Training for health, strength, speed, and agility. For the instruction of amateurs and others

Preface

The aim of this volume is to explain, firstly : what are normal physical conditions; secondly: how these are capable of improvement by exercise, providing the efforts made are carried out in a scientific manner.

As this work is written for the use of amateurs, it is addressed to an educated public. To such all rule of thumb methods of training would be irksome. An intelligent man always wants to know the why and the wherefore of everything he is told to do. He naturally declines being considered as an automaton. If exact information is then afforded, there can be no question, but that just because he knows what he is about, improving mental and physical conditions follow.

No attempt has been made to teach the peculiarities of any one special exercise. A man can learn some little as to how he should run, or jump, or row, from the many excellent books written on those special subjects. There is, however, no royal road to getting strong. Time is a necessary element for physical development. To acquire Health, Strength, Speed, and Agility is

4 PREFACE.

always possible, and it is for this purpose that this volume has been written. No athletic sport in favor to-day has been omitted, and the preparatory methods, those which will best serve the amateur, are presented.

Care has been taken to point out what are the disturbances arising from either excess of work, or from exercise taken in a wrong direction. '* Training for Health, Strength, Speed, and Agility'' may be deemed overcautious, but there is no one practically acquainted with athletics who does not deplore the many accidents which have fallen under his own observation. It is not broken limbs that are regretable, because fractures and sprains are by no means singular to the gymnasium or the track. What is meant by ^'accidents'' are those arising from expenditures of forc-e by those who are immature, and the lasting shocks given to systems. Fully aware of these responsibilities, an author would be culpable did he not give expression to what he thought were the dangers of over-training, not in relationship to performance, but as influencing health.

Particular allusion has been directed toward the keeping men and women, who do not train, in good health by means of moderate exercise. How children should be taught a natural development is also presented. The past and present systems for the prevention of obesity are given, and methods explained ; how growth of fat can be prevented, considerations of health always being remembered.

This work is the outcome of many years of practical

PREFACE. 5

experience, where how to train was guided by study, not exclusively acquired in the gymnasium or on the track.

"Training for Health, Strength, Speed, and Agility " will be found not alone useful to amateurs, but will give its aid to teachers of physicul culture, and to parents and principals of schools.

John P. Thornton.

Contents

PAGE

The All-Around Man 9

Advice to Teachers and Pupils 15

Chapter I. The All-around Man

Looking over the man — Men adapted to special work — The man in perfect training — What he ought to be — What he is — The undefined quality — The mistakes made — What are our limitations — Will power — The all-around man — The ambitious athlete.

I AM in the training-ground, and my attention is called to a young athlete. Some one in charge says to me, " There is a man in perfect training.'' If I am conversant with looking over men, as is a horse-trainer with blooded stock, my reply might be, " Yes, that man looks all right. At his age, he is likely to improve. I should think he has resources which can be called upon for great efforts.'' I might add, *' I would be careful, however, not to push him any more, for he seems to be at his best — that is, as far as looks go. What is he in training for ? "

If I am familiar with athletic exercises, I ought to be able to place the man as to capability, for certain general lines of performance, but neither am I or anybody else so absolutely proficient, as to put a man at once in the class to which he exactly belongs ; nevertheless, I can settle in my mind several lines of performances more or less allied in which he might excel.

The trainer answering my query, gives me the information. His reply may be, " That is our best hurdler, or our crack sprinter, or our cleverest jumper/' Having that much given me, which of course is a great deal, I take a more careful look at the man. Having satisfied myself first as to his general development, I look at the head and eyes of the man, in order to find out if he seems possessed of will and determination. I must confess, that any study of physiognomy may be delusive, still I do not omit it. What I scrutinize particularly is the man from the waist down to his toes, because I have been told that he is in training for speed as a runner. It is below the waist that I want to see the higher physical development of the man. I require a certain balance of muscular power, distributed evenly all over him. If his wind mechanism is bad and lung power limited, my opinion will be that he will have little staying power. If the chest capacity were good, and legs and thighs not first-rate, the chances of his being successful would be but slight.

I do not care much about the height of the man, that is within certain limits, because both big and little men have been wonderful performers. I am, however, inclined to prefer the man, for field athletics at least, who does not exceed five feet ten inches, and for the reason, that distinct muscular power, not being augmentable by

TRAINING. II

exercise in proportion to length or breadth, the bulk of an additional inch remaining, being a positive fixed quantity, this extra weight to carry or to propel, is something which handicaps, in some small measure, he who possesses it.

