SOME RESULTS OF BRIEF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE.
In a country like ours, where the masses are so intelligent, where so
much care is taken to secure what is called a good education, the
ignorance as to what can be done to the body by a little systematic
physical education is simply marvellous. Few persons seem to be aware
that any limb, or any part of it, can be developed from a state of
weakness and deficiency to one of fulness, strength, and beauty, and
that equal attention to all the limbs, and to the body as well, will
work like result throughout. A man spends three or four weeks at the hay
and grain harvest, and is surprised at the increased grip of his hands,
and the new power of arm and back. He tramps through forests, and
paddles up streams and lakes after game, and returns wondering how three
or four miles on a level sidewalk could ever have tired him.
An acquaintance of ours, an active and skilled journalist, says that he
once set out to saw twenty cords of wood, he was a slight, weak youth.
He found he had not enough strength or wind to get through one cut of
a log--that he had to constantly sit down and rest. People laughed at
him, and at his thinking he could go through that mighty pile. But they
did not know what was in him; for, sticking gamely to his self-imposed
task, he says that in a very few days he found his stay improving
rapidly, that he did not tire half so easily, and, more than that, that
there began to come a feeling over him--a most welcome one--of new
strength in his arms and across his chest; and that what had at first
looked almost an impossibility had now become very possible, and was
before long accomplished. Now, what he, by his manliness, found was
fast doing so much for his arms and chest, was but a sample of what
equally steady, systematic work might have done for his whole body.
Indeed, a later experience of this same gentleman will be in place
here; for at Dr. Sargent's gymnasium in New York, in the winter of
1878-'79, he, though a middle-aged man, increased the girth of his
chest _two inches and five-eighths in six weeks_! and this working but
one hour a day; and he found that he could not only do more work daily
afterward at his profession, but better work as well.
The youth who works daily in a given line at the gymnasium as much expects
that, before the year is over, not only will the muscles used decidedly
increase in strength, but in size and shapeliness as well, as he does that
the year's reading will improve his mind, or a year's labor bring him his
salary. It is an every-day expression with him that such a fellow "got his
arm up to" fifteen, or his chest to forty-odd inches, and so on. He sees
nothing singular in this. He knows this one, who in a short time put half
an inch on his forearm, or an inch; that one, whose thigh, or chest, or
waist, or calf made equal progress. Group and classify these gains in many
cases, and note the amount of work and the time taken in each, and soon one
can tell pretty well what can be done in this direction. Few of our
gymnasiums are so kept that their records will aid much in this inquiry,
simply because the instructor either has no conception of the field before
him, or, if he has, for some reason fails to improve the opportunity.
Look at what Maclaren effected (as described by him in his admirable
"Physical Education"), not with here and there an isolated case, but
with both boys and men turned in on him by the hundred, and in all
stages of imperfect development! Take it first among the boys. Under
systematic exercise, W----, a boy at Radley College, ten years old in
June, 1861, had, seven years later, increased in height from 4 feet
6-3/4 inches to 5 feet 10-3/4 inches, or a gain of 16 inches in all; in
weight from 66 pounds--light weight for a ten-year-old boy--to 156
pounds; far heavier than most boys at seventeen; showing an advance of
90 pounds. His forearm went from 7-1/4 to 11-3/4 inches--very large for
a boy of seventeen, and decidedly above the average of that of most men;
his upper arm from 7-1/2 inches to 13-3/8--also far above the average at
that age; while his chest had actually increased in girth from 26
inches--which was almost slender, even for a ten-year-old--to 39-1/2
inches, which is all of two inches larger than the average man's.
His description of this boy was: "Height above average; other measurements
average. From commencement, growth rapid, and sustained _with regular and
uniform development_. The whole frame advancing to great physical power."
