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
With us Americans fond of results, many of whose chests, by-the-way, do not
increase a hair's-breadth in twenty years, better proof could not be sought
than these figures offer of the value of a system of exercise which would
work such rapid and decided changes. Had they all been with boys, there
might have been difficulty in separating what natural growth did, in the
years they change so fast, from what was the result of development. But
most of the cases cited are of men who had their growth, and had
apparently, to a large extent, taken their form and set for life. To take a
man twenty-eight years old, tall and rather slim, and whose height had
probably not increased a single hairs-breadth in seven years, and in a few
short months increase that height by a good half inch; to take another,
also twenty-eight, and suddenly, in the short period between September 11th
and the 30th of the next April, add sixteen pounds to his weight, and every
pound of excellent stuff, was in itself no light thing; and there are
thousands of men in our land to-day who would be delighted to make an
equally great addition to their general size and strength, even in twice
the period. To add five whole inches of chest, and nearly that much of lung
and heart room and stomach room, and the consequent greater capacity for
all the vital organs, is a matter, to many men, of almost immeasurable
value. Hear Dr. Morgan, in his English "University Oars," on this point:
"An addition of three inches to the circumference of the chest implies that
the lungs, instead of containing 250 cubic inches of air, as they did
before their functional activity was exalted, are now capable of receiving
300 cubic inches within their cells: the value of this augmented lung
accommodation will readily be admitted. Suppose, for example, that a man is
attacked by inflammation of the lungs, by pleurisy, or some one of the
varied forms of consumption, it may readily be conceived that, in such an
emergency, the possession of enough lung tissue to admit forty or fifty
additional cubic inches of air will amply suffice to turn the scale on the
side of recovery. It assists a patient successfully to tide over the
critical stage of his disease." A man, then, of feeble lungs--the
consumptive, for instance--taken early in hand, with the care which
Maclaren or Sargent could so well give, gradually advanced in every
direction, would suddenly find that his narrow, thin, and hollow chest had
departed, had given way to one round, full, deep, and roomy; that the
feeble lungs and heart which, in cooler weather, were formerly hardly up to
keeping the extremities warm, are now strong and vigorous; that the old
tendency to lean his head forward when standing or walking, and to sit
stooping, with most of his vital organs cramped, has all gone. In their
place had come an erect carriage, a firm tread, a strong, well-knit trunk,
a manly voice, and a buoyancy and exhilaration of spirits worth untold
wealth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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