FALLACIES AND DEFECTS IN PRESENT SYSTEMS OF TRAINING.
Without for the moment taking into consideration those millions of
London who stifle in crowded slums, on insufficient or unsuitable food,
and many of whom have inherited from birth some taint of constitution,
and concerning ourselves for the moment only with those within whose
reach, broadly speaking, are all the expedients known for insuring
health, we should find it curious and probably depressing to ascertain,
if we could, what proportion _felt well_, given they had no definite
cause of ill-health which it was out of their power to remove. Many
would put down their comparatively lower level of health while living in
London to the fact that they were working hard. This, if true, is a sad
and sobering reflection, since it would seem to imply that Nature had
not designed the average healthy individual to work hard; and though it
is probably infinitely better that people should work hard, and feel
slightly below par all the time, than that they should devote their
whole time to keeping well, yet it would be unsatisfactory if we were
forced to believe that continued hard work cannot be compatible with
continued good health. Many again would say that they never feel well
without exercise, and that it is impossible to get exercise in London.
That they can get sufficient exercise anywhere, with a very small
expense of time, we hope to show in a later chapter; but, in the
meantime, have such tried deliberately and unswervingly to eat far less
than they feel inclined, or to use some sort of definite selection in
the matter of what they eat? Others again would (quite rightly) put down
their slight but chronic indisposition to an absence of air; such
perhaps do not know what an immensely increased supply of air everyone
can get by always keeping bedroom windows wide open.
Now to many such the idea of using training as a means of merely keeping
well is probably novel. They are accustomed to feel slightly
unwell--that perhaps is too strong a term--when they are in a town and
at work, and having always felt thus have acquiesced in what we may call
a vicious habit. But they have always understood training to mean a
_régime_ of fixed exercise (founded on beefsteaks), which is as
impossible for them as it would also be unsuitable for them; or, in a
modified form, twenty minutes or half an hour with dumb-bells every
morning and evening. Many have probably tried dumb-bells; some, no
doubt, reap considerable benefit from their use, but not a few, and both
the present writers are among them, after giving them a good trial,
loathe the sight of them. And numbers, in such a case, have abandoned
themselves, with more or less content, to continuing to feel slightly
below par, and praying for the holidays.
Now the use of dumb-bells and developers is becoming something of a
fetish, of a cherished idol, and, backed as it is by well-known names,
is a formidable-looking god to throw stones at. But there seem to the
present writers to be many grave objections to such systems as are
constantly followed, whether they are used by athletes or by the much
larger class of those who merely wish to get exercise from them. The
_primâ facie_ objection in the case of both is their extreme monotony.
It is necessary apparently to raise the arms slowly in turn (bending the
elbow till the dumb-bell is level with the shoulder) upwards of a
hundred times or more: it is necessary to do the same again with the
backs of the hands out, to extend the arms from the shoulder outwards,
from the shoulder upwards, to bend the wrists to and fro (still with
these infernal implements grasped in the hands), to make motions as if
drawing water first on one side and then on the other, to hit out, with
the weight in the hands, at an imaginary foe; in fact to push, raise, or
pull this weight in practically every direction that it will go, a vast
number of times. “Developers” have, as a rule, the same defects; the
movements are slow, and a continued effort against permanent resistance,
while the greater part of the exercise which they give is not for the
greater muscles. Then follow--we are intentionally vague, and wish to
show only the general lines of many systems--exercises for the muscles
of the stomach and of the legs. For the breathing muscles of the chest,
there are also exercises which not being concerned for the most part
with these dead-weights we have found generally excellent. The masters
of such systems also, as a rule, advocate practising in front of a
looking-glass, stripped as far as may be, in order to observe the play
of the muscles. This also is admirable advice.