Another boy, H----, starting in June, 1860, when ten years old, 4 feet
6-1/4 inches high, and weighing 73 pounds--much heavier than the other
at the start--in eight years gained 13-1/2 inches, making him 5 feet
7-3/4 inches--of medium height for that age. He gained 71 pounds in
the eight years, and at 144 pounds was better built than W---- at 156;
for, though his forearm, starting at 8 inches, had become 11-1/2, a
quarter of an inch less than W----'s, yet his upper arm had gone
from 8-3/4 to 13-1/2 inches, or one-eighth of an inch larger, while
his chest rose from 28-1/4 to 39 inches--within half an inch of
the other's, though the latter was 3 inches taller.
He is described: "Height slightly above average; other measurements
considerably above average. From commencement, _growth and
development regular and continuous. The whole frame perfectly
developed for this period of life._"
S----'s case is far more remarkable. He was evidently very small and
undersized. "Height and all other measurements _greatly_ below average;
the whole frame stunted and dwarfish. Advancement at first slight, and
very irregular. Afterward rapid, and comparatively regular."
He only gained in height three-quarters of an inch from thirteen to
fourteen, where W---- had gained 3-5/8 inches, and H---- 3-1/8 inches. Yet,
from fifteen to sixteen, where W---- only went ahead half an inch, and
H---- five-eighths of an inch, S---- actually gained 4 inches, which must
have been most gratifying. His weight changes were even more noticeable.
From twelve to fifteen W---- gained 58 pounds, and H---- 39, while all
S---- could show was 12. But from fifteen to sixteen see how he caught up!
Where W----made 11 pounds, and H---- 10, S---- made 22. Where W----'s chest
went up 1 inch, and H----'s 1-1/2 inches, S----'s went up 3 inches.
Now, how long did these boys work? As Maclaren says "_Just
one hour per week!_"
What parent believes that any hour in that week was better
spent--better for the comfort, for the welfare of the boy, or
better in fitting him for future usefulness--or what nearly so
well? Most boys waste that much time nearly every day.
Look, too, at the benefit to the boy in all his after-life. Indeed, does
not this hour a week, in some instances, insure an after-life, and
snatch not a few from an early grave? Had every slim, thin-chested man
in America, and every slim, thin-chested boy who never lived to be a
man, spent an hour weekly under such tutoring, from the age of ten to
eighteen, would not the benefit to our land in working-power, in vigor
and force, and comfort as well, have been incalculable? And had it,
instead of one hour a week, been two or three, or even an hour a day,
might not the results have been even more gratifying?
Professor Maclaren may well congratulate himself on such good results
among the boys. But what has he done with men? Some years ago twelve
non-commissioned officers, selected from all branches of the service, were
sent to him to qualify as instructors for the British army. He says:
"They ranged between nineteen and twenty-nine years of age, between five
feet five inches and six feet in height, between nine stone two [128]
pounds and twelve stone six [174] pounds in weight, and had seen from
ten to twelve years' service."
He carefully registered the measurements of each at the start, and at
different times throughout their progress. He says:
"The muscular additions to the arms and shoulders, and the expansion of
the chest, were so great as to have absolutely a ludicrous and
embarrassing result, for, before the fourth month, several of the men
could not get into their uniforms, jackets, and tunics, without
assistance, and when they had got them on they could not get them to meet
down the middle by a hand's-breadth. In a month more they could not get
into them at all, and new clothing had to be procured, pending the arrival
of which the men had to go to and from the gymnasium in their great-coats.
One of these men gained five inches in actual girth of chest."
And he well adds: "Now who shall tell the value of these five inches
of chest, five inches of additional space for the heart and lungs
to work in?" Hardly five inches more of heart and lung room,
though part of the gain must have been of course from the enlargement
of the muscles on the side of the chest.
He also hit upon another plan of showing the change; for he says
he had them "photographed, stripped to the waist", both at first
and when the four months were over, and the change even in these
portraits was very distinct, and most notably in the youngest, who
was nineteen, for, besides the acquisition of muscle, there was in
his case "a readjustment and expansion of the osseous framework
upon which the muscles are distributed." Now let us look a little
at the measurements and the actual changes wrought.
