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HOW TO GET STRONG
AND
HOW TO STAY SO
BY
WILLIAM BLAIKIE
[Illustration: Decoration]
NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
FRANKLIN SQUARE
1883.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by
HARPER & BROTHERS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
TO
ARCHIBALD MACLAREN
_WHO HAS PROBABLY DONE MORE THAN ANY ONE ELSE NOW LIVING TO POINT
OUT THE BENEFITS RESULTING FROM RATIONAL PHYSICAL EXERCISE, AND HOW
TO ATTAIN THOSE BENEFITS_
THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY
Dedicated
PREFACE.
Millions of our people pass their lives in cities and towns, and at work
which keeps them nearly all day in-doors. Many hours are devoted for days
and years, under careful teachers, and many millions of dollars are spent
annually, in educating the mind and the moral nature. But the body is
allowed to grow up all uneducated; indeed, often such a weak, shaky
affair that it gets easily out of order, especially in middle and later
life, and its owner is wholly unequal to tasks which would have proved
easy to him, had he given it even a tithe of the education bestowed so
generously in other directions. Not a few, to be sure, have the advantage
in youth of years of active out-door life on a farm, and so lay up a
store of vigor which stands them in good stead throughout a lifetime. But
many, and especially those born and reared in towns and cities, have had
no such training, or any equivalent, and so never have the developed
lungs and muscles, the strong heart and vigorous digestion--in short, the
improved tone and strength in all their vital organs--which any sensible
plan of body-culture, followed up daily, would have secured. It does not
matter so much whether we get vigor on the farm, the deck, the tow-path,
or in the gymnasium, if we only get it. Fortunately, if not gotten in
youth, when we are plastic and easily shaped, it may still be had, even
far on in middle life, by judicious and systematic exercise, aimed first
to bring up the weak and unused parts, and then by general work daily
which shall maintain the equal development of the whole.
The aim here has been, not to write a profound treatise on gymnastics,
and point out how to eventually reach great performance in this art, but
rather in a way so plain and untechnical that even any intelligent boy or
girl can readily understand it, to first give the reader a nudge to take
better care of his body, and so of his health, and then to point out one
way to do it. That there are a hundred other ways is cheerfully conceded.
If anything said here should stir up some to vigorously take hold of, and
faithfully follow up, either the plan here indicated or any one of these
others, it cannot fail to bring them marked benefit, and so to gratify
THE AUTHOR.
_New York, July, 1883._
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES? 9
II. HALF-BUILT BOYS 23
III. WILL DAILY PHYSICAL EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY? 42
IV. IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN? 57
V. WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY 74
VI. HOME GYMNASIUMS 91
VII. THE SCHOOL THE TRUE PLACE FOR CHILDREN'S
PHYSICAL CULTURE 104
VIII. WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO 117
IX. SOME RESULTS OF BRIEF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE 138
X. WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD 154
XI. HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE 177
XII. SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES 199
_a._ To Develop the Leg below the Knee 200
_b._ Work for the Front of the Thigh 208
_c._ To Enlarge the Under Thigh 214
_d._ To Strengthen the Sides of the Waist 215
_e._ The Abdominal Muscles 218
_f._ Counterwork for the Abdominal Muscles 224
_g._ To Enlarge and give Power to the Loins 227
_h._ Development above the Waist 228
_i._ Filling out the Shoulders and Upper Back 230
_j._ To obtain a good Biceps 233
_k._ To bring up the Muscles on the Front and Side
of the Shoulder 236
_l._ Forearm Work 237
_m._ Exercises for the Triceps Muscles 238
_n._ To Strengthen and Develop the Hand 241
_o._ To Enlarge and Strengthen the Front of the Chest 243
_p._ To Broaden and Deepen the Chest itself 245
XIII. WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY 252
_a._ Daily Work for Children 253
_b._ Daily Exercise for Young Men 273
_c._ Daily Exercise for Women 276
_d._ Daily Exercise for Business Men 278
_e._ Daily Exercise for Consumptives 283
APPENDIX I. 291
" II. 291
" III. 292
" IV. 292
" V. 293
" VI. 294
" VII. 295
CONCLUSION 295
TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Fig. 1. A warped University Oarsman, imperfectly developed
in Muscles not used in Rowing 36
" 2. A warped Professional Sculler, imperfectly developed
in Muscles not used in Rowing 37
" 3. Horizontal Bar and Chest-bars, for Home Use 92
" 4. Noiseless Pulley-weights 94
" 5. Appliance for developing the Sides of the Waist 217
" 6. A Correct Position for Fast Walking 220
" 7. Device for developing the Abdominal Muscles 225
" 8. A Chest-widener 248
" 9. A Chest-deepener 250
HOW TO GET STRONG,
AND
HOW TO STAY SO.