I vary then my appreciation of the man, when I understand what he is trying to excel in. From the above, which everybody can understand, it will be at once understood that men must train for special performances.

The ideal definition of a man in perfect training would be an individual who by judicious exercise had obtained uniform development of muscles. It ought to mean too, something more, as to the performance of this highly-gifted individual. It would be, that he could successfully accomplish any kind of work. In actual observation, however, we find that although there are many superb ^* all-around men,'' it is rather exceptional to find that any one man ever can accomplish more than a single thing with exceptional excellence. To account for this, we must face the fact, that there are peculiarities of human build, or of muscular individuality, which render the one man capable of doing something better than his fellows.

Mr. Myers' muscular development might through careful measurements have been presented in fractions of an inch, but that never would have accounted for his wonderful bursts of speed. No tape measure would indicate the reasons why Mr. Page can clear a higher bar than another man. General measurements may be about the same between the first and the second man, but the particular, the special reason why A is a fraction or second quicker than B, or C can jump an inch higher than D, no one ever will determine.

Such a blunder nobody is likely to make, as of trying to have a natural sprinter take a place in a tug of war team. Still many men waste their time in attempting to do exactly that thing for which they are physically incapacitated. I mean, of course, when with laudable but mistaken ambition, young men try to take first places, so as to get their names on the record.

I often see in training clever lads working the life out of them in endeavoring to overcome their own bodily inertia. Endowed with normal muscular power, they believe that by exercise, they can impart that increased strength to their arms, which will finally overcome the dead bulk of their bodies. Their arm strength increases, yet no one can accomplish the impossible! If they are wise> then, they should leave feats of agility to lighter men. It is just in cases of this kind that the professor of athletic exercises explains to pupils the futility of such work. Carried out so as not to overtax strength, such exercise may do no harm, but if insisted on to too great a degree, the effects are unquestionably bad.

Like in mental occupation, or literary work, the best thing for a man who aims to excel in athletic sports, is for him to know at once what are his limitations. He may find out that his field is curtailed. He may do one thing well, but only that one thing. *

I am positive that no book will ever give a man, save in glittering generalities, the exact kind of work he is best adapted for. It will ever escape the most gifted of writers to describe the indefinable element called pluck, or grit, or that will-power which accomplishes miracles. To call it as a mental power, when physiological considerations are borne in mind, is contrary to science ; but yet, how otherwise account for what seems nothing short of an electrical discharge of force ? Since muscular power is called upon by the will, it must be from the brain that the action is transmitted.

I have presented the perfectly trained man to be one who contains within himself a thoroughly developed muscular power ; and the supposition is, that all the thews and sinews of this man will respond to every call. This is an ideal condition. The man is not special, for it must be remembered that his powers are general.

This " all-around condition,'* difficult to arrive at, can only be brought about by long, diligent, and careful methods of preparation.

It is not my intention in a book on physical culture to emphasize any particular line of work, giving it the preference above others. We all of us have our likes and dislikes. As far as the pleasure of it goes, my delight is greatest when I see a foot-race, and I am (I cannot help it) quite indifferent to a walking-match. No one appreciates more than I the work the walker undergoes, and I know that, to win, depends on perfection of form, with pluck and endurance carried to its maximum, and yet the exact ** heel-and-toe movement ** is nothing else than a hampered gait. The man, to go fast and long, is forced to bring into play certain movements, with a huge expenditure of muscle, which nature never intended for such a precise purpose. To encourage the walker, the trainer will lope alongside of his pupil. I have walked fairly fast myself in a match, and I remember my coach running alongside me going easily, his toe taking the natural spring from the ground, and his crying to me, " Now you are putting me to all I know how.*' I was, however, always saying to myself, *^ How stupid it is for me to be working my life out learning ao unnatural way of going over the ground, wriggling my hips all out of shape, when I could get along so much faster and pleasanter if I were to run.'* I have, then, my preferences, but in a work of a general character like this, I shall do my best to give every exercise its full value.

