How to Get Strong and How to Stay So

Daily Exercise for Young Men.

On rising, let him stand erect, brace his chest firmly out, and, breathing deeply, curl dumb-bells (each of about one-fifteenth of his own weight) fifty times without stopping. This is biceps work enough for the early morning. Then, placing the bells on the floor at his feet, and bending his knees a little, and his arms none at all, rise to an upright position with them fifty times. The loins and back have had their turn now. After another minute's rest, standing erect, let him lift the bells fifty times as far up and out behind him as he can, keeping elbows straight, and taking care, when the bells reach the highest point behind, to hold them still there a moment. Now the under side of his arms, and about the whole of the upper back, have had their work. Next, starting with the bells at the shoulders, push them up high over the head, and lower fifty times continuously. Now the outer part of the upper arms, the corners of the shoulders, and the waist have all had active duty.

Finally, after another minute's rest, start with the bells high over the head, and lower slowly until the arms are in about the position they would be on a cross, the elbows being always kept unbent. Raise the bells to height again, then lower, and so continue until you have done ten, care being taken to hold the head six or more inches back of the perpendicular, and to steadily face the ceiling directly overhead, while the chest is swelled out to its uttermost. Rest half a minute after doing ten, then do ten more, and so on till you have accomplished fifty. This last exercise is one of the best-known chest-expanders. Now that these five sorts of work are over, few muscles above the waist have not had vigorous and ample work, the lungs themselves have had a splendid stretch, and you have not spent over fifteen minutes on the whole operation. If you want to add a little hand and forearm work, catch a broom-stick or stout cane at or near the middle, and, holding it at arm's-length, twist it rapidly from side to side a hundred times with one hand, and then with the other.

In the late afternoon a five-mile walk on the road, at a four-mile pace, with the step inclined to be short, the knees bent but little, and the foot pushing harder than usual as it leaves the ground—this will be found to bring the legs and loins no inconsiderable exercise; all, in fact, that they will probably need. If, shortly before bedtime each evening, the youth, after he has been working as above, say for a month, will, in light clothes and any old and easy shoes, run a mile in about seven minutes and a half, and, a little later, under the seven minutes, or, three nights a week, make the distance two miles each night, there will soon be a life and vigor in his legs which used to be unknown; and if six months of this work brings a whole inch more on thigh and calf, it is only what might have been expected.

For still more rapid and decided advance, an hour at the gymnasium during the latter part of the morning, half of it at the rowing-weights, so thickening and stoutening the back, and the other half at "dipping" and other half-arm work on the parallel bars—so spreading and enlarging the chest and stoutening the back-arms—these will increase the development rapidly, and will sharpen the appetite at a corresponding rate. But it must be real work, and no dawdling or time lost.

Few young men in any active employment, however, can spare this morning hour. Still, without it, if they will follow up the before-breakfast work, the walking in the fashion named, and the running, they will soon find time enough for this much, and most satisfactory results in the way of improved health and increased strength as well. Indeed, it will for most young men prove about the right amount to keep them toned up and ready for their day's work. If they desire great development in any special line, let them select some of the exercises described in the previous chapter, as aimed to effect such development, and practice them as assiduously, if need be, as Rowell did his tread-mill work for his legs.

Daily Exercise for Women.

And what should the girls and women do each day? With two-pound wooden dumb-bells at first, let them, before breakfast, go through twenty-five movements of each of the five sorts just described for young men. After six weeks or two months they can increase the number to fifty, and, if this does not bring the desired increase in size, and strength of arm and chest and back, then they can try dumb-bells weighing four or five pounds each.

Out-of-doors, either in the latter part of the morning or afternoon, if they will, in broad, easy shoes, walk for one hour, not at any listless two-mile pace, but at first as fast as they comfortably can, and then gradually increasing until in a fortnight or more they can make sure of three miles and a half at least, if not of four miles within the hour, and will observe the way of stepping just suggested to the men, they will get about walking enough. And if once in awhile, every Saturday, for instance, they make the walk all of five or six miles, getting, if city ladies, quite out into the suburbs and back, they will be surprised and gratified at the greater ease with which they can walk now than formerly, and at their freshness at the end. Recent reports from India say that English ladies there often spend two or three hours daily in the saddle. Every American lady who can manage to ride that much, or half of it, and at a strong, brisk pace, will soon have a health and vigor almost unknown among our women and girls to-day.