CHAPTER I.
DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES?
Probably more men walk past the corner of Broadway and Fulton Street, in
New York city, in the course of one year, than any other point in
America--men of all nations and ages, heights and weights. Look at them
carefully as they pass, and you will see that scarcely one in ten is either
erect or thoroughly well-built. Some slouch their shoulders and double in
at the waist; some overstep; others cant to one side; this one has one
shoulder higher than the other, and that one both too high; some have heavy
bodies and light legs, others the reverse; and so on, each with his own
peculiarities. A thoroughly erect, well-proportioned man, easy and graceful
in his movements, is far from a frequent sight. Any one accustomed to
athletic work, and knowing what it can do for the body, must at times have
wondered why most men allowed themselves to go along for years, perhaps
through life, so carrying themselves as not only to lack the outward grace
and ease they might possess, and which they occasionally see in others, but
so as to directly cramp and impede one or more of the vital organs.
Nor is it always the man's fault that he is ill-proportioned. In most
cases it comes down from his progenitors. The father's walk and physical
peculiarities appear in the son, often so plainly that the former's
calling might almost be told from a look at the latter.
A very great majority of Americans are the sons either of farmers or
merchants, mechanics or laborers. The work of each class soon develops
peculiar characteristics. No one of the four classes has ordinarily had
any training at all aimed to make him equally strong all over. Broad as
is the variety of the farmer's work, far the greater, and certainly the
heavier, part of it tends to make him stoop forward and become inerect.
No man stands up straight and mows. When he shovels, he bends more yet;
and every ounce of spade or load pulls him over, till, after much of
this sort of work, it requires an effort to stand upright. Ploughing is
better for the upper body, but it does not last long. While it keeps
one walking over uneven ground, it soon brings on an awkward, clumsy
step, raising, as it does, the foot unnaturally high. Chopping is
excellent for the upper man, but does little for his legs. In
hand-raking and hoeing the man may remain erect; but in pitching and
building the load, in nearly every sort of lifting, and especially the
heavier sorts, as in handling heavy stone or timber, his back is always
bent over. It is so much easier to slouch over when sitting on
horse-rake, mower, or harvester, that most persons do it.
Scarcely any work on a farm makes one quick of foot. All the long day,
while some of the muscles do the work, which tends to develop them, the
rest are untaxed, and remain actually weak. A farmer is seldom a good
walker, usually hitching up if he has an errand to go, though it be scarce
a mile away; and he is rarely a good runner. He is a hearty, well-fed man,
not only because wholesome food is plenty, but because his appetite is
sharp, and he eats with relish and zest. Naturally a man thinks that, when
he eats and sleeps well, he is pretty healthy, and so he usually is; but
when he is contented with this condition of things, he overlooks the fact
that he is developing some parts of his body, and leaving others weak;
that the warp he is encouraging in that body, by twice as much work for
the muscles of his back as for those of the front of his chest, while it
enlarges the former, often so as to even render it muscle-bound, actually
contracts the latter, and hence gives less room for heart, lungs, stomach,
and all the vital organs, than a well-built man would have. If a man
should tie up one arm, and with the other steadily swing a smith's hammer
all day, there is little doubt that he would soon have an excellent
appetite and the sweet sleep of the laboring man. But in what shape would
it leave him in a few years, or even in a few months? The work of the
farmer, ill-distributed as to the whole man, leaves him as really
one-sided as the former. It is in a lesser degree, of course, but still so
evident that he who looks even casually may see it.
While the farmer's work makes a man hearty and well, though lumbering,
it takes the spring out of him. The merchant is, physically, however, in
a worse position. Getting to his work in boyhood, sticking to it as long
as the busiest man in the establishment, his body often utterly unfit
and unready for even half the strain it bears, he struggles on through
the boy's duties, the clerk's, and the salesman's, till he becomes a
partner; or perhaps he starts as entry-clerk, rises to be book-keeper,
and then stays there. In many kinds of work he has been obliged to stand
nearly all day, till his sides and waist could scarcely bear it longer,
and he often breaks down under the ceaseless pressure. If his work calls
him out much, he finds that the constant walking, with his mind on the
stretch, and more or less worried, does not bring him that vigor he
naturally looks for from so much exercise, and at night he is jaded and
used up, instead of being fresh and hearty. When exceptional tension
comes, and business losses or reverses make him anxious and haggard,
there is little in his daily work which tends to draw him out of a
situation that he could have readily and easily fitted himself to face,
and weather too, had he only known how. To be sure, when he gets well on
and better to do, he rides out in the late afternoon, and domestic and
social recreation in the evening may tend to freshen him, and fit him
for the next day's round; but, especially if he has been a strong young
man, he finds that he is changed, and cannot work on as he used to do.
