Home gymnastics : for health and strength

Preface

TO THE THIRD EDITION.

This little volume, issued in the first instance with some diffidence, has fully justified its existence by the favour with which it has been received, and by the lively interest which it has assisted to create in what may be termed Hygienic Gymnastics. Though it has now several rivals in the same field, it still holds its own, and continues to be accepted as a sound practical guide on the homely but important subject with which it deals.

Many readers, we find, have not been content to stop short with the gift of Health, which was all the book specifically offered, but finding their muscles harden and their chests expand under the simple regimen here indicated, have tried another exercise, and yet another — a little harder work, and a few more times repeated — with the result that they have, after a year or so of steady iv PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

perseverance, found themselves athletes, almost without being aware of it. To such we would say “ Continue.” Strength, not of a single muscle, but equally shared by the whole frame, is Health in the highest degree, and any moderate sacrifice of ease or leisure is well expended to obtain it.

The demand for a third edition has enabled the author to bring his teaching more fully up to date, notably by the addition of a chapter on the handy Rubber Exercisers which have of late become so popular.

PREFACE

TO THE FIRST EDITION.

This little book is the outcome of a personal experience. The writer has on several occasions found himself in the condition popularly known as “ below par,” neither mental nor physical powers reaching their proper level. Medical advisers were agreed as to the cause — the too sedentary conditions of a literary life — but none of the remedies suggested gave more than temporary relief. Finally, however, a medical friend, who had made a study of such cases, indicated a course of treatment, the chief element of which was a daily half-hour employed in certain special dumb-bell exercises. The prescription proved so marvellously effective as to suggest, in the interest of others, the desirability of acquiring a closer acquaintance, theoretical and practical, with the subject of Home Gymnastics, and this little volume is the result.

Of works on Gymnastics there is no lack, but their authors, as a rule, devote their space to the

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PREFACE more showy feats performed with the aid of fixed apparatus, and either ignore or dismiss with a few curt pages the homelier exercises with dumb-bells, pulley - weights, &c. The latter, however, have in truth a far wider application, and consequently higher value. The feats of the gymnasium can only be practised in the gymnasium ; a most serious limitation of their usefulness. They are only suitable for young and vigorous persons, and demand for the most part an amount of skill as well as strength, only to be acquired by an arduous course of training. The exercises described in this book may be practised in any home. They may be used, with slight and obvious modifications, by any one ; man, woman, or child. The weak will become strong, and the strong stronger by their use ; but developed muscle is the smallest of their gifts. Healthier appetite for food, sweeter sleep and brighter waking hours, greater vigour for work or play, in a word, keener all-round enjoyment of life, will be the sure reward of anyone who will fairly test and persevere in the exercises here recommended.

Introduction

“The first Wealth,” says Emerson, is “Health.” Certain is it that, lacking health, all other wealth is but of little value. Unfortunately, the two kinds of wealth by no means always go together ; indeed, it is a constant experience to find the man best furnished with worldly comforts, least able, for lack of health, to enjoy them. The daintiest dishes have no relish for his feeble appetite, and even the plainest food renders him a victim to dyspeptic tortures. He is flabby, puffy, scant of breath ; the smallest exertion is a toil to him ; he travels through life in a condition of chronic weariness, and is fortunate if he escape the added pains of gout.

Nor is the millionaire the only sufferer : the same ailments, varying in degree, are the curse of thousands of middle-class men in every great city. The lawyer in his chambers, the merchant in his

