How to Get Strong and How to Stay SoBlaikie, William
Science
How to Get Strong and How to Stay So
Blaikie, William
Physical education and training
Brisk horseback-riding keeps these muscles very actively employed.
Every sort of work which calls for frequent stooping down does the
same. Persons who take short steps, and many of them, if they walk
with vigor, are likely to have legs thicker and stouter everywhere
than they who stride out far, but make the whole step as easy for
themselves as possible.
Hardly any of the muscles are so useful and valuable as these. One may
have weak arms and trunk, yet with strong thighs he can walk a long
distance daily, and not be nearly so fatigued as those much stronger
elsewhere and weaker here, and, as many men have little or no other
exercise than walking, they are often contented with fair development
here, and practically none of any account elsewhere. It is astonishing,
too, to notice how a man accustomed for years to a poor shambling sort
of a gait will, with strict attention to taking a clean and strong step
over a certain distance daily, with a determination to take no other
sort of gait, soon improve the strength and shape of his thighs.
As hopping on one foot is a swift way to develop the calf, so frequent
stooping down as low as possible and rising again, daily, at first
without weights, but eventually with them, is the sure way to speedily
enlarge and strengthen the thighs.
_To Enlarge the Under Thigh._
The muscles of the under thigh do not get nearly so much to do as those
in front, in many persons seeming almost not to exist. A bad walk, with
the knees always slightly bent, is partly accountable for this; and a
man accustomed to such a walk, and trying suddenly to walk erect, with
his knees firmly knit, and bowed slightly back, soon tires and aches
at the operation, which, to one in the habit of walking erect, long
ago became natural.
The exercise already recommended, of pressing the sole of the foot hard
on the ground just as it leaves it, is scarcely more beneficial to the
muscles of the calf than to these; likewise walking uphill, that telling
finely on them. Standing, as does the West Pointer in his setting-up
drill, and, with knees unbent, trying to touch the floor with the hands,
tells in this region. Fastening a weight of any sort, a dumb-bell or
flat-iron, to the ankle, say with strap or towel, and raising the foot
as high up backward and outward as possible, and repeating till tired;
putting the foot in the handle of the pulling-weight, and frequently
drawing it far down; or, standing with back to the wall, and placing
the heel against the base-board of the room, or any solid vertical
surface, and pressing hard many times--these all tell on this hidden
under muscle, which, small as it is, is a most essential one, and
especially in looks, while running with the foot thrown high behind,
excels them all.
_To Strengthen the Sides of the Waist._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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