I believe in the all-around man. I have always thought that the method of tempering good steel was applicable to the physical education of the man. Once (my subject being young) that I succeeded in bringing up a certain temper or efficiency, then I have thought I could make at will hard or elastic, rigid or supple metal out of the man. What kind of an instrument he was to be fashioned into became then less a matter of chance. The man's own tastes took him into the lead he was to follow.

CHAPTER 11.

ADVICE TO TEACHERS AND PUPILS.

The advantage of varied exercises — The duties of the teacher —

Selection of pupils — What is exercise — Muscular force — The

stimulant — Our every action tells on the muscular system —

djirfihel two sets of muscles— What are antagonistic muscles —

Elegance is excellence.

Need I say that no man ever was made strong by book-reading alone? Close study, with its confinement, induces positive deterioration of muscular tissue. Overbrain-work reduces the strength of the student. The value of books which treat in a sensible manner physical development, lies in two directions : First, particular exercises are explained, which help to build up the system ; and secondly, the reasons why such and such things are done, are made clear. Of the two, the latter is of the greater importance. Illustrations of the devices employed, the weights, the pulleys, the apparatus, are good enough in their way. A visit of five minutes to a gymnasium makes not one mechanism, but twenty of them understandable at once, when hours spent in the examination of wood-cuts would not suffice.

In the best equipped gymnasiums, the reasons why certain exercises are to be carried out in preference to l6 TRAINING.

others are not always made clear to the beginner. A professor of physical exercise is generally a very thoroughly occupied man. It is only of late years that he is an educated man, able to give the reasons for certain kinds of exercises adapted to individuals. With a numerous class of pupils, where different conditions exist, the teacher can ill spare the time necessary for long explanations. He may be more or less right in considering his class as a unit and in trying to bring it up to one general average.

I am positive that the public school method, which takes a low average as a standard, though it may not bring forth the highest development of the pupil, is, however, not wanting in wisdom. Lads (I am writing of school-boys) may be pushed beyond their powers, and their future natural development is thus impaired.

I think the trouble with boys of normal powers who are ambitious to excel in manly sport, is this, that they are urged too much. They want restraining, not egging on.

The best professors of physical culture have often told me that to arrive at anything like a satisfactory result, the limit of a gymnasium class of youths should not be above six. There are many simple exercises in which no account need be taken of numbers, but for careful work they think that six is all they can manage at a time.

" I spend,*' said to me the most conscientious of professors, " hours over my class of six. I first pick them out from the mass, assorting lads in small squads, according to age, size, and build. I do not begin until I have taken into consideration more than the outside make of the lads. I look them all over, and go as far as stripping them. I never should forgive myself if the slightest indication to heart disease escaped me. If I onlyknow that it exists, then I am not afraid of it. I even hope to cure it in time, but I want to be careful. I sometimes make curious mistakes. I find out the more I think I know, the less I actually do know. For instance, there is Mr. G-^ — . He has just broken one of the records at an intercollegiate match. I had him as a lad when he was thirteen. He is twenty to-day. His was the poorest physical development then you ever saw. Pulmonary weakness on the father's side. I was afraid too of other organic troubles. I was exceedingly careful of him, just as anxious as if he had been a delicate girl. What was best in him was his courage. My difficulty was to hold him in. If I had let him have his own course, like a candle with too great a draught, he would have been burnt out at once. Gradually his condition improved. I was stricter with him than ever when the change for the better came. He became more manageable as he grew in years, and you see the result — a big event won by him — which he never could have carried out if he were not to-day absolutely sound. Nevertheless, I am still cautious with him. He wrote me a letter giving me some particulars of the contest, and I have replied to him praying him only to try and keep in form, and not to over-tax himself. I wish I could explain to my own satisfaction, why it is that taking two pupils as nearly alike as can be in a physical way, one goes ahead under the same work and the other makes no progress. I am certain that mental energy has much to do with perfect physical ability.*'

This brings me to those considerations which are necessary to be understood when the study of bodily exercise is made, with the end of perfecting the health, or the skill, or the power, of the individual.

What is after all work carried out by means of the body ? Whether in an amateurish way I hoe my flowergarden for an hour in the morning, or my neighbor the kitchen-gardener plants cabbage, for the same time, the muscular power exerted by both of us is practically the same. But the differences are those of our individualities. I work with my hoe for an hour, because I like to do it. My neighbor labors over his field, because he has to. He may wear himself out. There is no necessity for my exhausting my forces. I can stop when I please, for I am at play. If fatigued, I can take my rest just as long as I please.