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office, the literary man at his desk, are all more or less victims of the same tormenting demon, a demon of many aliases, but whose most approved name is Nervous Exhaustion. Some fly to delusive “ tonics,” others to still more delusive “ nips,” which only aggravate the evil they are designed to cure. “ When the overworked man of business, having been on his legs all day, and feeling fit to drop, with a sensation of ‘ all-goneness ’ about the region of the stomach, rouses himself with whatever he may be in the habit of taking, be it whisky, champagne, or even tea or coffee, he does not add one atom of force to his stock of energy, but having put to sleep his sense of weariness, simply appropriates some of his reserve for the present necessity. He has accepted a bill at short date to which a ruinous rate of interest is attached, and his resources will not allow him to make many repetitions of the experiment. His account at the bank of life will soon be overdrawn. Alcohol cannot add one iota to his reserve of nervous energy, though it may delude him into exhausting it.”* Medicinal “pick-me-ups” are only less injurious as being less seductive to the palate, and less constantly available. Even where taken under the advice of a medical man,

* Health Troubles of City Life , by George Herschell, M.D. (Swan, Sonnenschein & Co.) An admirable little work, well worthy the attentive perusal of all brain-workers.

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they give but passing relief, and the often prescribed fortnights rest, or trip to the seaside, is in like manner only temporarily effective, the return to the “ mill ” being followed, sooner or later, by a recurrence of the old symptoms.

The first step towards finding a remedy for this quasi-invalidism is obviously to discover its causes. These doubtless vary more or less. Over-work, and still more, over-worry, yearly slays its thousands ; but there is a wide margin of cases (indeed, the far larger number,) in which neither of these explanations is admissible. Men in the prime of life, in assured financial and social positions, and working solely at their own pleasure ; — ladies of fashion, with little or nothing to do, and only self-created worries, — are still found to be victims of the nervous exhaustion plague. What is the common element in such cases ? Nine times out of ten it will be found that the cause of the evil can be stated in three words, — Insufficient Bodily Exercise.

It is only within the last few years that even medical men have begun to realise, in a practical sense, that sufficiency of bodily exercise is a primary condition of healthy life. Theoretically the fact has long been admitted. The great Sydenham, the father of English Medicine, writing in the seventeenth century, says, “ If Exercise be omitted, all the remedies which have hitherto been discovered will not at all avail/’ With his dying breath he enforced the same lesson. “ I am content to die,” he said, “ since I leave behind me three great physicians, Air, Water, and Exercise.” Abernethy used in like manner to say that the only remedies for nervous diseases were air and exercise. Fuller, the author of the Medicina Gymnastica (1705), a book which passed through nine editions, says, “ Exercise is to physic, as bandage is to surgery, an assistance, or medium without which many other administrations, though never so noble, will not succeed. It is a kind of reserve, but yet of that efficacy that the thing you most depend upon, though in itself very powerful, may yet receive its derniere puissance from this reserve. And to this it is, that we must undoubtedly attribute the wonderful success that the ancients had in their curing with such indifferent materials as their pharmacy afforded them.” Equally eminent authorities in every generation have testified to the same effect. But all medical men are not equally honest ; and when they do speak the truth, the public do not always take it to heart. A recent writer, Dr. Oscar Jennings,* puts the medical man’s side of the matter very fairly : “ It is indisputable,” he says, “ that

* Cycling and. Healthy by Oscar Jennings, M.D. Iliffe & Son.

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exercise and regimen are but too rarely insisted upon by physicians, which is the more surprising now that the benefits of the various forms of al) athletic exercises in the education of the young are universally recognised. The explanation seems simple, however. To-day, when money is supreme, when even “time is money,” and every hour is counted, people insist on being treated tuto , cito et jzicunde, that is, with the least possible trouble to themselves. From necessity, doctors are compelled to fulfil these conditions. Invalids demand sedatives for their nerves, provocatives for their appetites, and narcotics to secure sleep, and they are practically compelled to order the fashionable remedies of the day.

In a vague kind of a way every one knows that exercise is necessary for the maintenance of health — that exercise and diet may be employed as a means of treatment ; and they are often prescribed in an indifferent kind of a way, by medical men. But notwithstanding the fact that half the chronic diseases from which we suffer are absolutely and wholly curable by exercise and diet, there is not one physician in a hundred who preaches this truth to his patients. I say ‘ preach ,’ because in this matter an off-hand counsel is generally useless. Patients are so accustomed to expect health from physic, that it is necessary to preach and persuade them to the contrary.

