Keeping fit all the way : $b how to obtain and maintain health, strength and efficiencyCamp, Walter
Science
Keeping fit all the way : $b how to obtain and maintain health, strength and efficiency
Camp, Walter
Hygiene; Physical education and training
There are two divisions in this class, as may be shown in the case of
the present world war. The first class embraces all the men in active
service, with two subdivisions--officers who are over forty and officers
and privates who are under that age. The second class comprises the men
(and women, too, for that matter) who, unable to do service at the
front, must support the troops in various ways behind the lines. It is
said that it takes five men behind the line to support one man at the
front, and, judging from the pressure that already has come upon our
people, this is manifestly not an incorrect statement. These reserves
must be kept in good physical condition, and with this end in view the
writer has prepared a modified form of setting-up exercises which has
been tested out with large numbers in actual practice.
These exercises are intended to prepare the younger men for the more
strenuous training which they are to undergo later; in the case of the
older men, they are to be used before entering upon the ordinary day of
business routine. After a great deal of study a system has been devised
which answers the needs in both cases; it is not too strenuous for the
older men, and it will add suppleness, vitality, and endurance to the
physical assets of the younger men.
A MODERN PHYSICAL SYSTEM
We know how, in the stress of affairs brought about by war, not only
individuals, but nations are suddenly awakened to the fact that what
may have been good enough even a year ago is antiquated and out of date
to-day. Under the pressure of war we are driven, whether we wish it or
not, to put to immediate test virtually every fact of our daily lives.
We find that almost every machine and well-nigh every method may be
improved--in fact, that it must be improved.
Boats, aeroplanes, guns, industrial processes, even the actual business
of living itself, all are being submitted to the test of emergency and
are being made over upon new lines. So it is with our setting-up
exercises. We can no longer afford to waste time or motion or effort. We
are teaching on an intensive scale and we must take nothing out of a man
in preparation; rather we must add to his store of vitality and energy.
Perhaps we find that the routine of his ordinary work will strengthen
sufficiently his legs and arms. This is astonishingly true. What we must
now do is to supple him, to quicken his co-ordination, to improve his
poise, and to put his trunk and thorax into better shape. We must give
him endurance, quickness of response, and resistive force. This,
therefore, being our problem, we eliminate the arm and leg exercises and
go directly for the trunk and thorax. We must quicken co-ordination and
improve the man's rapidity of response to command. And standing out
above all is this major principle: "No vitality should be taken out of a
man by these setting-up exercises; he should not be tired out, but
rather made ready for the regular work of the day."
OUT-OF-DATE IDEAS
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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