Home exercise and health : five minutes' care to the nerves the rational system of exercising for health rather than mere strength

Front matter

FIVE MINUTES CARE TO THE NERVES

PERCIVAL O. MASTERS

22200188683

Preface

I MAKE no apology in presenting this book to the public. There would be need of some excuse, I think, were I contributing yet another to the already large number of systems of muscular physical culture exercises, or, again, to the still larger number of books on health subjects — books which but teach surface regimes in the guise of something else, or with vague doctrines which leave us with no definite, practical knowledge. But as it is, I venture to think this is the first book dealing with a system of physical exercise based on exact principles. The series of movements given belong to what is now known to many as the “ P.G.M. System of Self-administered Remedial Movements,” and contains some of the principal ones I have used with success in advising those whose experience of curative exercise had hitherto been a vain one.

To quote from the original booklet describing it, “ The P.G.M. System has for its main object the giving of free articulation to all the spinal joints.

vii

PREFACE

It therefore differs in its character from any of the several physical culture systems in vogue, which aim to cure disordered functions through the stimulation given by voluntary muscular action. Those exercises are of undoubted service, but as the true cause of so many physical disorders becomes better understood, it will be seen that they do not accomplish the essential — a removal of the trouble at its starting-point.”

I think this book will help to supply what I know to be a very real need — means that one may learn a common-sense way of keeping the body in a fit condition and of preventing the starting-point of ill-health. Sound functions depend primarily upon a physically unhampered nervous system, and this, we may also learn, depends in turn more than upon anything else, upon the frame being in as perfect a condition as possible in its mechanically working parts, of which the vitally important are the joints of the spine, because of their intimate structural relation to the central nervous system. This, with lung development, is the groundwork of physical culture, and physical culture can have only one real meaning — culture of the physique so as to preserve and increase the vital forces. Only after we have seen to this should we give attention to the adjuncts of physical culture, or the good effects of the latter

PREFACE

IX will not exist. Muscle culture, pure and simple, purer food, etc., are all dependent upon this vital integrity which is to be secured by intelligent frame exercise.

Therefore I believe this system will come to be widely used.

It is better in every way, and certainly much easier, to prevent than to cure. Therefore, notwithstanding the efficacy of properly designed and directed exercises in curing even serious physical disorders, my principal reason for writing the following pages is to explain what constitutes preventive exercise, both in theory and practice, and to provide a simple course of physical movements which, while having the definite object of preventing those bodily conditions which are a very common cause of illness, shall at the same time require one to take an intelligent interest, and to know exactly why each movement is to be performed. The ways of prevention may be easily, and should be, learnt and practised oneself. I have accordingly arranged a short series of movements which will be found both effective and interesting, and I commend them, by reason of my own experience and that of others, to the many who have used ordinary exercises with no benefit or satisfaction. And a point that will appeal to most is that they take but half the time of the latter.

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PREFACE

There is no essential difference between preventive and curative exercise. In writing, therefore, of the effects which are produced in different degrees in different individuals by consistent neglect of proper exercise, and the resulting direct and indirect bodily disorders which can only be gradually removed by intelligent use of suitable exercise, the subject of preventive physical treatment will be best made understood. Used really curatively, the application of exercise is an art which demands experience, and it is undoubtedly best at first to be guided by one who can make it most suited to the individual case.

Five minutes’ care to the nerves. For in the nerves is the cause of failure or accomplishment, of muscular strength or weakness, of every little bit of good health or bad health possible.

CHAPTER I PAOF.fi

Physical culture — Its principles — The spine in physical culture — The spine and its nerves — Mechanical principle of the spine — General observations on the whole subject — Physical culture for children — For women 15 — 91

CHAPTER VI Description and illustration of the exercises— Conclusion

129—144

XI

I f.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIG.

