Fletcherism: What It Is; Or, How I Became Young at SixtyFletcher, Horace
Science
Fletcherism: What It Is; Or, How I Became Young at Sixty
Fletcher, Horace
Mastication; Nutrition
When I was fifty-eight years of age, at the Yale University Gymnasium,
under the observation of Dr. Anderson, I lifted three hundred pounds
dead weight three hundred and fifty times with the muscles of my right
leg below the knee. The record of the best athlete then was one hundred
and seventy-five lifts, so I doubled the world's record of that style
of tests of endurance.
The story of this test at Yale, when I doubled the "record" about which
so much has been written, is this: Professor Irving Fisher, of Yale,
had devised a new form of endurance-testing machine intended to be used
upon the muscles most commonly in use by all persons. Obviously these
are the muscles used in walking. Quite a large number of tests had been
measured by the Fisher machine, but it was still being studied with a
view to possible simplification.
I was asked to try it and to suggest any changes that might improve
it. I did so, and handled the weight with such seeming ease that
Dr. Anderson asked me whether I would not make a thorough test of my
endurance. This I was glad to do.
The Professor Irving Fisher Endurance Testing Machine is weighted to 75
per cent. of the lifting capacity of the subject, ascertained by means
of the Kellog Mercurial Dynamometer. The lifting is timed to the beats
of a metronome.
When I began, Dr. Anderson cautioned me against attempting too much.
I asked him what he considered "too much," and he replied: "For a man
of your age, not in training, I should not recommend trying more than
fifty lifts." So I began the test, lifting the weight to the beat of
the metronome at the rate of about one in two seconds, and had soon
reached the fifty mark. "Be careful," repeated Dr. Anderson, "you may
not feel that you are overdoing now, but afterwards you may regret it."
But I felt no strain and went on.
When seventy-five had been exceeded, Dr. Anderson called Dr. Born
from his desk to take charge of the counting and watching to see that
the lifts were fully completed, and ran out into the gymnasium to
call the masters of boxing, wrestling, fencing, etc., to witness the
test. When they had gathered about the machine, Dr. Anderson said to
them, "It looks as if we were going to see a record-breaking." I then
asked, "What are the records?" Dr. Anderson replied, "One hundred
and seventy-five lifts is the record; only two men have exceeded
one hundred; the lowest was thirty-three, and the average so far is
eighty-four."
In the meantime I had reached one hundred and fifty lifts, and the
interest was centered on the question as to whether I should reach the
high record, one hundred and seventy-five.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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