Now it will be noticed at once with regard to these exercises that by
far the majority of them are for the arms, and that even when, as in
certain of them, the object is to develop the breathing muscles, the
hands still hold the dumb-bells. In other words, something like
three-quarters of the ordinary dumb-bell exercises, as advised and
practised, are exercises in which the stress of the movements lies on
muscles of the wrist and fore-arm, biceps, triceps, and deltoid (the
shoulder muscle). What is the result if the instructions are
conscientiously observed? That the muscles of the arms get developed
ludicrously out of proportion to the rest of the body, for no purpose as
far as we can see except that of lifting and holding weights. The far
larger and more important thigh muscles and calf muscles, the great
muscles of the trunk and chest, have perhaps in some of these systems no
more work to do, when added together, than the muscles of the arm alone.
For certain games it is of course necessary to have considerable power
in the arm, yet (even for games) it is of far more importance to have
the larger muscles adequately developed. But granted (with certain
important reservations to be stated hereafter) that such exercises are
good for certain games, we contend that they are, if not harmful, at any
rate most ill-adapted for the proper development of the whole body, and
for supplying exercise to those who need it, particularly in town life,
for the sake of health. Certain muscles, those of the shoulder and arm,
are exercised out of all proportion, whereas the larger body muscles,
those in fact which are particularly needed for the correct and
healthful carriage of the body, so as to provide the heart and the
organs of breathing and digestion with free room to work in, are left
comparatively neglected. Indeed, as far as health goes, it would be
probably better for the man who has to sit at a desk for six or seven
hours a day to sit upright only, and take no exercise at all, than to go
religiously through his course before coming to his office, and then do
his work in the cramped and huddled position which is natural to many
people. But, and this is an even more serious charge, some exercises
recommended in certain systems, pursued no doubt by people who for years
have been in search of strength, advocate exercises which are positively
risky, with regard to strain on certain parts of the body, exercises in
fact which might tend to increase the strength of a strong man, but
would be almost dangerous for a less strongly-developed one. Again, and
this objection applies to athletes even more than to the ordinary man in
search of health by means of daily exercise, are not these slow
movements of dumb-bells and slow steady resistance against india-rubber
productive of quite the wrong sort of strength? No doubt the incessant
raising of a dumb-bell above the head, a heavy pushing stroke, will tend
to enable the pusher to raise greater and greater weights above the
head, but does the ordinary man, does the athlete himself desire to get
strength of that kind? For the ordinary man, in the first place, does
the development of fore-arm, biceps, or triceps tend in any way to
increase his health, except inasmuch as the exertion thus put forth
certainly enlarges some few muscles and tends to produce action of the
skin by reason of heat? As far as muscular development goes he would do
far better to exercise the larger muscle-areas, and for the other, a
Turkish bath will give him the equivalent of a week’s exercising. The
fallacy that lies at the bottom of this dumb-bell and “developer” work,
in fact, is that large and prominent muscles imply not only strength but
health. That the use of muscles tends to both is undeniable, but for
purposes of health the muscles employed are mainly the unimportant
ones, while for purposes of strength, valuable chiefly to those who wish
to employ muscles with a view to excellence in athletics, the strength
obtained is wholly the wrong sort of strength.
It is here that the dumb-bell and developer system goes utterly and
hopelessly astray. Used as an adjunct, it will assist a weak muscle to
arrive at a certain girth and bulk, but considered as a cause of any
successful stroke at a game, it is much more an enemy than a friend. For
at all games, with a possible exception perhaps in the case of rowing,
as far as strength comes into the question, it comes in as a motor-power
to produce speed, whereas dumb-bell exercises have for their object, as
a whole, the slow pushing of gradually increased weights. A modicum of
strength is of course necessary to propel anything anywhere, but the
main thing, the thing to be acquired, is speed in the muscle, in order
to impart velocity to the object. And the muscles of those whose sole
training is dumb-bell exercise are admirably unfitted to impart it. The
weights they can lift are no doubt prodigious, but we doubt whether any
man reared entirely on dumb-bells (and the more he had of that diet, the
better for our point) could hit a ball over the pavilion at Lord’s, make
a really difficult force at tennis, drive a golf ball two hundred yards,
turn a fast outside back-bracket at skating, or send in a really hot
shot at Association football. In fact, the more developed he was on
dumb-bell lines, the less likely he would be to be able to do any of
these things; the muscle acquired is of the wrong order, it has
sacrificed its speed for bulk, it is the strong engine of the
luggage-train, not the strong engine of the greyhound express. And if
this is not so, how does it come about that some professional strong
man has never yet attained immense pre-eminence in any branch of
athletics, if such strength were the desirable sort? Surely in his spare
moments he might send a few balls over the gasworks at Kennington, or
drive the green of the long hole at Sandwich. At golf, particularly,
there is no limit to the weight of his club, he may use what weapon he
pleases, and since the carry of a ball is wholly dependent on its
starting velocity, he with his great strength should be able to send it
beyond the dreams of any medal-winner. But as a matter of fact he
cannot, not because he misjudges it, for many strong men, we believe,
have an excellent eye, but because his muscles, trained to overcome
resistance by slow, prolonged effort, cannot act fast. Ah, if dumb-bells
could speak, what a tale they would have to tell! They would also cease
to be dumb-bells; this would be an advantage.
