Burnley Grammar School

Andrew, no doubt your girls would have loved to see you all shirtless in gym! We used to hang around longer then we needed to in order to see which boys were stripping their shirts off,until the teacher yelled at us to get a move on.Often we could sometimes find a way to sneak back and watch them. I did notice as time went on most of the boys overcame their shyness and did enjoy the attention the girls were paying to their bare chests.

Andrew,
I know some people won’t agree but I think that girls eyeing up lads doing PE shirtless makes a good case for single sex Senior Schools. Confident lads might be happy showing off in front of girls but other lads might feel embarrassed being barechested with girls watching them.

A shirtless PE kit rule makes a lot of sense but lads need to become confident with their physical appearance; they can gain this confidence better without girls watching and commenting on their appearance whilst they are developing as teenagers.

Claire, I also remember our girls being curious about boys not wearing tops. While indoors we went barechest and they couldnt see but they did know, but outdoors its was optional. More precisely not optional but not our official kit, but teachers turned a blind eye to anyone doing it and the girls did appear to like gossiping about who did this based on any glimpses they might get or information from other boys.

Regarding the last message and prudish , I read in the newspaper that an elderly lady has been told not to wear her bikini in her garden because children in a nearby nursery can see her sunbathing!!! Parents have objected!!! What will any of the parents do if they go on holiday and people are in swim wear including bikinis.

Speaking as a female, I don't think most girls mind when young guys go topless! I think athletecism and self confidence is very attractive in guys (and girls) I just love to see the body and muscles hard at work in motion. So getting to see boys stripped to the waist for the first time at school was a real eye-opening experience.It was at the beginning of one particular year in secondary school we had a new PE teacher that year and on the first lesson it was promptly announced that as part of a new programme to improve students overall fitness level, girls and boys would be split up every class from now on for different activities with the boys group focusing on more intensive gym workouts and sports. It was also added that moving forward, the boys should also be prepared to remove their shirts in certain activities. There was a murmur of surprise among the boys as well as quite a bit of chatter from us girls.Of course our minds immediately went to which boys' bare chests we fancied having a look at! Having heard from boys in other classes that they did in fact have to go shirtless, some of the girls seemed to grow more excitable as the week went on and they took pleasure in teasing and reminding the boys that they'd soon have to strip for us! There was eager discussion about which boys we looked forward to seeing shirtless.Sure enough when the anticipated day came, we were split off from the boys and then they were split up again into seperate teams for basketball with one group of boys taking off their shirts for the skins team much to our pleasure! Sadly we could not enjoy the view for long as we were hustled off elsewhere for our own games. Still from then on I enjoyed every chance we got to watch the boys in PE, more often than not there would be half or more running about stripped to the waist and drenched with sweat. I do remember looking at their bare chests with admiration and abit of envy too, wishing we could strip off as well but of course it was frowned upon then as it would be today. I wish people nowadays(of both genders) would overcome such prudishness and let young people exercise in as much or as little as they choose.They do need as much incentive to stay in shape as possible as it is without silly clothing restrictions!

Hi Fiona, The females had t-shirts over their bras. There were around 4 who said they were fine stripping to a bra, the other 3 were definitely sheepish and remained silent. I'm aware there are those who'd love to give it a real go, given a choice. It's highly unlikely it will ever happen but they all seemed happy it was our group being made to strip off outside on a freezing cold afternoon!

Jordan,
I didn’t like having to strip to the waist for PE at first but soon got used to it and then preferred not having to wear a top. It’s better and fairer to play skins vs skins and give lads different coloured bibs to wear, a lot of lads don’t like being selected to be a skin and having to take off their shirt. If all lads are skins it helps lads to become more body confident and is a far more comfortable way to exercise. Cross country running is also more enjoyable shirtless.

Thanks for your reply Bradley S, that's interesting to know. As I said, I didn't honestly enjoy my single experience of running topless, but I might have felt differently if that had been a regular thing and I'd had to get used to it. In a way, it also seems more fair if every boy had to wear the same kit as opposed to vests against skins - where obviously some boys wore a different kit to others. What did you and others who experienced both feel - was it a better system for everyone to be skins?

Bradley S - did the females in your group ever strip down to their bras, either voluntarily or because they were told to? That would have been less discriminatory.

I always felt skins teams bonded better as each team member was equal and if you weren't sweating you weren't trying hard enough.

Hi TomS We had 7 females in our selection group and they did their physical exercise away from us. It didn't stop them getting a great view of our group when we were told to strip to the waist. It really gave them a good laugh.