If walking and horseback parties, instead of being, as now, well-nigh unheard of among our girls, were every-day affairs, and there was not a point of interest within ten miles which every girl, and woman too, did not know well, it would prove a benefit both to them and to the next generation which would be almost incalculable.

Girls should also learn to run. Few of them are either easy or graceful runners; but it is an accomplishment quickly learned; and begun at a short distance and slow jog, and continued until the girl thinks nothing of running a mile in seven minutes, and that without once touching a heel to the ground, it will do more than almost any other known exercise to make her graceful and easy on her feet, and also to enlarge and strengthen her lungs. A roomy school-yard, a bit of lawn, or a gymnasium-track, either of these is all the place needed in which to learn this now almost obsolete accomplishment. The gymnasium is perhaps the best place, as there they can wear costumes which do not impede freedom of movement.

If besides these things the girl or woman will determine that, as much as possible of the time each day in which she is sitting down, she will sit with head and neck up, trunk erect, and with shoulders low, and that whenever she stands or walks she will at all times be upright, she will shortly find that she is getting to be far straighter than she was, and, if she has a larger and finer chest than formerly, it will be nothing strange, for she has simply been using one of the means to get it. If a still greater variety of daily work is desired, she can select it from Chapter XII.; the exercises on the pulley-weights and on the apparatus sketched in Fig. 8 being especially desirable.

Daily Exercise for Business Men.

And what daily work shall the business man take? His aim is not to lay on muscle, not to become equal to this or that athletic feat, but simply to so exercise as to keep his entire physical and mental machinery in good working order, and himself equal to all demands likely to be made on him.

First he, like the young man or the woman, should make sure of the ten or fifteen minutes' work before breakfast. Not through the long day again will he be likely to have another good opportunity for physical exercise, at least until evening, and then he will plead that he is too tired. But in the early morning, fresh and rested, and with a few minutes at his disposal, he can, as Bryant did, without serious or violent effort, work himself great benefit, the good effect of which will stay by him all the day. If he has in his room the few bits of apparatus suggested in the chapter on "Home Gymnasiums," he will be better off than Bryant was, in that he can have a far wider range of exercise, and that all ready at hand.

Let him first devote two or three minutes to the striking-bag. Facing it squarely, with head back and chest well out, let him strike it a succession of vigorous blows, with left and right fists alternating, until he has done a hundred in all. If he has hit hard and with spirit, he is puffing freely now, his lungs are fully expanded, his legs have had a deal of springing about to do, and his arms and chest have been busiest of all. This bag-work is really superb exercise, and if once or twice, later in the day, say at one's place of business, or at home again in the evening, he would take some more of it, he would find fret, discomfort, and indigestion flying to the winds, and in their place buoyancy and exhilaration of spirits to which too many men have long been strangers.

Next grasp the handles in Fig. 8 and bear downward, as described on page 249. Repeat this work for about two minutes, standing all the time thoroughly erect. Whether the sparring left any part of your chest unfilled or not, every air-cell is expanded now, while you cannot fail to be pleased with the thorough way in which this simple contrivance does its work. Care should of course be taken that the air breathed during these exercises is pure and fresh.

Now use the dumb-bells two or three minutes. Let them weigh not over one twenty-fifth of your own weight. First, with head and neck a trifle back of vertical, and the chest held out as full as possible, curl the bells, or lift them from down at arm's-length until you have drawn them close up to the shoulders, the finger-nails being turned upward. Lower again and repeat until you have done twenty-five, the chest being always out. The biceps muscles, or those of the front upper arm, and of the front of the shoulders and chest, have been busy now.

Next, starting with the bells at your shoulders, push both at once steadily up over your head as high as you can reach, and continue till twenty-five are accomplished. The back-arms, corners of the shoulders, and the waist have now had their turn.

Facing the pulley-weights (Fig. 4), and standing about two feet from them, catch a handle in each hand. Keeping the elbows stiff, draw first one hand and then the other in a horizontal line until your hand is about eighteen inches behind you, the body and legs being at all times held rigidly erect, and the chest well out. Continue this until you have done fifty strokes with each hand. This is excellent for the back of the shoulders—indeed for nearly the entire back above the waist.

Again, with back to the pulley-weights, hold the handles high over the head, and leaning forward about a foot, keeping the elbows unbent, bear the handles directly downward in front of you, and so do twenty-five.

Besides these few things, or most of them, put the bar (Fig. 3) in the upper place, and, catching it with both hands, just swing back and forth, at first for half a minute, afterward longer, always holding the head well back. This is capital at stretching the ribs apart and expanding the chest. If the above exercises seem too hard at first, begin with half as much, or even less, and work gradually up until the number named can be easily done.