My neighbor cannot afford to rest. Whether it rains or shines, he must keep on at his task. He may be overworked before he began his toil with his cabbages. The labor may be violent ; he must not stop. My little work which I call exercise, has made me feel all the better for it. His heavy labor may have done him no harm ; nevertheless if he has not had food enough, or of the proper kind, or his sleep has been bad, he is more hkely to suffer than I.

In a physiological point of view, then, the bodily exercise taken by the ditcher, and the young collegian who spins over his hurdles, are both the same, for exercise and labor are synonymous terms. In one case, if a man works too hard and is ill-fed, he breaks down. On the other side, a man may expend a vast amount of muscular power, and having his losses made up by means of proper food, good housing, and requisite rest, he can keep to his work with no inconvenience, and finish a herculean task in almost as good a condition as when he started at it.

I do not care to enter into a too lengthy study of the muscles. Generally the muscles may be described as bundles of fibres, having two extremities. The muscles are closely united, and are attached to the bones. All muscles are contractile. They shorten themselves. A tension, or a pull, then takes place on the bone. It is the brain power that starts the pull or improvises the pulley. I want to move my arm. My arm moves because my brain wills it. On the flexed muscles of my arm I put a 20-pound weight. I have not exercised those particular muscles, and the weight refuses to rise, any more than had my arm been made of wood. Will is worth nothing at all in this case. I have, however, exercised these particular muscles. I will that the weight shall rise. I straighten out my arm. The muscles which have been trained and exercised, at once obey the will power, and the 2opound weight rises. My brain has acted as the stimulus.

When we learn that in weight the muscles make up rather more than one-half of the human body, we can at once understand, apart from their power, how much they have to do with the nutrition of the body. Nature could never have distributed muscles so abundantly over the human frame, if they had not general work to do.

Studying the subject more carefully as to muscular movement, we come to this remarkable conclusion : ** That contractility is a force inherent in muscle, and is not supplied by its motor nerve.'' Bear in mind that will is the stimulus, and that though the muscles are there in a man's leg or arm, it is not the muscles which give out first, but the stimulus. I think anybody can understand this. The sprinter has run his course — and say he has won. The rapidity of his motion has been so great that he is dead-gone for the fraction of a second after he has passed the tape. If the muscles of his legs or thighs could be weighed or measured, then would they have shown a change ? Certainly not. But what prevented him going even a foot further in his course ? He had used up his stimulant. Because the work he had cut out was terribly severe, he called on his own stimulant, his will power, for its last possibilities. The stimulant did give all it could. It could do no more than that.

It is not muscular force that is gained alone by exercise, but exercise increases not only the effects, but the duration of this stimulant. We can call upon this stimulant for a longer and more continuous service.

How otherwise can I explain the fact that a man shows a tremendous increase of power far beyond his muscular development ? It can only be derived from certain improved qualities of stimulation, which the man called into existence, through judicious training. What we all agree in is, that this stimulant is an intangible thing, which cannot be weighed with a scale, nor measured with a tape-line.

Muscular force in its unity is something often lost sight of. I move no portion of my body without calling into play an endless number of muscles. There is not a muscle on my left side that does not respond to the movement of my left leg. It is not alone the muscles on my left that are put into motion, but there is a yielding on the right side of my body to the active work of the muscles in my left. If there was not what is called antagonism, I should work stifHy, maybe not at all. I would always be getting out of plumb.

If I had a mast properly rigged and held in position by two stays, securely anchored, and I wanted to pull the mast on one side in a line with the stays, I should have to overcome the resistance of the stay on the other side. What a wondrous movement it is then in our bodies, which almost automatically causes the other side, say it be on the right, to give way gradually to a left-handed movement.

When a man puts the hammer, there is no single muscle of his body that he has not trained to work in unison. The toes of his foot he has put to the front ; on the heel of the one which he keeps in the rear, he balances himself ; the muscles of his waist, the thews of his neck, the very movement of his head, all give the additional foot or inch to the distance his hammer has been launched.