1. A DORSAL VERTEBRA

2. A LUMBAR VERTEBRA

3. ANOTHER VIEW OF VERTEBRA

4. TIGHT-FIXED JOINT

5. FREER JOINT IN NORMAL POSITION

6. NORMALLY FREE JOINT IN NORMAL POSITION

7. NORMAL LIMIT OF MOTION IN ACROBATIC SPINE

8. THE LEVERING PRINCIPLE IN DORSAL JOINT

9. NORMAL CONTOUR OF SPINE

10. HOW TO GET NORMAL POISE IN STANDING

11. UPPER DORSAL STRETCHING (EXERCISE I.)

12. CERVICAL STRETCHING (EXERCISE II.)

13. CERVICAL FREEING (EXERCISE II.) -

14. ,, „ (EXERCISE II.) -

15. DORSAL FREEING (EXERCISE III.) -

17. LOWER DORSAL STRETCHING AND FREEING (EXER

CISE IV.) . - . -

70 112

134 134

135 135 facing 136

18. LOWER DORSAL STRETCHING AND FREEING (EXER-

19. SHOULDER FREEING (EXERCISE V.) -

21. .. „ . . . .

22. CERVICAL AND DORSAL MUSCLE STRETCHING (EXER- CISE VI.) - - . . .

137 137 137

Xlll

XIV

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIU.

23. CERVICAL AND DORSAL MUSCLE STRETCHING (EXER-

CISE VI.) ..... facing

24. LUMBAR AND DORSAL FREEING (EXERCISE VII.) -

26. DORSAL AND LUMBAR LIFTING (EXERCISE VIH.) - a ff if n if *>>

27. BREATHING EXERCISE (EXERCISE IX.) - -

28. BREATHING AND STRETCHING EXERCISE (EXER-

29. BREATHING AND STRETCHING EXERCISE (EXER-

30. KICKING — SCIATIC FREEING (EXERCISE XI.) - „

31. NECK KNEADING (AUXILIARY EXERCISE I.)’

32. SPECIAL SHOULDER FREEING (AUXILIARY EXER-

33. CHEST AND RIB FREEING (AUXILIARY EXERCISE III.)

S4. THORAX STIMULATION (AUXILIARY EXERCISE IV.) -

PAGE

CHART

END OF VOLUME

HOME EXEECISE AND HEALTH

Chapter I

Physical culture — Its principles — The spine in physical culture — The spine and its nerves — Mechanical principle of the spine — General observations on the whole subject — Physical culture for children — For women.

The term “ physical culture ” does not convey much to most people. They will think of it as something intended, not for the many, but for the chosen few. It conjures up visions of dumb-bells and weights. “ Curative physical culture,” a fairly common phrase nowadays, may perhaps suggest some other meaning to the words. But however this may be, as the true meaning of physical culture becomes unfolded it will at any rate be then gradually recognized that, in the widest significance of the words, it is something which is vital to everybody, and most of all to those who, from their slight acquaintance with the subject — or, rather, the words — think of it only as some part of athletics, which can have no concern with themselves or the average person. In point of fact, as usually practised, physical culture is of use to many, but not to those who are most in need of it, and this because of its

inexact character and the imperfect recognition of

16 A RATIONAL SYSTEM OF HOME EXERCISE its scope and proper aims. True physical culture, used as it should be in preventing the body from becoming an imperfect machine, has then its greatest efficacy, and is both a pleasant and simple practice which entails neither irksome time nor trouble. More than that, it has a perfect genius for putting in a nutshell and making real all the supposed merits of complicated “ cures ” which really have no merit at all.

The necessary conditions of an everyday physical system are that it must be simple, exact, efficacious, economical of time, and quite self-administered. If such a thing as massage, mechanical or otherwise, were an everyday necessity, it would be impossible to the majority of people, because of its requiring an operator. However, it will be found that the necessary regular cares and exercises of body can all be self-administered ; and it is better so, because thus can each individual best come to learn the inner meaning of preventive exercise, and of its use to him or her.