In addition to this the dumb-bell man is continually putting a
comparatively long strain on himself. To hit a half-volley at cricket,
to drive a golf ball is a short concentrated effort, and one in which
the whole swing and weight of the body assists. But to raise an iron bar
above the head is a long strain: the bar is slowly pushed up, arteries
dilate, the face is suffused, the heart and the blood-vessels, though
perhaps not taxed beyond what they were meant to bear--what that is one
cannot say--are, at any rate, largely taxed. Meantime the arm, the
function of which is mainly speed, moves slowly and with the utmost
effort. From its length, in comparison to its girth, it was quite
clearly designed for quickness, and yet the poor victim has been
gradually trained, by means of most tedious exercises, to become a
cart-horse instead of a racer. Pure gymnastics, which only turn the arms
into legs, are bad enough--dumb-bells turn the arms into a lift at a
second-rate hotel. It would be as sensible, in the hopes to acquire
rapidity of finger at the pianoforte, to train each finger separately to
lift heavy weights. Finally, what is the result if an abnormally
developed man has by reason of rheumatism or other causes to drop his
exercises? It is not, we believe, yet proved, but the opinion of medical
men tends to show that if one has developed a muscle to very great bulk
in the past, and then drops its use, a sort of fatty degeneration sets
in. Cheerful.
To recapitulate, the results we arrive at are as follows: Dumb-bell and
developer exercises as a whole, according to the generality of received
systems, are extremely monotonous. A motion is repeated many times, for
the sake of obtaining bulk in a certain muscle--in order to produce
quantity rather than quality, in fact. These motions take a considerable
time owing to their number, and for the most part they are dull, owing
to the slowness of the movement occasioned by the weight to be moved,
which, as the patient gets stronger, is gradually increased. The
slowness, the push of the movement, rather than the drive of the
movement, is often recommended: the movements, we are told, _should_ be
made slowly.
In the second place, certain muscles, for instance, of the forearm and
arm, are exercised unduly, unless the truth is that the business of man
is not to keep well and be fit for his work, but like Sisyphus to roll a
stone up a hill. Just as these are unduly exercised, so others are
unfairly omitted or slurred over, the larger and more important muscles
of the chest and trunk are starved of exercise in comparison to the
arm-muscles. Also in certain systems certain muscles are wrongly used:
muscles that are meant for support chiefly, as far as we can judge of
the purpose of the human frame, are deluded into becoming muscles of
motion, with the result that the naturally quiescent nerves and tissues
underlying them are improperly excited.
Thirdly, supposing that this great development of muscle (chiefly muscle
in the arm) is successfully attained, does it serve any practical use
whatever as regards either health or use? As far as health goes, it
passes the bounds of imagination to conceive that the main organs of the
body will be benefited by excessive biceps, whereas as regards strength,
for all purposes except the lifting and holding of weights, it is
extremely doubtful whether an increase of such strength does not imply
a corresponding decrease in speed and agility. The fastest runners are
not those with prodigious muscles, the hardest hitters have not a
swollen biceps. The test, in fact, of fitness and power of the body lies
not in measurements, but in the ability to perform certain movements
with correctness and rapidity, to be able to make complex movements, to
be capable of endurance, and to perform such movements with economy of
effort.