Hi TomS We had 7 females in our selection group and they did their physical exercise away from us. It didn't stop them getting a great view of our group when we were told to strip to the waist. It really gave them a good laugh.

Hi Jordan, at school we all did x country without a vest on. In the TA we did quite a few runs on MOD land. They were always timed. Being stripped off always gave an extra edge to prove yourself.

Robert,very similar comments were posted by 'Eric' on 11/08/2018 and read in disbelief. I also remember reading comments about the bush. I certainly want it to be known that I have no connection with the writers of these posts. The great majority of us who contribute truthfully recall our life experiences for the interest of younger readers to tell them how times have changed since we were young.

I agree with Robert regarding running shirtless for not damaging your clothes. Technical clothes are not so cheap so it is a pity damaging it. Moreover, when I run near my home, there are a lot of puddles full of mud and each time I went there with a shirt, it was difficult to clean it completely. So I made a decision, I run shirtless everywhere I could dirty my shirt. If you think about it, it si simplier to clean yourself than a shirt, especially if you pass in fields. My chest becomes always very dirty, but I prefer to run with a dirty chest rather than a dirty shirt

Hi Jordan, reading your question have made me remember one day when I run shirtless in rain, but it wasn’t only rain. One time we were doing PE and we were playing football at sea. It was winter and we were with a vest because there were around 35/38 F. degrees. One of my friend made my a strong foul and I reacted so that teacher order me to take off my shirt and to play without it as a punishment. It was very cold but I was used to it because sometimes I run in snow bare chested. The problem was that I threw her my shirt so that she got very angry and said: “ok if you don’t want to go to the headmaster for this, just go into the sea” I was frozen, without a shirt and it also started raining, in fact my classmates went to repare under a palm, but I had to do this thing to avoid the headmaster so I entered in the sea and remained there for some minutes. When I came out she didn’t give me back my shirt so that I was shirtless with pouring rain on my chest and I couldn’t warm in any way... unluckily I reacted another time to the teacher so after we went back to school on foot, obviously I was still shirtless under rain, she said ok we must continue. She said ok I put your shirt in your class but you’ll go back school after other 2 hours of excericises. She let me run for other 10 kilometer in a park near school. It was very muddy and my chest got dirty. Then she let me made a lot of push ups near puddles so that I can got more dirty. At the end of the punishment, which lasted 3 hours, she said “ok you’re tough, you can go back school on foot, I’ll go back by car because there are 5 kilometres”... the last 5 kilometers I was too tired, it stopped raining but it started hailing and my chest was covered in mud, grass, water and other dirty things.. at the end I discovered that it wasn’t only a punishment because she also gave me 10 which is the maximum vote so that all this effort was paid.. moreover it was very exciting too and I think that in the future I could do this thing another time, maybe even more tough. In fact, nowadays when I go out running, near my home there is a wonderful road where to run but to reach it, I have to pass inside an enormous bush, and each time my shirt was damaged. But after that experience I said “no, if I resisted to what my teacher made to me, I’m able to pass inside that without a shirt”. So now I solved the problem of damaging shirts, even though sometimes I hurt my chest.

Bradley S - just to be clear, were you running without a vest in the rain during PE or in your TA days?
I wondered because I was once made to do a run at school without my vest. Fortunately it wasn't raining but it certainly wasn't all that warm either!
Although I was used to vests v skins in the gym, which we did from ages 11-16, that was the only time I had to be a skin out of doors.

Ben, We found running without a vest in the rain more than helped getting used to cold showers.

BradleyS - interesting to hear your TA experiences, very similar to my own. Yes, the TA were strict regarding the kit-list. And, when I joined up in 2000, they'd only recently relaxed the rules on women joining front-line infantry roles. On my selection weekend, there were two women amongst 40 or so blokes, and they did a lot of the physical tests separate to the men. I'd be interested to know whether that's still the case.

But yes, that weekend was one big sweat-fest from the very start to the very end. Good fun, mind!

Ben,

You're quite right - we got used to cold showers very quickly and they made sense. At the end of p.e. lessons we were usually very hot and sweaty so a cold shower was perfect for cooling down. Sometimes in the winter we might have wished for less cold water after a cross country run or football outside but generally we were happy enough.

John,

You got used to cold showers quite quickly! For anyone not fully under the spray, thoroughly wet and washed there was a plimsoll waiting to warm up their bottom and they were sent straight back in. I still have a cold one after my gym sessions these days and still enjoy it but it's not to everyone's taste.