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I have then no hesitation in preaching, that the great majority of those who lead miserable lives in consequence of nervous prostration, insomnia, neuralgia, gout in its innumerable manifestations, rheumatism, liver diseases, diabetes, and a host of other troubles, and who pass most of their time in consulting and doctoring, might by the proper use of diet and exercise, be restored to perfect health.

“The chief reason why medical men do not insist on this point sufficiently is that the honest enthusiasm for the ideal in medicine is soon blunted by the immeasurable stupidity and injustice of the public in matters of this kind. The man who has fifty times told an anxious mother that no medicine whatever is required, say, for chicken-pox, and who has seen his patients snapped up regularly by a smarter practitioner who shrugged his shoulders indulgently, and prescribed some pink water, finally realises that pink water is the best policy ; and although a young practitioner with a head full of science may begin life by recommending temperance and sobriety to the over-fed dyspeptic, he soon learns that if he is to live by his practice he had much better lose no time and order blue pill. Populus vult decipi

So outspoken a statement by a member of the medical profession should be taken to heart by every thoughtful reader. It is at once a forcible

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testimony to the value of nature’s remedies, and a scathing rebuke to those who reject them. The public, unfortunately, do not always hear such plain speaking, though any one even slightly acquainted with the books written by medical men for medical men could quote scores of similar passages.

On the broad question, however, of the value of exercise as a remedial agent, the case does not rest upon mere professional opinion, however eminent, but is demonstrable to any one who will take the trouble to look into it. One of the latest contributions to the literature of the subject is a work entitled The Physiology of Bodily Exercise f by an eminent F rench writer, Dr. Lagrange ; a treatise in which the scientific aspect of the matter is exhaustively dealt with, and to which we are in a great degree indebted for the facts and propositions set forth in the following chapter.

* International Scientific Series. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.

Chapter II. The Physiology Of Exercise

The immediate agents in the movements of the body are the muscles ; bundles of reddish fibres which form the fleshy masses surrounding the different parts of the skeleton. These bundles are usually of an elongated shape, tapering downwards from the centre, ai}d terminating at either end in a tendon attached to a bone. Every muscle possesses the property of contracting, and when it contracts it exercises more or less tension on the bones to which it is attached. In shortening, it grows larger, particularly towards the centre, as would a stretched mass of india-rubber of similar shape on reverting to its former condition.

The necessary impulse is given to the muscle by the Will, conveyed through the medium of the nerves. The quality which causes the muscle to answer to such impulse is known as its irritability. The majority of muscles, or sets of muscles, are in pairs, so to speak, the one having the precisely opposite action to that of the other.

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Thus the muscles which bend a limb, known as flexors, are balanced on the opposite side of it by others which straighten it, known as extensors , and these two sets of muscles are relatively said to be antagonistic. To preserve due harmony of shape, strength and activity, both sets should receive equal employment. Each such set of muscles forms a check upon the other, and their due co-ordination is necessary to precise and easy movement. In some instances such co-ordination is instinctive ; in others (as in the case of the pianist, bringing down his fingers in rapid succession on precisely the right keys) it is only acquired by long habit and practice. Perfect co-ordination is the foundation of grace and dexterity ; the lack if it produces clumsiness and awkwardness.

Whether a given movement be well or ill-performed, the mere fact of such movement of necessity gives rise to certain chemical phenomena within the body. The circulation is quickened ; in other words the blood flows with greater rapidity, and this not merely through the substance of the particular muscle used, but in a modified degree through the whole of the circulatory system. “It is a vital law,” says Lagrange, “ that every organ in activity draws towards it a greater quantity of nutrient fluid than it does when in a state of repose.” It is equally a law that “ the nutrition of an organ is in proportion to the quantity of blood

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which passes through it ; ” hence the fact, familiar to all, that the limb which does the largest share of work — the. arm of the blacksmith, the leg of the pedestrian, — is more fully developed than the other members of the same body, or the corresponding members in persons of different occupation.

