PHYSICAL CULTURE FOR THE MIDDLE-AGED.
It is scarcely necessary for me to say that the benefits to be obtained
by conscientiously working upon my system are by no means confined to
the young and vigorous. On the contrary, it is particularly suitable
for the middle-aged, who are all too apt to suffer from the effects of
the period of physical indolence which has succeeded their youthful
activity. To such, the system should prove invaluable. It is quite
a false notion to suppose that when once youth is passed exercise
is no longer necessary. _So long as life lasts, if an individual
wants to keep healthy, exercise is just as necessary as food._ It is
through neglecting to recognise this that so many men become aged
before their time. When a man begins to get into middle life he has
a natural tendency to “take things easy.” He lives more luxuriously,
devotes more time to the pleasures, of the table, and exerts himself
as little as possible. Is it anything to wonder at that his health
suffers, that he grows fat and flabby, and that his digestive apparatus
quickly gets out of gear? If in his youth he has been an athlete the
more will his changed mode of life tell upon him; it is indeed better
never to have exercised at all than to exercise for a few years and
then drop it entirely. It is for this reason we hear of the health
of so many athletes failing them at a comparatively early age. And
this failure is, as a rule, erroneously ascribed to the effects upon
their constitution of their early efforts. Once and again errors in
“training” may be responsible for poor health in middle-age, but in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the complete cessation from active
bodily work, combined with the greater indulgence which naturally
follows, is alone responsible.
Of course, while it is advisable that the middle-aged man should
exercise regularly, I must warn him not to do too much. He must
remember that what is perfectly safe and prudent at five-and-twenty may
be rash and hazardous at fifty; in short, that he, while exercising
consistently and steadily, must be careful not to over-tax his powers.
If he bears this in mind he will find that the discomforts and ailments
which he has perhaps got to regard as natural to his time of life are
quickly banished, and that, in spite of his grey beard and thinning
hair, it is still “good to be alive.”