His bodily strength and endurance are gone. The reason why is plain
enough: when he was at his best, he was doing most work, and of the sort
to keep him in good condition. Now there is nothing between rising and
bedtime to build up any such strength, and he is fortunate if he retains
even half of what he had. To be sure, he does not need the strength of a
stalwart young farmer; but, could he have retained it, he would have
been surprised, if he had taken sufficient daily exercise to regulate
himself, how valuable it would have been in toning him up for the
severer work and trial of the day. If, instead of the taxed and worn-out
nerves, he could have had the feeling of the man of sturdy physique, who
keeps himself in condition, who does not know what it is to be nervous,
what a priceless boon it would have been for him!
Who does not know among his friends business men whose faces show that
they are nearly all the time overworked; who get thin, and stay so; who
look tired, and are so; who go on dragging along through their
duties--for they are men made of the stuff which does the duty as it
comes up, whether hard or easy? The noon meal is rushed through, perhaps
when the brain is at white-heat. More is eaten, both then and in the
evening, than will digest; and good as is the after or the before dinner
ride, as far as it goes, it does not go far enough to make the digestion
sure. Then comes broken sleep. The man waking from it is not rested, is
not rebuilt and strong, and ready for the new day.
With many men of this kind--and all city men know they are well-nigh
innumerable--what wonder is it that nervous exhaustion is so frequent
among them, and that physicians who make this disorder a specialty
often have all that they can do? One of the most noted of them, Dr. S.
Weir Mitchell, of Philadelphia, in his valuable little book, "Wear and
Tear; or, Hints for the Overworked," page 46, says:
"All classes of men who use the brain severely, and who have also--and
this is important--seasons of excessive anxiety or grave
responsibility, are subject to the same form of disease; and this
is why, I presume, that I, as well as others who are accustomed to
encounter nervous disorders, have met with numerous instances of
nervous exhaustion among merchants and manufacturers.
"My note-books seem to show that manufacturers and certain classes
of railway officials are the most liable to suffer from neural
exhaustion. Next to these come merchants in general, brokers,
etc.; then, less frequently, clergymen; still less often, lawyers;
and, more rarely, doctors; while distressing cases are apt to
occur among the over-schooled young of both sexes."
And while the more active among business men run into this sort of
danger, those less exposed to it still do little or nothing to give
themselves sound, vigorous bodies, so as to gain consequent energy and
health, and so they go through life far less efficient and useful men
than they might have been. Hence their sons have to suffer. The boy
certainly cannot inherit from the father more vigor and stamina than
the latter has, however favored the mother may have been; so, unless the
boy has some sort of training which builds him up, his father's
weaknesses or physical defects are very likely to show in the son.
Nor do most classes of mechanics fare much better. Take the heavier
kinds of skilled labor. The blacksmith rarely uses one of his hands as
much as the other, especially in heavy work, and often has poor legs.
Indeed, if he has good legs, he does not get them from his calling. The
stone-mason is equally one-handed--one hand merely guiding a light tool,
the other swinging a heavy mallet. Nine-tenths of all machinists are
right-handed. And so on, through the long list of the various trades
where severe muscular exertion is requisite, there is a similar uneven
distribution of the work to the various parts of the body, the right arm
generally getting the lion's share, the left but little, the back more
than the chest--or, rather, than the front chest--and the legs having
but passive sort of work at best. Puddlers and boiler-makers, plumbers
and carpenters, coopers and smiths, shipwrights, carriage-makers,
tinners, and all who follow trades calling for vigorous muscular action,
not only constantly work one side more than the other, but many of their
tools are made, purposely, right-handed, so that they could hardly use
them with the left hand if they wanted to. As to those whose work is
more delicate, saddlers and shoe-makers, mill-hands and compositors,
wood-turners, tailors, jewellers and engravers, and nearly all the
lighter craftsmen, learn their trade with one hand, and would never
venture to trust any of its finer work to the other. In short, take the
mechanic where you will, in the vast majority of instances his right arm
and side are larger and stronger than his left, and quite as often his
vocation does little or nothing to strengthen and develop his legs.
The fact that most of these men have active work for some of the muscles,
with enough of it to insure a good appetite, combined with inherited
vigor, makes them often hearty men, but it leaves them unequally
developed. When they get into the gymnasium, they are usually lacking in
that symmetry, ease, and erectness which they might all along have had,
had they but used the means. The result, then, of overworking one part of
the body at the expense of the other, especially in heavier mechanical
labors, and of too little vigorous action in the lighter, tends to make
the average workman more prone to disease. Were there uniform development,
and that daily vigorous exercise which would stimulate the dormant parts
of the man's body, it would add to his life and usefulness.
