Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1917 — SWIMMING GREAT AID [ARTICLE]

SWIMMING GREAT AID

Develop Muscles Essential for Professional Boxer. Australian Crawl Stroke Produce# Shoulder Development Necessary for Knockout Punch, Says Promoter Raker, “It has always been a favorite contention of mine that providing he suffers no special disability, the swimmer whose body has beeik developed by that best of all exercises has acquired a physique the possession of which is indispensable to success as a boxer* says “Snowy” Baker, Australian fight promoter and physicalculture expert; 2 - “The development that results from natatorial exercises is superior to that procured by any strong-man system, fer the muscnliir bulginess so pronounced in wrestlers and weight lifters is rarely conspicuous in the swimmer. “When Tn repose the swimmer’s muscles do not obtrude themselves, but t nevertheless,- when the effort is wanted, when the strain is put upon them, they respond readily. “It is somewhat of a coincidence, too, that in build the swiinnrer and boxer are much the same. Boxers usually have their weight where it is most needed, being big of shoulder and light in hips and legs. Many good swimmers are heavy limbed, but the majority show a tendency to taper from the chest down and approach the ideal of physical beauty immortalized in Greek statuary. “In both swimming and boxing the muscles brought into play are regularly tensed and relaxed. The swimmer making his stroke exerts all his strength, and then, recovering for the next one, the muscles are at rest. The boxer delivers his blow with tensed muscles and then relaxes. So it goes throughout a contest in the water or in the ring, alternate strain and rest for the muscles employed, and so both produce a condition where the muscles retain their elasticity and respond readily and quickly to all calls made upon them. “I have before today expressed the opinion that one swimming stroke, the Australian crawl, produces a shoulder development that is a necessary possession of the man with a "knockout ’ 'punchy So far as my experience of boxing goes, the favored few who have the handy gift of being able to dispose of an opponent with one “clout” are always men with loose shoulder action and good shoulder development. “Now, with the crawl stroke most of the work falls to the shoulder and arms; and (he continual effort to pull the body through the water‘with a swinging action results in such a development.”