To those who say that nothing of the kind is necessary (because for the moment they are of the happy-go-lucky healthy kind), I would reply that they will seem foolish, pitiable creatures when, in the natural order of events of their own creation, things go wrong, and they know nothing of how to put them right. And he who improves what he starts out with, no matter how much his handicap, is worth far more to himself and posterity than a so-called bon-vivant, with a constitution of cast-iron which he knows nothing about, and abuses until he no longer has it. That is all the grumble I have against them, and they will have one against themselves presently, unless they do a little more now than living on their capital. “Well,” the average person may say, “ I don’t mind the exercise ; but I don’t want to belong to a cult which seems to make it absolut'"^3T necessary to wear no collar, never go to a barber, have lunch up an apple-tree and dinner in the woods, or profess anything inconvenient like that.” Well, you needn’t. Physical culture is neither a fad nor game only for muscular people, and when you use it you will wonder how you ever thought it was. You can still be as ordinary as you like in your habits, and in your own old way, although I will not guarantee it will not give you some ideas of how to live better.

Those who are already converts to exercise I will show how to make it exact, simpler, and better than hitherto.

In framing a system of curative physical movements, if it be possible we should go upon a definite theory, and aim at definite effects rather than the inducing of general improvements (which, as far as we know, may have no good physical foundation — a “ flash in the pan,” so to speak) by vague exercises. If we have no basis of this kind to go upon, there is nothing to guide us as to whether we are working in the right direction if we get no immediate effects', as far as symptoms are concerned, in improving the ill condition we are trying to treat.

The golden rule in physical culture is “ let,” not “ make.”

It is when we have learnt that all long-standing functional derangements are invariably associated with quite definite abnormal conditions in the mechanism and tissues of the body that we can make this fact our guide. If we arrive at a certain scheme of movements which is based on this definite theory, and is thus intended to have the discernible effect of correcting the particular kind of abnormalities of the body mechanism which would seem to be the cause of bodily ills, and we observe that our theories as to expected results are fully borne out in practice, we are in possession of the keynote of true curative physical treatment. And just as we must know what are the abnormalities in the body mechanism associated with deranged functions, so must we know what is to be the tangible effect of the movements, that we may not only do good with them, but know in what way the good comes about.

What I have to say in the following pages is based almost entirely on this contention — That the most important thing in preventive exercise is to preserve the nervous force. Everything else is less important. The centre of the nervous force is the brain, and its continuation the spine. It will not need much reflection to see that the brain must be an organ which is different from the rest of the body, and owes its capability of fulfilling its supreme mission, when well fed, entirely to its cellular vitality, without any necessity of direct physical help. It is protected against any such help. If the body is healthy, and then loses its health through no apparent cause, it is not reasonable to expect that it does so because that part of the brain which is the supreme governing and directing influence of the body functions spontaneously loses its vitality (the “ thinking ” part of the brain is quite distinct from the “ functional ” part). But it will seem reasonable to suppose that somewhere else in the nervous system something is interfering with it, for the simple reason that the brain is not intended to be helped by any such thing as physical exercise of it, while other parts of the nervous system are, and in a way which is different from the general helping of organs by the muscular massage of exercise. Of the spine we shall learn something presently, and, to explain what an important thing it is in physical culture, I shall have to go rather more deeply into the subject than is usual in books on exercise. But, above all, this is a book of practice, not dull theory, so I give you leave to be as light-hearted as you like afterwards, because it leads to nothing complicated.

It will seem a reasonable contention, and it is a theory quite in keeping with practice, that, for a body to be really healthy, all its working parts must have normal freedom of movement, and that minor faults, from a physical standpoint, arising from various circumstances, may be the starting-point of most of our obscure functional derangements. Experience in this more exact form of physical culture has proved that the all-important condition is that every spinal joint shall be kept free to move. What the effect of this is will be referred to later on, when I shall explain the important relation the spinal joints bear to the physiological functions, and also speak of the way in which the unnatural stagnation which commonly occurs in different ways and different degrees at the nerve centres in the immediate vicinity of the spinal column is responsible for the trouble it causes.