If, once in mid-morning and again in mid-afternoon, the man, right in his store or office, will turn for two or three minutes to his dumb-bells, and repeat what he did with his home pair in the morning, he will find the rest and change most refreshing. But in any case, whether he does so or not, every man in this country whose life is in-door ought to so divide his time that, come what may, he will make sure of his hour out-of-doors in the late afternoon, when the day's work is nearly or quite done. If he must get up earlier, or get to his work earlier, or work faster while he does work, no matter. The prize is well worth any such sacrifice, and even five times it. Emerson well says, "The first wealth is health," and no pains should be spared to secure it. Lose it awhile and see. Exercise vigorously that hour afoot, or horseback, or on the water, making sure that during it you utterly ignore your business and usual thoughts. Walk less at first, but soon do your four miles in the hour, and then stick to that, of course having shoes in which it is easy to walk, and before long the good appetite of boyhood will return, food taste as it often has not done for years, sound sleep will be surer, and new life and zest will be infused into all that you do. Let every man in this country who lives by brain-work get this daily "constitutional" at all hazards, and it will do more to secure to him future years of health and usefulness than almost anything else he can do. It will be observed that there is nothing severe or violent in any of these exercises suggested for men—nothing that old or young may not take with like advantage. The whole idea is to point out a plain and simple plan of exercise, which, followed up faithfully, will make sound health almost certain, and which is easily within the reach of all.

Daily Exercise for Consumptives.

And what should these people do? If there is one good lung left, or a goodly portion of two, there is much which they can do. Before breakfast they need to be more careful than others because of their poorer circulation. Still, in a warm and comfortable room they can work to advantage even then. In most instances consumptives have not large enough chests. Stripped to the waist, there is found to be a flatness of the upper chest, a lack of depth straight through from breastbone to spine; and the girth about the chest itself, and especially at the lower part of it, is often two or more inches less than it is in a well-built person of the same height. Now, to weed out these defects, to swell up and enlarge the chest, and bring it proper breadth, and depth, and fulness, this will go far toward insuring healthy and vigorous lungs. And how is this done?

Standing under the handles in an appliance like that represented in Fig. 8, holding the body rigidly erect, the chest out, the knees and elbows unbent, bear the two handles downward on either side of you until the hands are as if extended on a cross, using only very light weights at first. Lower the weights again, then bear down again, and so do ten. Just as you bear down each time, inflate the lungs to their utmost, and hold the air in them until you have lowered the weights again. Rest about a minute, then do ten more, and a little later ten more. This will be enough before breakfast work the first week. At breakfast, and whenever sitting down throughout the day, determine to do two things—to sit far back on your chair, and to sit at all times upright. No matter how many times you forget or fail, even if a thousand, keep trying until the erect posture becomes habitual. This point once reached, you have accomplished a great thing—one which may aid not a little to save your life.

Next, about an hour after breakfast, start out for an easy walk. Going quietly at first, the head held, if anything, back of the vertical, and the step short and springy; quicken later into a lively pace, and, holding that as long as you comfortably can, return to your room. If your skin is moist, do not hesitate a minute, but strip at once, and with coarse towels rub your skin till it is thoroughly red all over, and then put on dry under-clothing. If you then feel like taking a nap, take it. When well rested, do thirty more strokes at the pulley-weights. In the afternoon try more walking, or some horseback work if you can get a steed with any dash in him. After you are through, then more weight work. Finally, just before retiring, take another turn at the weights.

After the first week run the weight work up to fifty at a time, and increase the out-door distance covered both morning and afternoon, being sure to go in all weathers, and to eat and sleep all you comfortably can. Vary the in-door work also somewhat. In addition to the exercise on Fig. 8, practice now an equal number of strokes daily on the appliance described as Fig. 9, and in the fashion described on page 249. After the first fortnight try hanging by the two hands on the horizontal bar and swinging lightly back and forth. Before breakfast, before dinner, before supper, and just before retiring, take a turn at this swinging. Of it, and the work on the two sorts of pulley-weights, a weak-lunged person can scarcely do enough. These open the ribs apart, broaden and deepen the chest, and inflate the lungs—the very things the consumptive needs. The out-door work secures him or her ample good air, vigorous exercise, and frequent change of scene. On the value of this good air, or rather of the danger of bad air, hear Langenbeck, the great German anatomist: "I am sure now of what I suspected long ago, viz., that pulmonary diseases have very little to do with intemperance, * * * and much less with cold weather, but are nearly exclusively (if we except tuberculous tendencies inherited from both parents, I say quite exclusively) produced by the breathing of foul air." This out-door work should also be steadily increased until the half-hour's listless walk at first becomes six or eight miles before dinner, and as much more before supper. From breakfast to supper one can hardly be exercising out-of-doors too much; and steadily calling on the heart and lungs in these very favorable ways, increased vigor and power are only what might have reasonably been looked for.