In the first place, this last instance settles conclusively one matter
most important to flat-chested youth, namely, whether the shape of the
chest itself can be changed; for here it was done, and in a very short
time at that. Again, of these twelve men, in less than eight months every
one gained perceptibly in height; indeed, there was an average gain of
five-twelfths of an inch in height, though all, save one, were over
twenty; and one man who gained half an inch was twenty-eight years old,
while one twenty-six gained five-eighths of an inch! (Most people suppose
they can get no taller after twenty-one.) All increased decidedly in
weight--the smallest gain being 5 pounds, the average 10 pounds; and one,
and he twenty-eight, and a five-feet-eleven man, actually went up from
149 pounds at the beginning, to 165 pounds in less than four months. It
is not likely there was much fat about them, as they had so much vigorous
muscular exercise. Every man's chest enlarged decidedly, the smallest
gain being a whole inch in the four months, the average being 2-7/8
inches, and one, though twenty-four years old, actually gaining 5 inches,
or over an inch a month. Every upper arm increased 1 inch, most of
them more than that, and one 1-3/4 inches. As the work was aimed to
develop the whole body, there is little doubt that there was a
proportional increase in the girth of hips and thigh and calf.
Again, from the Royal Academy at Woolwich, Professor Maclaren took
twenty-one youths whose average age was about eighteen, and in the
brief period of four months and a half obtained an average advance of
1-3/4 pounds in weight, of 2-1/2 inches in chest, and of 1 inch on the
upper arm; while one fellow, nineteen, and slender at that, gained 8
pounds in weight, and 5-1/4 inches about the chest! Think what a
difference that would make in the chest of any man, and a difference
all in the right direction at that!
But the most satisfactory statistics offered were those of two
articled pupils, one sixteen, the other twenty. In exactly one year's
work the younger grew from 5 feet 2-3/4 inches in height to 5 feet
4-3/4 inches. He weighed 108 pounds on his sixteenth birthday; on his
seventeenth, 129! At the start his chest girthed 31 inches; twelve
months later, just 36! His forearm went up from 8 inches to 10
inches, and his upper arm from 9-1/4 inches to 11-1/4.
While the older gained but three-eighths of an inch in height, his weight
went up from 153 pounds to 161-1/2, his forearm from 11-1/4 inches to
12-1/2--an unusually large forearm for any man--and his upper arm from
11-3/4 inches to 13-1/4, while his chest actually made the astonishing
stride of from 34 inches to 40. Not yet a large arm, save below the elbow,
not yet a great chest; five inches smaller, for instance, than Daniel
Webster's, but greatly ahead of what they were a year earlier.
There is no mystery about the Maclaren method. Others might do
it, perhaps not as well as he, for Maclaren's has been a very
exceptional experience; still, well enough.
Look what Sargent did with a Bowdoin student of nineteen, as shown in
Appendix IV. In four hours' work a week this student's upper arm went up
1-1/2 inches--just the same amount as did Maclaren's student of twenty;
his chest went up from 36-1/2 inches to 40, while that of Maclaren's man
went from 34 to 40; but it should be borne in mind that 36-1/2 is harder
to add 6 inches to in this kind of work than 34. In height the Englishman
made three-eighths of an inch in the year, while the American made a
whole inch. But the latter also led easily in another direction, and a
very important one too; for, while the Briton, though but a year older,
and of almost exactly the same height, gained but 8-1/2 pounds in
the year, the American made 15! His case is further valuable in
that it shows, beside this advance above the waist, splendid increase
in girth of hips, thigh, and calf as well.