On such a definite basis as I have indicated were the exercises illustrated in the latter part of this book devised, and they therefore act in a more specific manner than ordinary exercises. I contend, from all I have learnt in curative exercise, that real functional inefficiency never starts in the organs; that it always has a central nervous cause ; that the only functional trouble which starts in the organs is that due to continual and gross abuse of food, and which recovers as soon as the diet is corrected, if there is nothing obstructing the central nervous supply. Given a body kept healthy in this mechanical respect, our dietary errors would then, I think, stand a better chance of revealing themselves outright, as they do in the healthy, uncomplicated, admonitory “ stomach-aches ” of our childhood. These exercises were designed for removing or preventing those faults in the spinal joints which, although minor from a physical aspect, are more than frequently the direct cause of illness, and are always, in whatever degree they exist, serious factors in aggravating and preventing proper recovery from troubles coming principally from other causes, through causing obstruction to the free flow of nervous force. Ordinary exercises are not directed to this end.

The training of the body as a means to health is a subject which has been revived during recent years, and we now have a formidable array of systems of physical culture, some good, some bad. There are the muscle-building systems. There are the systems which are styled “ psychic,” and profess to make healthy and strong bodies and minds by the power of thought only. There are the breathing plus psj^chic systems, which tell us that deep breathing and thought will enable us to do anything and everything — will cure any and every ill of the body. We could believe them all if only they could do what they profess. They do not and cannot. They have their good points, but each and all overlook how simple but rigidly defined are Nature’s demands of help in making the body healthy.

Nowadays, if a man is not fit or well, it is the usual thing to advise him to take systematic exercise instead of medicine. He carefully exercises all his muscles, and mayhap is often gratified by the results. If he is one of those whose body has escaped comparatively unscathed from the physical transgressions of his ancestors and the results of his own ignorance, the stimulus given by exercise is sufficient to put his functions, which were perhaps somewhat sluggish, more briskly on the move ; and if his ways of living and other conditions are favourable, he is able to materially benefit his general condition. But what if he is one of those representing the survival of the seriously unfit, and that it is not merely the temporary effects of perhaps some lack of exercise, the ordinary exercise of limbs and lungs, he wishes to correct ? Whatever proportion of the whole mass of mankind they may be, they are many in actual numbers. They are the people who do not appear as exponents of physical culture, and perhaps most of them we do not hear of. It is among this class — no less than among those who do not realize, because its neglect may have no immediately noticeable effects, how absolutely necessary in the long run is a proper physical care of the body — that we shall find the individuals who have no belief in anything whatever of the nature of physical exercises, or in any sort of physical treatment, as a means of giving them what they are deficient in. And coupled with it there is usually a lack of desire to test the value of anything which is without the mystery and consequent fascination which attach, for instance, to the swallowing of a nauseous draught, in which, but quite without reason, they have come to have an ingrained belief. Or, on the other hand, they may experiment in a haphazard way with exercises, and do no good. But the general trend is now towards a desire for more exact knowledge of bodily derangements, and a more rational treatment of them than by the empiric and quite unsatisfactory methods of either indiscriminate medicine-swallowing, chance exercise, or food faddism. In this direction lies the domain of curative and preventive exercise of an exact nature. Our physical qualities are not at the mercy of any magical influence, to be altered by it instantaneously from the highest to the lowest, or vice versa. A state of health or want of health is dependent upon a long chain of happenings within the body which cannot be jumped over from one end to the other. It is our personal efforts which are responsible, and who, when once they grasp the truth of it, will deny that that is preferable to anything else ?