As the months roll on, and this steady work, directed right to the weak spots, has strengthened and toughened you, now put larger weights on the Fig. 8 appliance, and also increase the number of strokes until you do a thousand or even two thousand daily—head and body always being held erect, and full breathing a constant accompaniment. This making a specialty of these chest-expanding exercises, none of which are severe or violent, but which are still vigorous enough, and the abundance of healthy and active out-door life, are sure to bring good fruits in this battle where the stake is no less than one's own life. They are rational and vigorous means, aimed directly at the weak part, and, with good air, good food, cheerful friends, and ample sleep, will often work marvels, where the filling the stomach with a whole apothecary shop of nauseous oils and other medicines has wholly failed to bring the relief sought. These exercises taken by a man already healthy at once tone him up and invigorate him, until he begins to have something of the feeling of the sturdy pioneer, as described by Dr. Mitchell.[P] And if the delicate person tries the same means, using them judiciously and carefully, it is but natural that he should find similar results.

Some years ago Dr. G——, of Boston, showed us a photograph of himself taken several years previously. The shoulders were warped forward, the chest looked flat, almost hollow, and the face and general appearance suggested a delicate man. He said he inclined to be consumptive. Well, by practising breathing, not on an ordinary "blowing-machine," where you empty your lungs of about all that is in them, but on an inspirometer, from which instead you inhale every inch of air you can, and by practising vigorous working of his diaphragm, he had so expanded his lungs that he could inhale three hundred and eighty cubic inches of air at one breath! Certainly the depth of his chest at the later period was something astounding, it being, as nearly as we could judge without calipers, all of fourteen inches through, directly from breastbone to spine, while it was a strikingly broad chest as well.

But an even more astonishing feature was the tremendous power of his voice. He said that at the end of half an hour's public singing with the opera singers (for he was skilled at that), while they would be hot and perspiring he was only just warming up and getting ready for his work. One thing all who ever heard him sing would quickly concede, namely, that seldom had they anywhere heard so immense a voice as his. He said that he had also run two blocks in one breath. He looked about the farthest remove from a consumptive—a short, stout, fat man, rather.

Now the in-door chest work above recommended, and the steady and vigorous daily out-door work, all aiming to deepen and strengthen the lungs, are well-nigh sure to bring decidedly favorable results; while the doctor's habit of frequent, deep, and slow inhaling, cannot fail to work great good, and can hardly be practised enough.

After he of weak lungs has once built them up again and regained the former vigor, he should not only be sure of his daily in-door exercise and of his constitutional, but of a longer outing daily than a stronger man would need. President Day, of Yale, said to have been a consumptive at seventeen, by good care of his body lived to be ninety-five, and it is far from uncommon for delicate persons, who take good care of the small stock of vigor they have, to outlive sturdier ones who are more prodigal and careless.

APPENDIX I.

Showing the average state of the development of 200 men upon entering the Bowdoin College Gymnasium, from the classes of '73, '74, '75, '76, and '77.

APPENDIX II.

Showing the average state of the growth and development of the same number of men (200) after having practised in the Bowdoin Gymnasium half an hour a day four times a week, for a period of six months, under Dr. Sargent.

In this case the apparatus used was light dumb-bells, 2½ lbs.; Indian clubs, 3½ lbs.; pulley-weights, from 10 to 15 lbs.

APPENDIX III.

Showing average increase of 200 students at Bowdoin College, in various measurements, after working but half an hour a day four times a week, for six months, under Dr. Sargent.

APPENDIX IV.

Showing the effect of four hours' exercise a week for one year upon a youth of 19, at Bowdoin College, under Dr. Sargent's direction. This was two hours' work more each week than was required of the regular classes.

APPENDIX V.

Taken from Maclaren's "Physical Education." Showing effect of four months and twelve days' exercise, under his system, on fifteen youths ranging from 16 to 19 years of age.

Return of Course of Gymnastic Training at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, from Feb. 10th, 1863, to June 22d, 1863.