready

to give up that stronghold, right? Like is it really, is it really real or is it cap, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think it depends. Like I would say like as an overall benchmark of strength and like fitness, I wouldn't peg those two movements as overall indicators of fitness. Especially too, I think if you're looking at it from a holistic view because men are obviously going to be stronger in pushups than most women are unless you really,

really practice them a lot. But I mean, I still think that there's going to be a discrepancy there. So obviously, you have to account for that. Yeah, I think it's different if you're saying, like, this is a benchmark for push -ups if we're testing push -ups. That's one thing to say. Like, if you're fit in this movement of push -ups, this is how many we expect you to get, versus saying, if you can do this many push -ups and sit -ups, you are a fit person.

I don't know that. I would argue that that doesn't really correlate to mean that you're overall a fit person. Yeah, it was just something I wanted to throw out there as a thought. Ace's Nation is a team of former college athletes and coaches on a mission to improve the sports culture experience

and change today's expectations. We do this by helping every player maximize their athletic potential with professional programs to improve strength, speed, nutrition, and mental toughness, and by using sports to create a direct pathway to college with a guaranteed college scholarship program for all student athletes. Visit acesnation .org to learn more and schedule a demo. Let's go! What are your thoughts on the shorts color

system? I mean, I guess for the voice, it makes sense because They didn't have shirts on so they couldn't have colored shirts. So makes sense I would say that it probably I mean you you might not necessarily have needed the shorts and obviously for people listening they essentially broke up the students into different groups based on like ability level or fitness level, I guess you could say and Depending on which level they were and they were given a certain color shorts I think

it Makes sense. I think either way you probably would have had to split them up because of ability level and I do think it provides some sense of goal setting and some sense of Shooting for like that next short color or that next, you know, grouping to be in, you want to work harder. So you want to be with the blue shorts. You want to be with the gold shorts because that means that you improved from the last time versus just

staying where you are. So if you're a senior, you don't want to be in the white shorts because that means you made zero improvements from the time you were a freshman to a senior. And that sucks. So I mean, as somebody, obviously the two of us were athletes. growing up. So I think as somebody who is naturally more competitive, I like the idea of like knowing who I'm chasing

and what I'm reaching for. Yeah, I agree. I think if we were both in there, we definitely want to be the highest level that we could be right and keep working hard. One of the cool things, I think, from the study and from the the part about the colored shorts was the segment in the documentary where a former participant in the group ran some, it was a thesis, right? Or some paper about the self -confidence level of people in the white short group, which would be the

lowest one. And they found that they were just as confident as people who were in the gold group. So it's not like they had low self -esteem. because they were at the lowest level. I mean, they were still a part of the community, still working hard. And so they saw improvements in themselves and whatnot and kept their sense of self -confidence at a good level. So I think that was a good thing. I also think it was appropriate to separate people by physical ability level, not just by their

grade. So that was pretty cool. Yeah, I think that was great and I liked the study or the thesis because like they mentioned, you would think that by doing that and categorizing people differently, that lower level or those people that have a long way to go and a lot to work towards to improve, they would have really low self -esteem and low self -confidence and that wasn't the case. I would argue that now it's a lot bigger issue because we don't have as many programs like that.

Yeah, something they talked about in the documentary was like the discrepancy between then and now, and just a huge, maybe not even that huge, like it's just another sign, like we need to be more physically active as a nation because the fact that PE is like, the participation of PE is like optional or something, you know, these days. Or even PE is optional. It's an extracurricular. It's not part of the curriculum. Right, right.

I mean, like I understand the fact that You might take a sports class, like if you're a basketball player, you take basketball so you can get extra practice time and finesse the system. That's great. But for the general population, like a program like this should be instituted. I think it's crazy that they had statistics about. I'm going to use the word delinquency, but like people acting out, you know, or like. acting out in school or acting out in the community or in society.

