Why I am never doing the ‘Pete & Bobby Challenge’

A terrifying thing appeared on my Twitter feed this morning. Secretary of Health and Human Services and bear-fighter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that he’s “teamed up” with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for the “Pete & Bobby Challenge.” This, unfortunately, is a fitness challenge. Even more unfortunately, it involves doing 100 push-ups and 50 pull-ups. Most unfortunately of all, they want us to do it all in five minutes or less.

You might take heart that in the gym-based, sweat-soaked motivational video that accompanies the Tweet, RFK Jr. takes a whole five minutes and 25 seconds to complete this challenge. However, keep in mind that he’s in his seventies, and does the entire challenge in jeans. SecDef Pete, who, if he’s an alcoholic, is the healthiest alcoholic who’s ever lived, completes the under-five-minutes no problem, doing pull-ups like he’s God playing games with dice.

The odds that I’m going to do this challenge are equal to the odds that I’ll take up needlepoint, start liking mayonnaise, or watch an episode of Virgin River: Zero. I’m all for health and fitness, but this version of Bowflex America isn’t for me. My US passport doesn’t mean I need to crawl through mud like a Marine. I’m the one the Marines are supposed to be defending.

I preferred a previous generation’s fitness plan: Michelle Obama’s program of growing your vegetables and engaging in some peppy light multicultural Sesame Street dancing. I mean, I didn’t do that, either; I had a reputation as America’s coolest dad to protect. But it was more accessible than RFK’s roided-out brotastic exercise nightmare.

It’s a matter of exercise perspective. I don’t treat my life like a high-intensity interval. I treat my body like I treat my barbecue: low and slow, with the occasional wet rub. The latter part means I enjoy a good schvitz. Get your mind out of the sewer.

My fitness program is this: 30 to 45 minutes of low-to-moderate intensity yoga at least five teams a week, and at least a half hour of at least semi-brisk walking a day. And I don’t eat every meal like someone just dumped a barrel of fried chicken tenders into a trough. It might not seem like a lot, and I don’t exactly look imposing, but when I have to duck under a rope in airport security, walk up four flights of stairs, or hump for miles around Chicago with a 30-pound suitcase on my back (which happened last weekend, for reasons that I’ll tell you at dreary length if I see you sometime), I can do it without collapsing.

I’m all for a renewed Presidential Fitness challenge, and can get behind the MAHA healthy eating program. But I reject this idea of treating life as though it were Basic Training that we must complete every day. The goal should be to get through your routine with minimal stress and strain. They call it Functional Fitness, and unless you are an Olympian, a professional surfer, (or, apparently, a Cabinet member), it’s all you need.

I treat every day of my life like I’m recovering from a medium-intensity injury or a mild illness. Sure enough, it helps prevent medium intensity injuries and mild illness. I can hold a five-minute plank without even trying, but it’s not because I’m jacked. It’s because I do light, boring, mild exercise every day. My abs aren’t a six-pack, but a solid pony keg in the middle will do the job as well.

Whose fitness example would you follow: RFK Jr. and SecDef Pete, who look like they’re training to defend Thermopylae against the armies of Xerxes, or President Trump? That man is 79 years old, and his fitness routine involves a weekend round of golf and furious midnight thumb-typing. You can do it, America. It’s an achievable goal.