As for towel dancers, well do they know how silly they look!

Ben,
I would have been happy with the PE kit rules at your school, the only thing that I wouldn’t have liked were the cold showers that you had to endure.

I’ve always thought that the towel dance that some guys do in changing rooms is just so ridiculous, we always showered naked communally after sports at school and lads didn’t try to cover up whilst getting changed.

When I see younger guys today at my gym I'm glad I'm more comfortable in my skin than some of them seem to be these days.

I was a 60's grammar school boy and remember many sessions in the gym like the one in the pic, wearing only shorts and plimsolls. It was the same running outside in fact the only top we had in our kit was for rugby and that's the only time you wore anything more than a coloured bib which the school provided for team games. Most of the time it was just stripped to the waist.

Underpants were not worn with PE shorts and showers were compulsory and usually icy cold. At home I shared a room with two brothers so stripping in front of other lads was not something that bothered me especially after the first time.

I went on to join the navy where there wasn't much privacy either and communal showers were the norm and they were usually pretty sociable places where there was plenty of banter.

These days I still go to the gym several times a week. The age group of those I see is anything from eighteen to ninety (he's a great old guy and I hope I stay as fit!). There isn't much awkwardness at least that I see but there are a few lads who dance in their towels to get their underpants on and off. I always wonder why when the showers are communal.

Most guys take off their underpants when changing and are commando just as we used to have to be under their shorts. Showers are communal but at least they're also warm unlike school and I think almost every guy uses them. Showers are pretty sociable too and there's usually some good chat goes on in there.

Jacob,
I think you’re absolutely right that most lads would benefit from a standard PE kit of shorts and footwear, with no top permitted. It should be possible for schools to have enough bibs to differentiate when team games are played. Some schools used to divide lads into houses for sports and each house would wear different coloured shorts, so shirts are not necessary.

Bradley S, so much of what you wrote rings true with my own experiences.

I never did PE in skins until I was 14. The reason was that at that stage they rejigged all the classes into 'sets' depending on which subjects you were taking at GCSE and that meant PE involved larger groups of boys (it was an all boys school, by the way).

All of a sudden when we did team sports like football or basketball there weren't enough different coloured bibs to go round for each team. I don't know why that hadn't occurred to anyone! So after a quick head count the PE teacher announced that one of the teams would have to be skins and selected a group of boys, including me, to take their vests off.

Aside from swimming, it was the first time I'd ever had to do any sport with no top on and, like many teenage boys, I was quite shy and insecure about my body. I felt really uncomfortable and self conscious being stripped to the waist when the vast majority of my classmates kept their vests on, so it was a big relief when the lesson was over.

A couple of days later was our next PE lesson and I started feeling nervous again - with good reason. The teacher divided us into teams and, to my horror and disbelief, I was picked to be a skin again! So while most of the other lads sprinted off to collect their bibs, I found myself reluctantly taking my vest off, wondering if every PE lesson would be like this from now on. It wasn't, of course, but at the time it did feel as if I had to do it in skins more often than not.

Anyway, looking back more than 20 years later, I agree with much of what Bradley said earlier.

Yes, being a skin did force me outside my comfort zone and I probably needed that as part of my development. I continued doing compulsory PE until I was 16 and by then I had grown in confidence - not just being more confident about my body, but generally as well.

Being a skin probably encouraged me to work harder at PE and my overall fitness because I wanted my body to look good. That in turn made me more inclined to strip to the waist for exercise or sports in my adult life.

With that said, I would definitely have found it easier if I'd got used to being a skin at a younger age. By 14 I had body anxieties and insecurity which may not have been there if I'd been required to strip to the waist a few years earlier.

It would also have worked better if every boy had been in skins, instead of just a few. The whole point of any uniform is that it's the same for everyone whereas, in those early weeks, it felt almost as if I was being singled out and made to take my vest off.

I can't imagine schools would go down this road nowadays but it would probably benefit boys in the long run if their standard PE uniform comprised just shorts and footwear, with no top permitted. Then as long as they stock sufficient coloured bibs for team sports, it should all work fine!

Just an observation. apart from P E in schools there seems to be two methods of dress for males for the summer. There are the young men who seem to be covered up and do not expose any skin and at the other end of the scale there are those who walk around with trousers have way down there backside "advertising" their preferred brand of underwear

Bradley S,
Whenever the PE teacher wanted us to play team games I would always be picked to play on the skins team. We were all lined up and he decided even no’s shirts and odd no’s skins so I wasn’t deliberately picked out. I didn’t like it at first especially if there were any girls watching us as we stripped to the waist, I was quite skinny and lacked confidence in my appearance. As I got stockier in my teens I was happy for girls to see me shirtless.