Like those numbers were reduced and they saw kids were like more focused or energetic, you know, or ready to learn. The fact that they had like percentage statistics on that was just incredible to me. Like, like who, where are you like, who, who did you get this from? And that's still,

that's still pretty cool that. you know physical activity obviously you and I know it's great for mental health so that you can you know really kind of boost that learning in the classroom it's just another indication of why are we not doing it and they said something like this in the documentary where it was like we know it but we're just not implementing it right but why yeah but why right like everyone knows that you should be physically active we're getting

more activity to stay healthy but yeah we're not doing that they made a good reference to or they just made a good point of, you know, if somebody struggling in math class, for example, instead of incorporating something else like physical fitness or some sort of, you know, going outside or something else that has been shown to help with attention, energy. your ability to just like remember things or cognition. So things that can like really maybe help from a

learning standpoint, physical activity. They put you in more math. Right. While maybe that might be helpful or maybe it would be helpful to have a little bit of one -on -one tutoring or going to some office hours, if you're already struggling with it in the first place, adding more and more and more is probably going to make you more stressed, make you less confident, make you feel worse about yourself, feel more frustrated, and you're sitting for longer, then you're going

to have less time to go outside. It just all in all is like, It's kind of backwards. I mean, it makes sense to maybe have a little bit more math time, but why are we not incorporating something that has been shown to be very beneficial from a holistic point of view when maybe we know those kids don't get it at home? Agreed. Another point they made, which is along the same lines, it's like, we all know that math and science is important, right? For careers and learn. It's a part of

learning that's important. Well, we all know physical health is important, you know, but yet we cut that out. No one's out there cutting math classes because, you know, we think it's important, but not that important, you know. So the fact that they're cutting physical, I mean, physical education, sure. But I mean, really, it's like it's like well -being enforcement or like enrichment

or something. You know, it's it's not just going out and playing dodgeball or like rolling on scooters or, you know, flapping the big parachute, which was all fun back in my day, you know, but but I think something structured, something that's like gets people involved and can be made into a fun thing or that's challenging. Yeah, it's it's crucial, crucial to the longevity of the people that, you know, are in our society. Yeah.

And that's important too. Like you said, like math and science are important to your careers. But I mean, the physical education or like the gym class, I guess you could say, or the movement class is important to your health. And if you're not healthy, it doesn't really matter because maybe you won't be able to go to school because

you're sick all the time. Or maybe you... you know, there's other things that could negatively impact your life that won't, that will maybe not make math and science even important anymore in that regard. You know what I'm saying? So like we need to kind of look at it from more

of like a foundational perspective. And if we don't have that foundation of health with movement being a large piece of that, then the other stuff in school isn't really going to matter either because if you can't take care of yourself, and you can't hold down a job or you can't get a job or you can't make it to your job or whatever the case might be, then what was the point of those? Yeah, can't have a job if you're dead. Take care of yourself. Come on. That was aggressive.

But seriously, you know, people need to take care of themselves physically. And that's like just something that gets thrown to the side, right? Think they mentioned something about mental

health as well. Some people kept saying it Like it was not a quote from somebody at the time of the interview, which would have been afterwards It was somebody during that time maybe even JFK It may have been a quote from JFK was talking about the mental health of the nation being driven by the physical health Yeah, and that was important. Yeah real real quickly you want to interject The title, I think, of his article in Sports Illustrated, JFK's, I believe it was titled Soft

American. I think it was. Yeah. That's so funny. He had to tell it like it was. Yeah, that was a term that people understood back then. Right. Yes. That was that would definitely I don't want to say trigger, but that would definitely like catch people's attention, I think, at that point. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think it. kind of alludes to like, like we said, of that program being more structured and having the discipline to

execute it. And I think you can tell that those individuals developed discipline because they continue to do it for 60 plus years after that. That's, I mean, that's pretty disciplined if you ask me. So, I mean, I think that, I mean, going off the title of the article, I think maybe that needed to be a little bit more of a reality check of we need to be a little bit more disciplined in this area of health and wellbeing because if we're not adding it in a structured way, we

know people aren't going to do it. Right. Yeah. I definitely like the way they had everything set up from the program in itself. I mean, it was structured as we could see. I'm sure I can find this information out there haven't looked to be fair, but I want to know The workout like how was it structured in general, right? Yeah,

what does a warm -up consist of what? Like what was their periodization for everything I saw like some days they would run, you know, like miles I saw like this little agility shuttle they have with the hurdles I thought somebody was gonna jump over the hurdles at one point, but no one did And then oh sweet Is it a PDF?