It was not his arms alone that did the heaving. You never can then put your finger on one muscle and claim for that the entire effectiveness for doing work. In fact, the localization of any effective muscle is lost when geographically considered. I know that I do think by means of my brain, and that in this bony box, my skull, my thoughts are engendered. I strike a blow v/ith my arm. I am wrong in my appreciation of muscular localization, were I to insist that my arm alone struck that blow. It was at the end of the arm with the clenched fist that the blow was delivered, but the power of that blow emanated from every muscle in my body. Those muscles did not, however, all work in the same exact direction. Some of them could not. What they did was their best, but of a different kind ; that is to say, some of them gave just as little hindrance as they could.

This matter of a man's having two sets of muscles, working apparently differently, but all tending to the one end of perfecting the man, should be thoroughly understood.

All important muscles seem to have their antagonisms. We should be muscularly erratic if it were not for this. These antagonistic muscles are the wisest of natural brakes. There is an interplay of these two different sets of muscles. We train without our appreciating how much we are indebted to these two muscular systems.

When we are perfect in physical exercise we actually do get, as it were, a new sense, which for want of a better term, we may call muscular sense or perception. If we did not educate that sense to its highest degree of excellence, we would waste power with every action we made. There is no neat athletic feat that does not owe its perfection to this unconscious muscular sense. It regulates the initial impulse. If either of these two sets of muscles are brought too much into prominence, there comes stiffness, and stiffness means want of coordinate power.

Sometimes troubles arise from too much work imposed in one direction and none at all in another. I have, say, exercised the particular set of muscles I designate as A, and I have produced a force which I call 5. I have neglected the opposition muscles B, which remain at their normal 3. Their resistance takes then 3 from the 5, and my result is but 2. I ought to have worked up the relaxation of these resisting muscles, so that they had given the least antagonism to the muscles A. I might never get the ideal 5, but probably a 4}^ power.

Tyros in gymnasiums always show in a distressing way the pull-back of their antagonistic muscles. This brings about awkwardness. The experienced teacher sees at once what there is at fault, and hence gives certain pupils particular exercises.

Take the danseuse. She is the embodiment of human grace, having under automatic control all her muscles. When she learned her calling she studied but one movement at a time, then two, then many. She acquired the art of making every new pose and each new step harmonize with those she had learned before. She has educated her two sets of muscles, otherwise she would be clumsy.

The perfect mastery of all the muscles brings about the acme of grace, and grace is excellence.

I never saw a great runner who did not carry himself with a certain amount of elegance. Even at the conclusion of a terrible struggle, the last five yards, a great racer keeps to his form. Let him make the slightest blunder, — and to blunder is to be awkward, — and he is second or third best, and not the great first.

Chapter III. The Influence Of Work

What are the muscles— Exercise brings about circulation— Close connection of all the functions— What is a congested condition—Muscular activity and temperature— -A muscle to work properly must be warmed — The muscles at rest — Work without apparent movement — How it tells on the muscles— Connection between brain and brawn— -Fatigue- Automatic exercises.

No muscle is ever brought into action that it is not in a measure wasted. If this waste were not at once made up, powers would wane. How, then, can muscles be restored ? By means of the blood. The circulating fluid flows through all the veins, always pumped into them by that great engine, the heart, and the blood lands in each muscle exactly those elements it wants. Hence it follows that no motion can ever take place without increase of circulation.

I may state that physiologists are undecided whether this increase of circulation is due entirely to the mechanical action of the muscles. It is much simpler to believe, as I do, with others, that this increased circulation is, for the major part, mechanically induced. The harder I work, the quicker, the more intense is the action of the blood. No one function of the human system can take on independent movement. All of them follow suit. If I am to carry on more steam I must put in more coal. Wanting to move faster, the stroke of my piston-rod is accelerated, and the fly-wheel makes more revolutions. The heart and lungs of a man in exercise are called to do more work, and that, too, in briefer intervals of time than when he is at rest. We must breathe more quickly. If we do not, we dull the fires, just as if we were to put a damper in the draught of a stove.

I want to have this most important fact borne in mind, and it is the close relationship existing between all the functions of the human body. I cannot lift the slightest weight but that the stimulant of such exercise affects the brain. Where else than from the brain comes the will which makes me raise the weight? When, therefore, I exercise, I not only improve the subtlety of my muscle, but of my will, and it is on account of this that it may be safely said that exercise ** favors the brain and the work of thinkers.*' Thence it happens that if physical work be carried to extremes, a time must come when the blood courses so quickly that something or other in the human system gets out of stroke, as it were, and then what is known as congestion takes place.