But this local development is only one of the salutary effects of exercise. The increased demand of the active organ causes, as we have seen, greater activity in the whole of the circulatory system. Nor is the heart alone concerned. A greater volume of blood being driven to the lung, this organ in turn becomes more active. A fuller supply of oxygen is drawn into the system, and, under the new impulse thus imparted, those mysterious processes of combustion on which our life depends are made more rapid and more complete.

For there is a strange phoenix-like process perpetually at work in the human body. In the words of the late Archibald Maclaren, the pioneer of scientific gymnastics in England : — “ Our material frame is comprised of innumerable atoms, and each separate and individual atom has its birth, life, and death, and then its removal from the place of the living. Thus there is going on a continuous process of decay and death among the individual atoms which make up each tissue. Each atom preserves its vitality for a limited space only, is then separated from the tissue of

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1 1 which it has formed a part, and is resolved into its inorganic elements, to be in due course eliminated from the body by the organs of excretion. These processes are greatly influenced by the activity of the bodily functions. Every operation of the muscles or nerves involves the disintegration and death of a certain part of their substance. We cannot lift a finger, we cannot perform the slightest movement, without causing a change in certain of the atoms which compose the muscles executing the movement, in those of the nerves conveying the stimulus which directed them to contract, and in those composing the nerve-centres in which the stimulus originates, — and this change involves their decay and death.

“ The loss then of the body, and of each part of the body, being in relation to its activity, a second process is necessary to replace the loss, otherwise it would rapidly diminish in size and strength, and life itself would shortly cease. This reparative process is performed by the nutritive system, the organs of which convert our food into blood — liquid flesh ( chair coulante) as it has been called — which in itself contains, and in its never-ending circulation bears to each tissue, the material for the replacement of all waste and for the building-up of all additions. And as this material is borne along through channels permeating every part of the organism, each part, by a

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law incomprehensible but unerring, selects from it and appropriates that particular pabulum which is fit for its special use, and that only. At every point of the human body is this law in unceasing operation — activity, a loss of vital power, disintegration, decay, and removal — to be met by a replacement of substance and a renewal of vital power. And as the disintegration of any part is hastened by its activity, so by an equally unerring law is the flow of blood, bearing the renewing material, increased in that part ; and again by a law equally unerring and ever operative, the worn-out particles are cast into this current in its backward course, and conveyed to organs whose function it is to eliminate them from the body.

And the strength of the body as a

whole, and of each part of the body individually^ is in relation to the frequency with which these atoms are changed ; and the strength of the body as a whole, and of each part of the body individually, is thus ever in relation to its newness.

“ Exercise, then, as we have seen, is the chief agent in the destruction of the tissues ; but it is also the chief agent in their renovation, inasmuch as it quickens the circulation of the blood, from which the whole body derives its nourishment ; the tide on which is brought up all fresh material, and on which is borne away all that is effete and useless, brought up and borne away most rapidly

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in those parts which are being most rapidly employed, where disintegration is most rapidly taking place.” #

We have given this quotation at length, as indicating in a clear and precise manner the way in which bodily exercise tends to conserve and increase strength , but it has yet to be shown that it operates in an equally marked degree on the conservation and increase of health; and conversely, that the lack of exercise tends to lower the standard of vital energy. This arises from the fact that the chemistry of nature, given a sufficient amount of the needful pabulum in the shape of food, is not content with maintaining a mere balance in the system, but is constantly accumulating what are known as “ reserves/’ consisting partly of fat, partly of a sugary substance called inosit , and partly of nitrogenous products, deposited in the substance of the tissue. 1 he combustion of the two former is the main source of the force employed in muscular movement, and so long as, by regular exercise, they are kept neither above nor below the normal limit, all is well. Should such reserves, by excess of work, or deficiency of nourishment, become exhausted, the combustion produced by exertion

* ^ System of Physical Education , Theoretical and Practical. Clarendon Press.

