Or this time keep the legs down, and, first filling the chest, now draw the body up until you are sitting erect. Then drop slowly back, and repeat. This will be likely to take even less time than did the other, but it will tell tremendously on these muscles. Indeed, most people are so weak in them, that they can hardly do this once. Yet men who have them strong and well-trained will lie flat on their backs on the floor or gymnasium mat, and while some one holds their ankles, taking a two-hundred-pound man, lying across their chest at right angles with it, will raise him several times till they are in erect sitting posture. Sitting on one of the parallel bars in the gymnasium, and placing both feet under the other, and now dropping the body back until it is horizontal, then rising to vertical and repeating, is very hard work for these abdominal muscles, and should only be practised by those already strong here. These muscles are brought into direct and vigorous play in rowing, to such an extent that no man who has them weak can be a fast oarsman over any ordinary racing distance. Indeed, this is the very region where young rowers, otherwise strong, and seemingly fit for hard, fast work, give out first. Every time the foot is raised in running, these muscles are called to active duty far more than in walking, and the high, strong, sharp step works them severely, so that no man weak here could be a fast runner with good action. Jumping, vaulting, leaping, all bring them into sudden, spasmodic, almost violent action. Let a man mow awhile, when unused to it, and see how soon it tells across this region, the muscles aching next day from the twisting motion. The latest invention purposely for these muscles is also one of Sargent's, on the following plan: The pupil lies on the plank A A', or, rather, sits on it, when A' is a little back of vertical, so as, for instance, to form with A the angle A B A'. With feet in the toe-straps C C', he sways gently forward and back as long as he can without fatigue. From day to day, as these muscles gain strength, A' is dropped lower and lower, until finally it is on a level with A. Or a strap may be placed over the forehead and fastened to A', and, with the feet in the toe-straps, the person may lift his body up till vertical, drawing the weight E with him as he rises. _Counterwork for the Abdominal Muscles._ But nearly all the exercises just named for the abdominal muscles, while they make them strong and handsome, tend to contract rather than lengthen them; and for men of sedentary life inclined to stoop a little forward while sitting, some work is needed which shall stretch these muscles, and aid in restoring them to their natural length.