Many reservations must be made, however, in what appears to be an
all-round condemnation, and if we criticise the system of the most
prominent of the dumb-bell advocates, Mr. Sandow, we shall certainly
find a great deal to praise in what he says. His remarks about
practising before a mirror, for instance, are excellent, since to
observe the play of the muscles is, or ought to be to anyone with an
eye for movement, of immense interest, and takes off (this he does not
say) from the unspeakable tedium of the exercise itself. So, too, when
he advises cold water, open windows, moderate diet, abstention from
anything which disagrees, he has nought which is not advisable. Equally
true, too, is his insistence on attention of the most fixed order to the
work in hand, though perhaps he does not sufficiently allow for the
period in which a set exercise indulged in so often as some of his,
must, almost necessarily, become mechanical and automatic. For just as
it would be impossible that a practised player at any game should
_consciously_ attend to what he is doing (he sees, for instance, a ball
which is certainly a half-volley, but does not know he thinks about
half-volleys at all, yet hits correctly), so after a time a dumb-bell
exercise becomes (or should become) mechanical. That perhaps is its
strength: that certainly is its weakness. For this reason: all exercises
are, or should be, exercises towards an end. When that end is attained,
there is no longer any need for them, unless the end be merely to alter
the circulation of the blood; and something fresh, for the sake of
stimulus and interest, should be begun. By these dumb-bell exercises,
strength sufficient for the purposes of life can be no doubt attained;
but after that, unless our mission is to lift weights, they are
superfluous. That the muscles of the arm, that all muscles in fact
should be in a state of efficiency is highly desirable, but in a
sedentary life, in the life for which exercises are most obviously
useful, it is the large muscle-areas, the muscles which the stillness of
sitting tends to degenerate, that should be kept up to the scratch. The
inability, in fact, to sit habitually in a chair in a position in which
the lungs and heart will act naturally, is a greater defect than the
inability to raise 56 lbs. above the head in the left hand. Practically
perfect health is compatible with an abnormally weak forearm and wrist:
abnormal weakness, on the other hand, of the muscles of the chest and
abdomen always implies imperfect health.
Finally, the personal equation is not sufficiently considered in any
system of exercise that has come across our notice. There is Chart I.
for children, Chart II. for boys between 14 and 18, Chart III. for
adults. Any system of weight-moving, such as dumb-bells, will never
satisfactorily fill such a need as here exists, unless the teacher will
see and examine personally (provided also he has the requisite
knowledge) each one of his pupils. A thick-set boy of fifteen, though he
weighs the same as a tall lanky boy of the same age, requires a
perfectly different set of exercises to produce in him fit and robust
manhood, while the tall lanky boy may be injured by exercises that are
good for the average boy of his age and weight. But that there are
exercises which are practically good for everybody we fully believe. Of
this we treat later. Again, for people who wish to excel at games, to
begin with dumb-bells seems a mistake, for it teaches first the slow
movement, whereas speed of movement should come first. That they give
bulk to the muscles is undeniable, and there is a great deal to be said
for bulk, if only it has the power of speed. In any case these dumb-bell
and developer exercises should be alternated with quick, full movements,
so as to preserve the speed of the action of the muscles.