But how is it with the sturdy laborer? He can hardly be liable to the same
defects. His work certainly must call into play every muscle of his body.
Well, watch him awhile and see. Try the coal-heaver. His surely is heavy,
hard work, and must make him exert himself all over. But does it? While it
keeps his knees steadily bent, his back is all the while over his work.
The tons of coal he lifts daily with his shovel gradually, but with
positive certainty, insures his back remaining somewhat bent when his work
for the time is done. When a year is spent at such labor, the back must
take a lasting curve. While his back broadens, growing thick and powerful,
his chest does not get so much to do; hence he is soon a round-shouldered
man. As he does not hold his chest out, nor his neck and head erect, he
contracts his lung-room, as well, indeed, as his general vital-room.
Scarce any man grows earlier muscle-bound, for few backs do so much hard
work. Now, standing erect, let him try and slap the backs of his hands
together behind his shoulders, keeping his arms horizontal and straight at
the elbow. Now he will understand what is meant by being muscle-bound. It
will be odd if he can get his hands within a foot of each other.
The navvy is no better. The gardener's helper has to do much stooping.
So do track-hands, stone-breakers, truckmen, porters, longshoremen,
and all the rest. Especially are ordinary day-laborers, whose tools
are spade, pick, and bar, who are careless about their skin, who
are exposed to dust and dirt, who are coarsely shod, most prone to
have bad feet. They, too, have the hearty appetite and the sound
sleep. Seldom do they give their bodily improvement a thought, and
so often, like their own teeth, they decay before their time, and
materially shorten their usefulness and their days.
Here, then, we see that the vast majority of men in this
country--three out of four at least--are born of fathers but
partially developed, and uniformly of inerect carriage.
And how is it with their mothers? Naturally they come, to a large
extent, from the same classes. They inherit many of the
characteristics of their fathers--size, color, temperament, and so on,
and generally the same tendency to be stronger on one side than on the
other. In the poorer classes their life is one of work, frequently of
overwork and drudgery, and in ill-lighted, ill-ventilated apartments.
Among those better off, they do not work enough, and often,
though of vigorous parents, are not themselves strong.
Thoroughly healthy, hearty women are not common among us. Ask the family
physician, and he will endorse this statement to an extent most men would
not have supposed. American women are not good walkers. Look how they are
astonished when they hear of some lady who walks from five to ten miles a
day, and thinks nothing of it. One such effort would be positively
dangerous to very many, indeed probably to the majority of our women,
while nearly all of them would not get over its effects for several days.
Yet many English and Canadian ladies take that much exercise daily from
choice, and, finding the exhilaration, strength, and health it brings,
and the general feeling of efficiency which it produces, would not give
it up. No regular exercise is common among the great majority of the
women of this country which makes them use both their hands alike, and is
yet vigorous enough to add to the size and strength of their shoulders,
chests, and arms. Ordinary house-work brings the hands of those who
indulge in it a good deal to do, even though the washing and ironing are
left to hired help. The care of children adds materially to the exertion
called for in a day. But far too often both the house-work and the
looking after the children are sources of great exertion. Were the
woman strong and full of vigor, she would turn each off lightly,
and still be fresh and hearty at the end of the day.
With the father, as with the mother, the conclusion arrived at seems to be
as follows: now that the day's work is done, no matter whether it brings
with it strength or weakness, let us be perfectly contented with things as
they are. If it makes us one-handed, so be it. If it stoops the back over,
so be it. If it does little or nothing for the lower limbs, or cramps the
chest, or never half fills the lungs, or aids digestion not a whit, so be
it. If it keeps some persons thin and tired-looking, and does not prevent
others from growing too fleshy, it never occurs to most of them that a very
small amount of knowledge and effort in the right direction would work
wonders, and in a way which would be not only valuable but attractive.
Most of us get, then, from our parents a one-sided and partial
development, and are contented with it. Unless we ourselves take steps to
better our condition, unless we single out the weak spots, prescribe the
work and the amount of it, and then do that work, we shall not remedy the
evil. More than this, if we do not cure these defects, we will not only
go through life with limited and cramped physical resources, with their
accompanying disorders and ailments, but we will cruelly entail on our
children defects and tendencies which might have readily been spared
them, and for which they can fairly blame us. A little attention to the
subject will show that the remedy is quite within our reach; and so plain
is this, that a generation later, if the interest now awakening in this
direction becomes, as it promises to, very general among us, our
descendants will understand far better than we do that the body can be
educated, as well as the mind or the moral nature; that, instead of
interfering with the workings of these, the body will, when properly
trained, directly and materially aid them; and, further, that there is no
stand-point from which the matter can be viewed which will not show that
such training will pay, and most handsomely at that.