No, okay. And then another thing is I was wondering towards like the middle of it I was like man, they just spend a lot of time doing like um aerobic work like running miles and stuff but then i saw like court shuttles or like court sprints or something like that which i thought was cool um i found the standards um what we got yeah it didn't i mean it looks like they did a lot of different things i think we were correct with their warm -up was like more the cal uh calisthenics

and i think they always ran every single day at least a mile but then some days they would Also do like the shuttle runs or like the hurdle runs or more of the like. Different type of short sprints. OK, so the. We were also incorrect in the beginning. There is no gold. It was blue and navy blue was the top OK, but no, definitely in the documentary they are wearing gold shorts or yellow. Oh, OK, there were two substandards within the blue level and they were categorized

with purple and gold. Wow, go Lakers. As for the Navy blue trunks, you had to have earned your gold trunks first, so Navy blue was above gold. That makes sense. That makes me feel like. Coach Leproty was in the Navy. Yeah, that makes sense. That just makes me think that he was because he made that the gold standard and there's a lot of blue and gold Mm -hmm. Yeah, it's also

red and white. So maybe it's just America But the Navy blue the ultimate athlete standards Pull -ups 34 got it our dips 52 Okay handstand push -ups 50 Wow alternating one -armed burpees for 30 seconds 26 I saw those in the you saw those in the video. Yeah, crazy. 300 yard shuttle run. Forty seven point five seconds. Forty seven, you said. Mm hmm. Wow. I'm just impressed that they included that in there. Yeah, that's awesome. Let's go. Rope climb 20 feet. Hands only sitting

start two trips. Well, 20 feet up and down two times. Let's go. Agility run 17 seconds. Extension press ups. You saw those, right? Yes, yes, hard. Yeah, that that older gentleman could still do one. Yeah, yeah, just one. Yeah, to 8 inches 100. What was that? It's to 8 like it has to be 8 inches above the ground. Got it, got it. Pegboard vertical five trips. Yep, handstand

45 seconds. Man lift and carry five miles. I think they said that person had to be 10 pounds heavier than you Yeah, or like 10 pounds within your yeah. Yeah, wait, okay mile run 515 Mm -hmm five mile jog finish. So you had to be able to run five miles. I guess complete the opposite obstacle course Swim one mile swim underwater 50 yards Swim any combination of strokes two miles. Execute front hanging float with arms and ankles tied. Six minutes. Stay afloat in

deep water in vertical position. Use of arms and legs permitted within eight feet circles. Two hours. I don't know what that means. But basically, there were only 21 students between 1958 And 1983, who achieved Navy blue trunks. Yeah, yeah. And I believe there's only one woman who ever did that. Yes. And those standards were different. Yeah. But still, I'm sure they were. They were hard. They were rigorous, like the ones you just read. Yeah. So 17 things that they

had to accomplish. And they mentioned if you did XML in a year prior, you had to start all over again if you didn't complete all of them. So if you did 16, but you didn't get the last one, you started zero the next year. No, that's nuts. That's crazy. Yeah. Honestly, it kind of sounds like something Navy SEALs would be subjected to. Yeah. All the water stuff is definitely what

it sounds like. Yeah. But yeah, very hard. But that's why I say a lot of those things, I'm like, Wow, that really reminds me of CrossFit because like the burpees, the handstand push -ups, pull -ups, push -ups, obstacle courses, carrying odd objects, just doing like strange things that you wouldn't necessarily train for if you just

wanted to be strong or look a certain way. They were obviously trained and training just to be able to be fit humans and It sounds like honestly to maybe just like survivability, you know, if you have if one of the a couple of the tests are to hold your breath or to, you know, stand or water for a certain amount of time, that's like survival skills versus let's learn how to be strong and fit. Yeah, to be fair, CrossFit was started by ex -military people. Probably.

Yeah, I think so. But it's definitely a lot of like military vibes and feels for. Yeah. And this obviously the other one because of who created it. But to me, it just reminds me of like sign of the times back in those days, right, where they were, gosh, 20 years off of World War Two.

and in the Cold War, and everyone was probably like, hey, we need to make sure that we stay fit, keeping soldiers fit, because I think ground warfare was still the main warfare, which actually, to be honest, I think it still is the main warfare. But just making sure that people were up to the standard that had won them, you know, previous wars. So I think that's a lot of the motivation. behind some of those things that they did because Coach Leprady may have done them when he was

in what we assume was the Navy SEALs. We don't know. It's just based on the information we have, we're just drawing that conclusion. So, yeah, I think there's so many interesting military ties to like what we're talking about with these fitness standards. And just to be generally. Nothing specific right and not a ton of stuff, you know over body weight Which I don't think anything you mentioned was over body weight,

right? Which is kind of the the mindset of training and just to be off of the ancient Greek Philosophy of the whole human. I think that's what it was the whole human thing just to be you know, well -rounded, able to do a lot of different things. And I guess that explains like being fit. Yeah. I think the only thing that would be over body weight is the five mile carry, but everything else, your body weight and someone else's. Right. But even that just, just reads rock march to