Now most people who feel the need of, and are better for, regular
exercise are accustomed, when they have leisure and opportunity, to
play some sort of game; and how enormously this tendency is increasing
is shown, to take one instance alone, by the huge number of golf links
which have sprung up all over the kingdom, and in particular round and
close to London, accessible to the city man in summer for a short round
perhaps when he returns home in the evening, and certainly used by him
on Saturday afternoon and probably Sunday. He does not, as a matter of
fact, hurry home in order to practise his beloved dumb-bells, he is not
late for dinner because he cannot leave his dumb-bells, but because he
will finish his round at golf. A game, in fact, is more enjoyed by most
people than mere exercise for the sake of exercise. The dumb-bells are
used when a game is not to be had. But these dumb-bell exercises, as we
have pointed out, do not, except in so far as they may strengthen an
inordinately weak muscle, improve or help a man’s game, unless we
consider weight-lifting a game. Six months’ continuous exercise of the
slow pushing and pulling order to overcome the inertia of the dumb-bell
or the contraction of india-rubber will probably not lengthen his drive,
since they do not teach speed of movement. That the long driver at golf
may be very strong is beyond question, but it is equally beyond question
that the professional strong man will incessantly be out-driven by a
player whose muscles are half the size of the other’s, because the
latter has cultivated swiftness of movement, the former has not. It is
for this among other reasons that in the chapter on exercises we
advocate, at any rate, until great speed has become easy, not the use of
dumb-bells--anyhow not of dumb-bells of more than nominal weight--but a
system of brisk, full movements, increasing not in regard to the
resistance to be overcome, but in their own complexity. They require the
same concentration of attention, but they are not fatiguing, although
they give full exercise to the muscles. For it is a great error to
suppose, as so many do, that fatigue is a criterion of exercise, that
one has not had enough exercise, in fact, until one feels tired. Indeed,
the converse, or something like the converse, is more nearly true,
namely, that exercise which leaves one tired is either excessive or more
probably is of the wrong sort. Fatigue is, perhaps, necessary if very
severe exercise has been gone through, but it is a thing not to be
sought after, and if possible to be avoided. As far as it is concerned
with the muscles themselves, it shows that they have been overtaxed (an
automatic signal put out by nature, saying, “Stop”), but probably in
many cases feelings of fatigue arise from other causes, and a very
little exercise will produce it, not because the muscles are overtaxed,
but because there is something wrong with other organs of the body.
Morning fatigue, the disinclination to get up after a good night’s rest,
not from laziness pure and simple, but from genuine languor, is an
extreme instance of this. But the dumb-bell user will not get over this
by putting in a vast amount of work for the biceps and triceps, though a
couple of minutes spent in using certain larger muscle-areas, with the
accompaniment it may be of massage, which one can easily administer
himself, will probably largely alleviate it. But instead he flexes the
arm a hundred and twenty times, lifting to each shoulder, perhaps, in
all a dead weight of 960 lbs.
Furthermore, these dumb-bell exercises, in which the weight of the
dumb-bells is gradually increased, become after a year or two very
severe indeed, and one would like to know the collective opinion of
doctors on such a point as this. Can it be good for a man of forty-five
or fifty to manipulate weights like these, performing say for
half-an-hour a day a series of exercises with them, some of which at any
rate entail considerable strain? And if these exercises are not good,
what is he to do? If after some years of hard work at them he does drop
them, does he not become liable, or tend to become liable, to a fatty
degeneration of the muscles, or at any rate to an increase of fat over
the muscles? In the meantime, if the course has been “successful,” if
the man is enormously developed in the muscles, particularly of the arm
and shoulder, it will quite assuredly be extremely difficult, if not
impossible, for him to change those muscles whose birth and breeding is
due to these slow pushing movements that are intended to overcome the
inertia of dead weight, into muscles which have to deal swift, not
heavy, blows at objects which for practical purposes (golf balls, tennis
balls, even cricket balls) have hardly any inertia at all. In other
words, he will find it difficult to become even passably proficient at
games which require rapidity of striking--and it is hard to name the
game which does not--and yet entail almost no strain on the heart and
arteries, in order to supply the place of those heavy exercises which he
feels himself unable, without risk, to continue. Besides this, it seems
not unlikely that the perpetual straining may deaden the fineness of
touch and judgment so necessary in most games. But the quick, brisk
movements such as we recommend in the chapter on exercises seem to us to
be singularly without the disadvantages of dumb-bell systems, as
regards monotony, for their very speed is undoubtedly exhilarating; nor
do they admit of any risk in the way of straining, while they exercise
the muscles more than dumb-bells do, though they do not so much
strengthen them. They are, therefore, quite as health-giving, since
health, unless a man is positively suffering from muscular feebleness,
has practically nothing to do with sheer muscular strength, while it has
a great deal to do with muscular fitness. On the other hand, they have
this great advantage over dumb-bell systems, namely, that they directly
and rapidly tend to increase the speed with which the muscles can make
their effort, and thus for that very large class of people who desire to
play games, and do so whenever they can, these movements are of the
greatest help even in learning the game, and also in keeping the muscles
in actual and _absolute_ practice for the game itself. They help, in
fact, the right sort of muscle, they teach the light, rapid stroke which
drives a ball. For the special exercises for each game, exercises which
have been tested and found of service, we shall have to refer readers to
the volumes on those games, which will subsequently appear, though even
in the general list given in the chapter on exercise in this volume, no
doubt they will pick out some that will be of service to them, whatever
game they may wish to be in practice for.
