Hoary old winter provides some glorious sports for young limbs, but
there come days of fierce snow and rain, or cold, howling winds, when he
that ventures out for pleasure is more brave than wise. Books and
in-door games then claim attention; but after a whole day, or perhaps
two, spent in-doors, they lose their attraction.
Young minds and bodies grow restless and weary. There is no inclination
for reading, or study, or play. The blood that only the other day was
rushing through the youngster's veins with such force that he jumped and
yelled with delight at he knew not what, is now almost as stagnant as a
pool of water in a long drought.
It was exercise that made him glad and happy out-of-doors; exercise will
make him contented and able to enjoy his book and his games in-doors.
For good in-door exercise there is nothing like a gymnasium. This is
fortunate, for every house has a gymnasium in it, if its owners only
knew it. It may sound like a strange statement, but it is true. _Every
bedroom is a gymnasium._
It is convenient to call this piece of furniture a chair; but if you
call the room a gymnasium, you may call this chair a pair of parallel
bars and a trapeze. If it is a light chair, and the ceiling is high, you
may call it an Indian club and a pair of dumb-bells also if you like.
That bed is a horizontal bar; so is the ledge over the door. The wall is
an upright bar, and the pillow a sand-bag. When you are sleepy at night,
you go to your bedroom; when you awake in the morning and spring out of
bed, you find yourself in your gymnasium.
When you are only a little way dressed, try this exercise on your
parallel bars: Turn your chair over so that it may rest upon its front
legs and the front edge of the seat. Grasp the hind-legs, one in each
hand, and with your legs stretched out, and your weight resting on the
toes, lower your body until your chest is on a level with the legs of
the chair; then push yourself up again by straightening your arms. Do
this, without letting go the legs of the chair, two or three times. This
will be as many as you will want to try at first, and you must never
tire yourself. After several days' practice you will find you can do it
a dozen times without any special fatigue, and you will also find that
your arms are getting larger and harder.
When you can do this first exercise easily, get another chair, and place
the two back to back, and about eighteen inches apart. Stand between
them, and grasp the chairs, one with each hand; hold your arms straight,
and lift your feet off the floor. Now lower yourself by bending your
arms; dip down between the chairs as far as you can, and raise yourself
up again without putting your feet to the floor. This exercise is rather
harder than the other, and at first you will not be able to make more
than perhaps two or three dips, but you will be astonished to find with
how few days' practice you will be able to make twelve dips, and soon
twenty or more. This is a capital exercise for the chest and arms; and
because you are not going to be a lumberman or a wrestler you need not
think you are wasting time by developing your muscles.
One of the greatest poets this country has produced, and one of the most
able editors of any country, the late William Cullen Bryant, practiced
this exercise every morning, and kept it up _until his eighty-fourth
year_. What a wonderful old man! But we shall hear more of him soon.
Now for a bed exercise. Grasp the foot-board with the hands close
together, and the fingers on the side nearest the body. Bring your
elbows together, and leaning forward upon them so that they support your
body, balance yourself upon your hands, and go forward until your face
almost touches the bedclothes, and your legs are parallel with the
floor. This is not easy; but after you have practiced the chair
exercises well, you will soon be able to do this several times, and even
bring your feet almost down to the floor and return to your balancing
position without touching the floor.
One of the fittings of a gymnasium is a "horizontal bar." This you will
find in your gymnasium in the ledge over the door. Open the door, and
take hold of the ledge, and see how many times you can draw your chin up
to the ledge. Not many times at first, you will find. But it is a
capital exercise to bring up the biceps, as the muscle in the front of
the arm above the elbow is called. Mr. Bryant used to do this exercise
on the ledge over the door, and pulled himself up so many times without
resting that he could not keep count of them. And he was not a light boy
or girl, but an old gentleman of eighty years.
Now try a trapeze exercise, or something very like what is done on a
trapeze. Sit on the chair, and place your right hand on the back of it,
and with the left hand grasp the seat between your legs. Raise yourself
a little by your arms, and pass your right leg through your arms to
where the left is, and the left leg through to where the right was. You
will then find yourself with your face to the back of the chair. Rest in
that position for a few seconds, but without releasing your grasp of the
chair, and then pass your legs back to their original position. This is
an excellent exercise for the back and legs and arms, and though
gymnastics are out of place in the sitting-room, it is a good trick to
do when, as sometimes happens, some one is talking about and showing
feats of strength.
In many gymnasiums there are striking-bags, filled with sawdust or sand,
and hung from above by a cord. The cord is not necessary. One of the
pillows of your bed will do just as well as a hanging bag. Throw it up
to the ceiling, and as it comes down strike it up again, first with one
hand and then with the other, and see how long you can keep it in the
air. This pillow fighting is a good and not at all dangerous exercise.
Pillow never hits back.
Although nothing has been said about girls doing these exercises, they
are all suitable for girls, especially if done before they have finished
dressing. Girls must have tumbled hair some time, and what better time
than before they have combed it in the morning? Girls do not care much
about foot-ball and base-ball, but they do like to have nice figures,
and to be strong and healthy, and they will find no better way of
becoming so than by practicing these and similar exercises.
Neither girls nor boys should try to do very much at first. Regular
practice is very much better than hard work one day, and none at all the
next three days. As soon as you feel tired, leave off. That is a sign
that you have done enough. Fifteen minutes' exercise every morning will
soon tell its tale in strong and lissom limbs and a feeling of health.
Some day you will go to a gymnasium fitted with bars and ladders and
poles, and you will find yourself quite at home there. And that will be
because your home gymnasium is not so very different from the public
one, after all.