Good Health and How We Won It, With an Account of the New HygieneSinclair, Upton
Science
Good Health and How We Won It, With an Account of the New Hygiene
Sinclair, Upton
Hygiene
“Mr. Fletcher’s actual strength as indicated on the Kellogg machine
was not quite four hundred pounds, ascertained by three trials. In his
endurance test on the Fisher machine he raised three hundred pounds
three hundred and fifty times and then did not reach the limit of his
power.
“Previous to this time, Dr. Frank Born, the medical assistant at the
Gymnasium, had collected data from eighteen Yale students, most of whom
were trained athletes or gymnasts. The average record of these men was
87.4 lifts, the extremes being 33 and 175 lifts.
[Illustration: MR. HORACE FLETCHER
Making a World’s Record on the Dynamometer without previous training.
Dr. William G. Anderson, Director of the Yale Gymnasium, in the
Background.]
“You will notice that Mr. Fletcher _doubled_ the best record made
previous to his feat, and numerous subsequent tests failed to increase
the average of Mr. Fletcher’s competitors. Mr. Fletcher informs me
that he had done no training nor had he taken any strenuous exercise
since February, 1907. On two occasions only during the past year he
reports having done hard work in emergencies; once while following
Major-General Wood in the Philippines in climbing a volcanic mountain
through a tropical jungle on an island near Mindanao for nine hours;
and once wading through deep snow in the Himalayan Mountains, some
three miles one day and seven miles the next day, in about as many
hours. This last emergency experience came through being caught in a
blizzard near Murree, in Northern India, at 8500 feet elevation, on
the way to the vale of Kashmir. These two trials represented climatic
extremes, and Mr. Fletcher states that neither the heat nor the
cold gave him discomfort, a significant fact in estimating physical
condition.
“Before the trial on the Fisher machine, the subject’s pulse was normal
(about 72); afterwards it ran 120 beats to the minute. Five minutes
later it had fallen to 112. No later reading was taken that day.
“The hands did not tremble more than usual under resting conditions,
as Mr. Fletcher was able to hold in either hand immediately after the
test a glass brimming with water without spilling a drop. The face was
flushed, perspiration moderate, heart action regular and control of
the right foot and leg used in the test normal immediately following
the feat. I consider this a remarkable showing for a man in his
fifty-ninth year; 5 feet, 6½ inches in height, weighing 177½ pounds and
not in training.”
In order to make a more thorough test of Mr. Fletcher’s power of
endurance under varying degrees of physical strain, he underwent on
the 17th, 18th, 19th, 21st and 22nd of June, 1907, a number of other
exceedingly severe tests, of which Dr. Anderson says: “After each test
the respiration and heart action, while active, were healthy, and,
under such conditions, normal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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