me, you know? Yes. So. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. But I think all in all, One thing to take away from that is just the importance of physical activity and not just sports. Like yes, sports are important, but you know, training these other areas of just like overall fitness, plyometrics. They did a lot or the more recent programs. I think it was in Prescott. Elementary slash middle

school. It was not high school. It was younger but of like teaching kids how to like jump and land and these calisthenics and having just like an organized physical activity center throughout the day so that kids aren't sitting all day and obviously they did mention to it it obviously depends on the coaches and the teachers that you have it's not not any any gym coach or any gym teacher or coach off the street could run a program like that successfully but i think

it's important to maybe you know. invest time in that and invest in incorporating these programs into school and then invest in either like training or finding teachers and coaches that are passionate about it and want to implement it and they want and want it to succeed and will execute it in the way that is going to help these kids learn

how to love to be healthy again. Agreed. I think that's one of the main things is just to love being healthy and like enjoying your life also the fact of You're gonna gain community from that and that's important to incorporate a lot of different people from various backgrounds into Just a community that's about Being physically fit or being healthy. Let's just say being healthy. It's not about anything else, right? It's not about like In essence, it's not about beating

you. It's not about like, you know, winning against another thing. It's just about you yourself being healthy around other people who are also trying to be healthy. Right. And so having some self -confidence and then having building some like social community and skills in the process. So I liked it. I thought it was a good documentary. I definitely think people should, you know, Go watch it. Give it a listen. See, see the things

that everyone was doing back then. Yeah. I also think that it was great that they finally opened it up to the girls. Yes. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm sure their focus was to start in one area, which, you know, back then I don't think it was as inclusive as things are now, but I think it

was great. I also wonder because they they did say like it wasn't that girls didn't have access to gym class but it was it was different in that theirs was more sports based but I do wonder if that like military component comes in of like that training had more of the purpose of like if there's another war and we these kids get drafted then we want to make sure that they're prepared to stay alive whereas at that time women didn't need to worry about that. So I wonder

if that played a role in that as well. Yeah, I think it could have, you know, but man, I was I really hope that they would think about the last time that happened and women had to go had to go do like these manual labor jobs. Right. And then that should just be a thing that we

open up to everybody. Right. Because if it happens for the men who get drafted, well, you're going to have the same situation where the the women who didn't get drafted are going to have to do all of the normal, you know, operations, you know, that happened. So yeah, but yeah, you're right. They did have that model for girls at the time that was like play sports to get fit,

not get fit and then play sports. Right. Which they talked they talked about was not the focus of the boys in that program, which I think that's great, too, because We see that model a lot with youth sports as well, where kids are just playing sports, overuse, injuries happen, right? And they're not just, they're not well -rounded with

their training. So yeah. Yeah. So a good lesson of, of like holistically, yes, sports are important, but just holistic movement of, you know, being fast, being strong, being agile, being powerful, having all of those, being able to change direction quickly and efficiently, all those things that you, Dak, talk about a lot are important. And it's not only important for kids that play sports, but it's important for everybody just to be healthy,

avoid injury. or longevity. And then also just looking at the other positive benefits of doing better in school, having more energy, having more focus, maybe just having like a more positive and a better outlook on life. So that correlates to like less trouble or getting into getting into less trouble or just being a better human. So a lot of positives coming out of that and

just was very interesting. So I think that Hopefully more people watch it and hopefully that becomes more of a priority for schools in the near future. Yeah, movement is medicine people, not just from a like joints and muscles perspective, but also for your mental health. So make sure you're moving, you know, move as much as you can, even if it's just 15 minutes a day, you know, just get out and move, go take a walk outside somewhere, you know, stop being inside and sitting the whole

time. One thing I think was ironic is I sat during that entire documentary and I felt so bad about it. Just at the halfway point, I was like, this is not good. This is not what they want. But definitely everyone go check out the documentary. It was great. The motivation factor. You can find it on YouTube. Amazon Prime is where I watched it. Apple TV. Yeah. Rent it for $2 .99 in standard definition like I did. Yeah, so that was awesome. I hope you guys go check it out. Also, don't

forget to go follow us on Instagram. And yeah, like, subscribe to our podcast channel, listen in every week. Every other week, we talk about all different types of stuff, youth sports, cover some documentaries that are in the health and fitness realm. So thanks, everybody. We will catch you on the next one. See ya.