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is effected at the expense of the essential tissue of the organs themselves. Under such conditions the machine after a little while wears itself out, and the patient dies.

But in a far larger number of cases the reserve materials are in excess, and the system is clogged by its own waste. As George Herbert quaintly says of the moral nature,

“ Man is no star, but a quick coal Of mortal fire :

Who blows it not, nor doth control A faint desire,

In like manner with the physical organization. The process of combustion, to which we have adverted, is at work from the cradle to the grave. But it is for man himself to “ blow the fire,” and this is to be done by bodily exercise. Exercise, by quickening the circulation, sends a fuller supply of blood coursing through the arteries and veins. Exercise, by stimulating respiration, charges the blood with fresh oxygen, which the heart forthwith despatches through the circulatory system to its allotted function of burning up the excess of reserve material.

But the fact of combustion alone is not sufficient. Combustion is never absolutely perfect, but always implies some form of inorganic residue. The most important of these residues in the present case are carbonic acid, urea, and lactic acid. The former passes off through the lungs, the second through the kidneys, and the third through the skin ; while many others, as to which our knowledge is less definite, pass away partly through the above organs and partly through the intestines. Given regular and sufficient exercise, each of these organs does its work without discomfort or disturbance, and maintains the system in a condition of hygienic equilibrium. But if, by too long continued inactivity, the reserves are allowed to accumulate to an abnormal extent, the waste occasioned even by very slight exertion is in excess of the power of the excretory organs to eliminate it, and the patient suffers by such non-elimination in a variety of ways. The tissues, over-rich in carbon, generate under exercise an excessive quantity of carbonic acid. This in ordinary course is conveyed by the blood-vessels to the lungs, to be thence worked off by respiration, but the quantity is here so large, that the lungs — even were they of normal vigour and expansive power — would have great difficulty in making excretion keep pace with production. But the lungs in such a case are of by no means normal power, seeing that under the conditions of sedentary life they are hardly ever expanded to their full capacity, and one-half their air-cells remain i6

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habitually contracted, taking absolutely no part in the act of respiration. When a sudden call arises for a full and deep inspiration, these air-cells, having lost their elasticity by disuse, cannot respond to it. There is a further impediment in the shape of the chest itself, which from the same cause has become narrowed and sunken. As a natural result, the slightest unaccustomed exertion, such as walking quickly upstairs, or running a few paces to catch an omnibus, is sufficient to cause a painful attack of breathlessness, and not unfrequently a dangerous strain upon the heart, enfeebled in like manner from the same cause, viz. that it has never been stimulated by exercise to regular and vigorous action. It is noteworthy that this condition of breathlessness is more readily provoked by exercise of the lower limbs. This, which at first sight seems an anomaly, arises from the fact that the muscles of the thighs and legs are the largest and bulkiest of the whole body, and consequently throw off in action a larger quantity of carbonic acid.

The same movements less quickly executed do not cause the same amount of distress. This is because the generation of carbonic acid is in such case slower, and time is given between each movement for the lungs to throw off the quantity conveyed to them by the blood-vessels.

But even supposing the unaccustomed exercise

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1 7 to be of a nature which does not produce this particular form of distress, any one “ out of condition,” as it is termed, is still liable to many other inconveniences, some cf which may take a very acute form. A familiar example is found in the case of the man who, without any previous training-, leaves his desk and starts off for a