But it is to the ordinary unathletic man, the man who does not really
care about being in practice for a game, that we quite as sincerely
recommend them, for it is our hope that he will find them, as we
ourselves have done, pleasant and exhilarating (where we have found
dumb-bells tedious and wearisome), economical in point of time, though
they give, so we believe, more exercise than dumb-bells do, without
strain and without fatigue. But they do not, and not for a moment do we
claim it for them, increase the actual bulk of the muscles with anything
approaching the rapidity possible in dumb-bell exercises, and if a man
happens to want a sixteen-inch biceps without delay (or reason) it will
be mere waste of time for him to use them.
There are many other points in which systems of training, in common with
these dumb-bell exercises, seem to be defective, which need not be
mentioned here. It is perfectly true that, as a whole, men in
training--say a week after they have been training--are in excellent
health. But this health we soberly believe to be realisable by men
living in towns, with sedentary occupations, and, as they say, no
opportunity for exercise. The man who must be in London six days out of
the seven, practically abandons the attempt to keep in good health,
without knowing what easy aids lie ready to his hand. He has no idea how
much simple treatments, in the way of heat, baths, exposure of the body
to the air, can do for him in the way of enabling that wonderful
mechanism, the skin, which never sleeps, but works night and day at its
business of cleansing, to have a fair chance. Such a man has a cold, and
acquiesces in this state of things, saying he always has a cold in
February, as if he were rather doing his duty than otherwise. It never
occurs to him that to have a cold _is_ to be unhealthy, that in such a
case there is inflammation, and the mucous membrane is working double
tides to throw it off. Such inflammation, of course, must have a cause,
and is usually put down, often correctly, to sitting in a draught, or
not changing when wet. But when one is really well, living, let us say,
in the country, and getting wet perhaps two or three times a day, one
does not catch cold. In London under such circumstances many people do.
Why? Not because it is London, but because they are below par, liable to
attack. And it is a gross mistake on their part to acquiesce in such a
state of things. It is in most cases easily remediable, and that with
little expense of time, and none at all in money for doctors’ bills and
abhorrent drugs.
Finally with regard to training and practice for certain games, there
are two fallacies, commonly considered truisms, which are worth
commenting on. The first is that mere practice is conducive to
excellence, than which astounding statement there was never anything
less proven. It is dreadful to think of the amount of time which real
enthusiasts give to lone and solitary practice without ever dreaming
that what they are doing is probably merely emphasizing and making more
radical an already existing fault. Such an enthusiast (and the
professors of his game encourage him in it) will take half a dozen golf
balls on to a lonely upland, or half a dozen racquet balls into a lonely
court, and there continue with unabated zest to do things wrong. Such
practice is merely pernicious.
A second fallacy, connected with this point, is that style is
unattainable. For what is style? Apparent ease to the man who knows
little about it: real ease to the man who does know. And this ease
is--with certain exceptions, as in a _tour de force_ necessary to get
out of difficulties--certainly acquirable. Awkwardness and effort are,
as a rule, the effect of bad teaching or no teaching. For it must be
remembered that while a ball an inch above the net at tennis, a back
bracket at skating, a slog over the pavilion at Lord’s, to repeat
instances already used, are natural, in the sense that they are
compassable without misuse of the human frame, yet they imply accurate
and complex movements, which no one person would guess for himself. We
say “guess” advisedly, for all games are empirical.
And thus having to a certain extent cleared the ground we will pass to
construction.