After a while I got to enjoy being on the skins team, we worked together and the camaraderie amongst the lads was good. I think all lads could have been stripped to the waist and coloured bibs provided to distinguish teams.

Like you I started being made to do PE stripped to the waist from age 9 and at first I felt quite self conscious; I don’t see why lads shouldn’t have been made to do PE shirtless from entering school. The lads that didn’t like the new shirtless policy only disliked it at first because it was new to them, there’s no reason why lads should have to wear shirts for PE anyway. Girls don’t mind doing PE alongside shirtless lads.

TomS I completely agree with your comments. Though our PE/Games lessons were always done in "skins vs vests" for everything regardless of the weather or time of year.

Along with a couple of other boys we were picked by the teachers to strip off for nearly all the lessons, no idea why but I wasn't fazed by exercising topless but would like to have known why I was always bare chested. Did anyone find that some lads were picked to strip off more than others?

One thing is for certain the earlier boys start stripping to the waist the better. I was first made to strip to the waist when I started at middle school as a 9yr old and continued throughout the high school until leaving at 18.

I too remember my TA selection weekend. I'd received a letter about what to bring for PT. There was to be no t-shirts just vests.

Half the group breathed an inaudible sigh of relief at not having to go topless outside on a cold, wet and miserable day. Our group were given the honour of stripping off for a grueling PT session. Being topless outside in such weather proved too much for some who later quit. We did a second session in the gym with both groups stripped to the waist.. sweatfest.

We did the same football tournament match with skins beating vests 4-3

Our regiment preferred we exercise as skins. When they first came into the regiment they were asked if they objected to males going topless.. Oddly enough they didn't mind and it was never a problem. Only when there were 10 females on the books were we told to wear vests or t-shirt.

My feelings are that anything that maybe classed as "masculine" is frowned at in the UK.

There really is nothing wrong with boys being stripped to the waist to workout and be pushed to have sweat showing on your upper body.

It may take you somewhat out of your comfort zone but it brings positive results and greatly reduces the risk of "image" problems.

When will people come to their senses and allow boys to become young men again. Doing PE as skins should be a a right of passage.

I believe that stripping boys to the waist at school would also instil a dose of discipline and some respect for each other.

I'd like to hear others views, especially from the female posters as to how they view boys/men stripping off to the waist.

Philip re your comments on forced showers. I left school like you over 30 years ago but i honestly cant see why expecting people to shower after playing sport is a bad thing. We used to play rugby and football and often were filthy afterwards, how can it be sensible, hygienic etc not to wash before getting dressed. At my gym where we have open showers guys of all ages from boys to old men shower after doing sport. I think it is a good to insist on cleanliness.

John - it was my third year at secondary school when our PE teacher gathered us together before the forst PE session of the new term to break the news that, henceforth, PE was going to be topless. His argument was that it was widely agreed to be healthier and more comfortable to wear as little as possible when exercising vigourously, and that loosly-fitting PE tops had been known to get caught on apparatus and cause accidents. For these reasons, therefore, tops of any kind would no longer be worn for indoors PE, but would be optional for outdoors activities.

This news was greeted with pleasant anticipation (by most of us), with apprehension (by the remaining few) and with annoyance by those parents who had splashed out on new PE tops over the summer holiday, only to find them immediately redundant. I think we were all a bit wary of the unfamiliar freedom of toplessness for the first few classes, despite us all wearing noticeably more than we wuld have worn at the beach or the swimming pool, but within a couple of weeks, comfort and practicality prevailed, and toplessness in the gym rapidly became taken for granted.

Up until then, our PE kit had been pretty conventional, black shorts and white t-shirt style top, although in practice any top sufficed, as long as it was white. Since kids gnerally wore underwear vests year-round in those days, most of us just took off our school ties, shirts and trousers, put on our shorts, and there we were, all kitted out. An unintended, but inevitable, consequence of the new regime was that instead of me and my mates going to school wearing vests under our shirts, taking them off for PE and putting them back on afterwards, it soon became fashionable to leave our vests off when getting dressed after the class. From here, it was just a short step to not bother to wear a vest on on PE days, and a further, shorter, step to giving up vests altogether.