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
Let one college in this land graduate each year a class of which every man
has an erect carriage and mien, has the legs and arms, the back and chest,
not of a Hercules, not of a prize racer or fighter, but of a hale, comely,
strong, and well-proportioned man, and see how well it would pay. Bear in
mind that an hour a day put in in the right way and at the right work will
effect all this in far less time than four years of trying. The
hardest-reading man can readily spare the time for it, especially if he
must. What! would it take him from the thin, cadaverous fellow he too
often is, and do all that for him? Beyond all doubt it would. Such
vigorous work would soon sharpen his appetite, and he would find that, eat
all he liked, he could digest it promptly, and would feel all the better
for his generous living. The generous living has fed muscles now
vigorously used; they have been enlarged and strengthened: the legs, which
never used to try to jump a cubit high, even, once in the whole year, now
carry their owner safely over a four-rail fence, and perhaps another rail,
or even two of them. The lungs, which were scarcely half expanded, now
have every air-cell thoroughly filled for at least one entire hour
daily--an excellent thing for weak lungs. Correct positions of standing,
sitting, walking, and running being now well known and understood, the
lungs get more air into them than formerly, even when their owner is at
rest. Another effect of it all is shown in a decidedly more vigorous
circulation, and the consequent exhilaration and buoyancy of spirits, no
matter whether the work in hand is mental or physical.
But will not this hour's work dull him mentally? It may be proper to
digress for a moment and see if it will. Of men who have done just this
kind and amount of work, this work aimed at every part of the body, we
find no record, simply because, as we have already shown, considerable
as the increased interest is in physical culture and development, this
plan of reaching all the parts and being just to all, has scarcely been
tried. But abundant proof that some physical exercise will not dull the
man, but even brighten him, can be had without difficulty. A moment's
reflection will show that a mind ever on the stretch must, like a
bow so kept, be the worse for it, and that the strain must be
occasionally slacked. There are two ways of slacking it. Both the
physician and experience tell us that nothing rests a tired brain like
sensible, physical exercise, except, of course, sleep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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