Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1910 — BUILDING UP THE BODY [ARTICLE]

BUILDING UP THE BODY

Fallacies About Vigorous and Regular Exercise and Muscle Development. BETTER PHYSICAL CULTURE. Certain Parts of the Human Anatomy More Important Than Muscles of Arms and Legs. The old idea about exercise was that It was good for the muscles, especially the muscles of the biceps, etc., and perhaps dome of the muscles of the legs, says a (writer In the Philar delphla Ledger- They tested these muscles and their well-being chiefly by weight-lifting power and size. They tested the chest By size Some exercises develop slow, stiff, fibrous oversized muscles. This Is especially the case when a top heavy apparatus is used, involving excessive stress and strain in pushing or pulling. A characteristic of the wrong kind of muscle is that it stands out as a lump when it is not beingrused. It is this deformity which Impresses the public moBt! There are parts of the body that ate of far more importance 'than these muscles of the arms and legs, namely, the heart, the lungs, the digestive organs, the eliminating organs, and especially the skin. Then there are, besides, the senses, the nerves and the 'mind generally, Inciting the character. Ideal exercise afreets all these favorably. The popular idea is that ideal exercise increases the size of a muscle, even when that muscle should be at rest, and increases the hardness of a muscle. The misleading word “development” has, in fact, been responsible for a mass of wrong muscle, the vitality and energy of the body being frequently drained off from the higher centers Into the more mechanical centers, so to speak, for the sake of show. As an example of Ideal exercise one might take a game of lawn .tennis, under good conditions; for example, not too soon after a meal, with comfortable clothing, with a good opponent, in pleasant surroundings, and with the right movements of the body, rand so forth. As a contrast to this we might consider weight-lifting. This, practiced in the wrong way, may strain the heart and lungs and may develop a wonderful degree of conceit and selfishness. Extrelia Not a Dally Necessity. The usual view of exercise is that It is a daily necessity. As a matter of fact, it Is a sort of daily medicine. In England thousands of schoolboys and university men and others have lived and still live wrongly, and have imagined that it does not matter -so long as they have abundance of exercise.’ They regard the exercise as a remedy for wrong living; they regard regular daily training as a necessity. And most of the dogmas of the physiologists bear out the view ,that it is a necessity. But such dogmas are based almost entirely on examinations of people living under unhealthy conditions —people who are overeating, overdrinking, working wrongly, thinking wrongly, dressing wrongly, resting wrongly. What we need Is a physiology text book based on statistics from really healthy people. At one time I used to regard exercise as a necessity for health, and so It was, as long as I lived wrongly. Then, when I changed my diet and did not load myself with waste products from meat Juices and soups and flesh foods In general, I found that I could keep in excellent physical condition even if I had no exercise for quite a long time. The longest period of* inactivity after which I took/Vlolent exercise without any ill effects and without any feeling of stiffness was in 1901. At the beginning of that year I was sedentary, having practically no exercise at all for three months. During that time I lived on nonflesh diet. At the end of that time I played a hard game of tennis for two hours without feeling tired.

My own conclusion Is that, when a person has once become and lives carefully, adapting his diet, etc., to his conditions, he Is quite unlikely to need regular exercise. On the other hand, he should enjoy exercise and be JJt for It whenever the opportunity Is given him. r6 r the benefit of those who are unfit I would suggest a few antidotes for regular systematic exercise—l mean exercise that demands half an hour of strain work every day. The first of these substitutes would be a deep and full breath taken in through the nostrils at frequent Intervals during the day. The second would be stretching of the llmlp, the stretching beldg made and maintained tor a teyy geconds. The third would be muscular relaxing, whjch Is easiest while the breath Is being exhaled. The muscular relaxing of the hands, the tegs and feet, the eye, the mouth and so forth, Is of the greatest importance Tor the maintenance of true health. Theee three helps, together with rational diet and the use of cleansing foods, suoh as fruits and properly cooked VWBMables, should make tips long system of exercises or the dally walk or

the duly game a luxury rntherCbaai a necessity. K«eh Valve ta ReattnaThen. there is the regulation of the breathing. While you perform some movement —let us say of lateral extension of the stand —you should keep your breathing as deep and sulk and rhythmical as" possible. To let your breathing be held or become Jerky because you are doing a rather difficult movement is to lose much of the value of that' movement. But there is a third* still more Important matter in addition to the maintenance of the proper position of the body and the keeping of the correct breathing. It is the .relaxing of the muscles. ♦Hardly any teachers of physical culture insist that their pupils shall learn not to use the musCles which they would gain nothing by using. In ordinary economy it is of the very essence of the art not to use the money which one would gain nothing by using.