The following chapters give a set of exercises carefully tested upon
thousands of men, and these exercises will be fully explained so that
any individual reader may practise them daily and secure their full
benefit. To each chapter are appended a few health hints, couched in
language that is brief and to the point, in order that they may be
readily remembered. The object is to make an efficient working-machine
of the man without useless effort, to increase that man's resistive
force against disease, to add to his suppleness and endurance, to give
him poise and balance, and to develop co-ordination or control over his
muscles. By doing this his power to work will be augmented, and at the
same time any work that he does will be accomplished more readily and
with less effort. Finally his cheerfulness will be increased, and those
who work with him or under him or about him will be spared the
disagreeable experiences that accompany association with a man whose
irritability and irascibility have become part of his daily habit.
A SHORTHAND METHOD
We call this system the "Daily Dozen Set-up." It is a shorthand system
of setting-up exercises for use on any and all occasions.
The "Daily Dozen Set-up" consists of twelve exercises which, for ease in
memorizing, are divided into four groups of three exercises each. Each
exercise or movement is given a name, and the names of all the movements
of a group commence with the same letter, thus:
GROUP I GROUP II GROUP III GROUP IV
1. Hands 4. Grind 7. Crawl 10. Wave
2. Hips 5. Grate 8. Curl 11. Weave
3. Head 6. Grasp 9. Crouch 12. Wing
These exercises are not difficult nor exhausting, and do not demand
great strength for their proper execution. They are designed, both from
a scientific and a practical point of view, to give exactly the right
amount of exercise to every muscle of the body. They are intended to
promote suppleness, and especially to strengthen those muscles which are
seldom brought into play in ordinary daily life. A conscientious fifteen
minutes a day with the "Daily Dozen" will soon do more for a man than
any amount of skilled physical feats or "strong-man stunts." When one
first practises these movements their effect will be felt on the
little-used muscles of the neck, back, and stomach; yet they will not
leave the pronounced muscular fatigue which follows the ordinary
exercises and which does more harm than good.
HEALTH MAXIMS
Dress to be cool when you walk and warm when you ride.
Clean skin, clean socks, clean underwear every day.
Getting mad makes black marks on the health.
Sleep woos the physically tired man; she flouts the mentally exhausted.
Nature won't stand for overdrafts any more than your bank.
In a squad it is the job of each individual to make himself fit, for it
is his example that helps the rest.
The leader may be no better than you, but some one must give the orders
and set the pace.
Two things are essential to a clean skin; one is bathing and a rub-down,
but the other is still more important, and that is perspiration.
Food, water, and oxygen are the fuel for running the human machine.
You never saw a dog fill his mouth with food and then take a drink to
wash it down.