It is a fact, then, not to be lost sight of, that, of all those who use physical exercises as a curative means, the proportion who give it up as a failure is very considerable compared with those who are able to get some benefit from it. These results determine the question of how far an individual has gone in physical degeneracy as well as being some proof as to the efficacy of the particular kind of exercises used. And they will also suggest that there is a distinction between simple lack of use of muscle or function and what may be termed “ physical faults,” as causes of physical inefficiency and illness. We are commonly taught, by the more modem school, that lack of muscle is the cause of illness. In a sense that is true, but it is really only a part of the truth, as you will begin to suspect presently.

When we know upon what internal physical conditions health of body depends, we shall see that there is no essential difference between preventive and curative exercise. It may be that exercises indefinitely designed are able to have some good effect in keeping a healthy body healthy, but altogether fail if a person is ill — making allowance for the longer time they would have to be used in the latter case — because they are not directed towards the first causes of ill-health, or that what little effect they have in this way is not then sufficient, no matter how long they are persisted in. The physical treatment (exercise) which is able to benefit an ill person is the same in character as that we should use to prevent illness, the only difference being that it may be necessary to use some local movements more persistently, or to moderate them until the body becomes gradually fitted for them to be used more effectively. But there are no two kinds ; the more we know of the subject, the plainer it is that exactly the same effect is wanted in both cases, whether it is to prevent or remove the physical causes of ill-health. Therefore the most valuable is the system which is able to have the same definite effect whether one is well or unwell. In both cases there is the same abnormal condition to be prevented or removed. We do not want, as the essential things, muscle exercise in one case, increased muscle exercise in another, etc. That will all come in later on.

It is an accepted fact that predisposition to certain bodily carriage and attitudes, which without seeming to be especially related to it go with an all-round lack of healthiness, are as much due to heredity as are any traits and peculiarities of the individual. Therefore it may be suggested to look in this direction to discover reasons why one person is consistently healthy, and another is not, leaving out the question of environment, etc. To the casual observer it may not seem easily understandable that by natural stimuli the bodily and organic powers of one individual are restored to pristine vigour, while in exactly similar external conditions another quite fails to get the same results, but some knowledge of the working necessities of the body will throw light on the problem.

It is a matter of common knowledge that the same peculiarities of bodily carriage are seen in parents and children. It is easily understandable. If we know that minor diminutions in the freedom of the spinal joints, for instance, affect in some degree the nervous efficiency, and consequently the whole bodily vigour, such peculiarities and their effects would, by virtue of the truth that *’ A sound condition begets a sounder,” and vice versa, tend to become slowly progressive faults, which are handed down through generations, and particularly when neglect of ameliorating the causing conditions is favoured through our not knowing of their existence or exact significance. We can get an explanation this way of the reason why some families who live similarly with regard to food are altogether healthier than others, when we know from our investigations that these peculiarities of bodily carriage and attitude, such as round shoulders, a stiff, jolting walk, and what not, are both caused by and are the causes of various slight abnormalities in the spinal column, such as undue approximation and loss of freedom in the vertebrae. These are some of the things that happen through not recognizing that the human body is a machine which cannot go on working satisfactorily for an indefinite time without attention, either instinctive or intelligent. Whatever may be the exact physiological explanation of heredity, one of its infiuences, as far as the handing down of physical disorders is concerned, is traceable to the result which every kind of chronic bodily unfitness has of leaving the succeeding generation with a constitution of lowered vitality — if perhaps free from the same definite disorders of the preceding generation — and the fact that habits and ways of living, through force of circumstances, will generally be the same in each generation, and thus favour the continuation of the same states of physical unfitness, even if, as I say.

the latter is not directly transmitted. These are the two factors which make for progressive physical degeneracy, but we can control most of these influences ; and, then, in just the same way can our habits be made to improve, in their mutual dependence, the physical and mental condition.