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walking or cycling tour. He may so regulate his pace as to feel no immediate distress either of lungs or heart, but after his first day’s work (unless it has been extremely small), he will find that, although very tired, he cannot sleep but by fits and snatches. His head aches, his skin is hot and dry, his mouth, parched, his whole body full of fever. The next day he gets up stiff in every limb, so that fresh exertion is a positive pain to him. This means that the unaccustomed exercise has charged the blood with other forms of waste in the shape of lactic and uric acid. If he perseveres in his unaccustomed toil, one of two things happens, according to the greater or less amount of his present exertion, and the degree in which he has debilitated himself by previous inactivity. If he has not sunk too far below par, and his present exertions are moderate in degree, the stiffness and other discomforts will gradually pass off by the elimination of the disturbing elements ; and he will find himself able to attempt even harder work without inconvenience. In other

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words, he is gradually getting into “condition.” In the opposite case, he will be pulled up short by a sharp attack of gout or rheumatism. And this state of things unfortunately tends to perpetuate itself. The inactive man finds himself in a vicious circle, from which it is extremely difficult to escape. He has continued so long in his habits of sloth, that the effort to break through them is a positive pain to him, and the longer he so continues, the greater the difficulty becomes.

Nor is he exempt, though he avoid all active exercise : Nature is not to be eluded. If her laws are outraged, she will exact the penalty ; if not in one way, in another. Gout will find out the self-indulgent man, though he never stir from his easy-chair. Meanwhile, a host of lesser evils, impaired appetite, indigestion, sleeplessness, nervous irritability, not to mention the many forms of liver and kidney disease ; indeed, half “ the ills that flesh is heir to ” lie in wait for the man who, from carelessness or indolence, fails to make due use of the bodily powers with which his Maker has endowed him.

It would be easy to go much more deeply into this hygienic side of the question, but to do so would be out of place in a popular manual. Any reader who desires more ample information as to this aspect of the matter, will find it discussed in the fullest manner in the treatise of Dr. Lagrange

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i9 already mentioned.* We have, however, said enough to enable us to claim as a postulate what is really the text and raison d'etre of this little book, viz. that a sufficiency of bodily exercise is a necessary condition of healthy life.

It will however be well, before we pass away from this branch of the subject, to say a few words as to the nature and causes of the special pain which follows continued exertion, and which we call fatigue. The function of fatigue is clear ; it is the danger signal against over-exertion. So long as bodily exercise is kept within due limits, i.e., in due proportion to the strength of the subject, fatigue is but transitory, and on the cessation of exertion, speedily disappears. This form of fatigue arises simply from the blood being, as we have seen, temporarily charged with carbonic acid beyond the power of the lungs to eliminate it, and from the heating of the blood, (also a necessary consequence of work) producing a depressing effect upon the nerve-centres.

But if the warning be disregarded, and the exercise taken be relatively either too long or too violent, fatigue does not come to an end with the cessation of the exercise which caused it, but continues in a more or less acute form, for a considerable period. The circulation of the blood

* See p. 7.

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falls back to its ordinary rate, the production of carbonic acid is stayed, and its excess excreted by the lungs, while the temperature sinks down to or below its normal level, and yet the sensation of fatigue, in this case known as consecutive fatigue , continues. There is a sensation of fever, prostration, general discomfort. These symptoms arise from the formation of the waste-products to which we have already adverted, # with which the blood is now charged, and which produce a condition of what is medically known as “ auto-intoxication,” or self-poisoning, and this continues until these waste products are little by little carried by the blood to the kidneys, and thence eliminated from the system. Hence the persistence of consecutive fatigue. Nor does the mischief always end here. If the waste products are too abundant, or the resisting power of the organism insufficient, these noxious substances give rise, by a process of which we are ignorant, to other similar substances, which renew themselves in the blood during many days, and give rise to the fevers of over- work.*)* t Lagrange, Physiology of Bodily Exercise, p. 166. The same writer quotes two cases of pseudo-typhoid fever (so called from its close resemblance to actual typhoid) arising from this cause. Both 1 atient-; were young men ; the one an enthusiastic fencer, had spent six hours daily with the foil in his hand ; while the other had exercised four hours daily on the horizontal bar. Dr. Lagrange further notes that the occasional outbreaks of typhoid in the army are usually