On the subject of heredity in disease. Sir B. Ward Richardson says : “ It is observable that the injuries to nervous matter which are capable of producing hereditary diseases must be inflicted either on a nervous centre or on the trunk of a nerve. Injuries inflicted on the extremities of nerves do not seem to be followed by changes transmissible by heredity. It is not until the nutrition of a part directed by central nervous control is perverted by a central injury that the inherited mischief is established.” In other words, this means that real and persistent perversion of function (due to cellular changes in the body) is caused by interference with the central nervous system.

To take up the theme of suppleness in relation to health, it is a significant fact that never is a person really well who has not a supple body, supple in every joint and tissue, as evidenced by the ability to make all natural actions with freedom and comfort. It may be taken as proof of something wrong with the body mechanism, and something wrong with its health, when such a natural and ordinarily pleasant action as “ stretching ” is not instinctively performed, or when one is prompted that unless the actions and attitudes are kept within very restricted limits unpleasant symptoms will be experienced. These feelings ought to be your guide, for they are intended as such, in investigating and correcting matters ; but usually they quite fail to interest people in this way, and they are content to take what comes until more serious results follow on or else they take a medicine, and think how cleverly they have got over the trouble. I will show presently what this suppleness means to the internal parts of the frame and body.

The slouching of a “ slack ” person is due to the fact that “ bracing up ” the spine is not followed by the proper nerve reaction. When the spine is fit and free, bracing it up stimulates the whole nerve tract, and one is comfortable until a new position becomes necessary.

It will not do to become only generally supple, when there are parts of the body which do not take their share of movement. People do not know this, and will perhaps spend a lot of time on exercises which do them no good, because they are only tending to affect the parts which least want it. To them “ suppleness ” is a term with an outward meaning only.

It frequently happens that one who has not been used to much exercise of any kind takes up some method of bodily training, and later finds that, although it has in a way given him better physical powers, it has not along with it improved his health or even maintained it at its original standard. He is conscious of this — if there be nothing more marked — by lack of the sense of well-being which goes with well-poised health. In such cases, when there is no other discoverable reason, the cause is nearly always to be found on an examination of the spine. Perhaps before the exercises the w^ould-be health- seeker was an average being who was not able to perform freely the ordinary tests of trunk flexibility, such as bending forward and touching the toes with the hands, but afterwards, as a result of the exercises, he was able to do so. If he was told in a general way that flexibility of spine was necessary for healthy functions, he would bring forward as a proof that this was an incorrect premise the fact that, although he could now easily perform the tests mentioned, whereas originally he could not, his health was in no way improved. The reason in nine cases out of ten may be found in the condition of the spine. On examination it ill be found that in one or more portions faults in the articulation will be apparent, but only when the body is bent forward to its limit. Standing erect, by feeling the spinous processes (the projections down the length of the spine) it will be noted that all may have their normal position relative to each other (the projecting bones wiU be touching) ; but on bending forward there will become apparent a want of separation in two or more adjacent vertebrae, and to compensate for this the next above or below will be opened a little more widely than necessary, in order that the spine may be freely flexible as a whole, with the sum of the individual movement of each joint remaining approximately the same as when the spine is in normal condition.

This condition of very unequal opening of the joints will never obtain when a proper use is given to the spine to insure its free mechanical working. It is a fact that, if the spine has never been allowed by neglect to get into a wrong state — too rigid, with hardened surrounding tissue — every joint is always ready to respond to a strain on it, and yields easily, rather than to throw the movement on to the next joint or next free joint, and thus to allow the faulty member still further to degenerate. Habit has a lot to do with this in the first place, and then after a time one naturally tends to use only that part (usually the lumbar) of the spine which is freely flexible. The illustration I have just mentioned is a result of using non-specific exercise. The effect of these stiffened and contracted parts of the spine is ultimately a serious interference with the nervous energy, not so serious at first, because the vitality of the nervous system is still good, but later, when the long-continued obstruction to free nervous flow has caused, directly and by roundabout bodily processes, depleted nerve strength, which will then further accentuate the cause.