With us Americans fond of results, many of whose chests, by-the-way, do not
increase a hair's-breadth in twenty years, better proof could not be sought
than these figures offer of the value of a system of exercise which would
work such rapid and decided changes. Had they all been with boys, there
might have been difficulty in separating what natural growth did, in the
years they change so fast, from what was the result of development. But
most of the cases cited are of men who had their growth, and had
apparently, to a large extent, taken their form and set for life. To take a
man twenty-eight years old, tall and rather slim, and whose height had
probably not increased a single hairs-breadth in seven years, and in a few
short months increase that height by a good half inch; to take another,
also twenty-eight, and suddenly, in the short period between September 11th
and the 30th of the next April, add sixteen pounds to his weight, and every
pound of excellent stuff, was in itself no light thing; and there are
thousands of men in our land to-day who would be delighted to make an
equally great addition to their general size and strength, even in twice
the period. To add five whole inches of chest, and nearly that much of lung
and heart room and stomach room, and the consequent greater capacity for
all the vital organs, is a matter, to many men, of almost immeasurable
value. Hear Dr. Morgan, in his English "University Oars," on this point:
"An addition of three inches to the circumference of the chest implies that
the lungs, instead of containing 250 cubic inches of air, as they did
before their functional activity was exalted, are now capable of receiving
300 cubic inches within their cells: the value of this augmented lung
accommodation will readily be admitted. Suppose, for example, that a man is
attacked by inflammation of the lungs, by pleurisy, or some one of the
varied forms of consumption, it may readily be conceived that, in such an
emergency, the possession of enough lung tissue to admit forty or fifty
additional cubic inches of air will amply suffice to turn the scale on the
side of recovery. It assists a patient successfully to tide over the
critical stage of his disease." A man, then, of feeble lungs--the
consumptive, for instance--taken early in hand, with the care which
Maclaren or Sargent could so well give, gradually advanced in every
direction, would suddenly find that his narrow, thin, and hollow chest had
departed, had given way to one round, full, deep, and roomy; that the
feeble lungs and heart which, in cooler weather, were formerly hardly up to
keeping the extremities warm, are now strong and vigorous; that the old
tendency to lean his head forward when standing or walking, and to sit
stooping, with most of his vital organs cramped, has all gone. In their
place had come an erect carriage, a firm tread, a strong, well-knit trunk,
a manly voice, and a buoyancy and exhilaration of spirits worth untold
wealth. Who will say that all these have not assured him years of life?
Well, but did all this increase of weight and size actually change the
shape of the chest, for instance, and take the hollowness out of it?
That is exactly what it did; and Maclaren has a drawing of the same
chest at the beginning and end of the year, showing an increase in the
breadth, depth, and fulness of the lower chest which makes it seem
almost impossible that it could have belonged to the same person. It
will be remembered that Maclaren claimed[I] that just such a
readjustment of the osseous framework would result. Is not this, then,
remaking a man? Instead of a cramped stomach, half-used lungs, a thin,
scrawny, caved-in make, poor pipe-stems of legs, with arms to match,
almost every one under forty, at least, can in a very few months, by
means of a series of exercises, change those same slender legs, those
puny arms, that flat chest, that slim neck, and metamorphose their owner
into a well-built, self-sufficient, vigorous man, fitter a hundred times
for severe in-door or out-door life, for the quiet plodding at the desk,
or the stormy days and nights of the ocean or the bivouac. Who is going
to do better brain-work: he whose brain is steadily fed with vigorous,
rich blood, made by machinery kept constantly in excellent order, never
cramped, aided daily by judicious and vigorous exercise, tending
directly to rest and build him up? or he who overworks his brain, gets
it once clogged with blood, and, for many hours of the day, keeps it
clogged, who does nothing to draw the blood out of his brain for awhile
and put more of it in the muscles, who, perhaps, in the very midst of
his work, rushes out, dashes down a full meal, and hurries back to work,
and at once sets his brain to doing well-nigh its utmost?
Well, but is not the work which will effect such swift changes very
severe, and so a hazardous one to attempt? That is just what it is not.
Is there anything very formidable in wooden dumb-bells weighing only
two and a half pounds each, or clubs of three and a half-pounds, or
pulley-weights of from ten to fifteen pounds? or is any great danger
likely to result from their use? And yet they were Sargent's weapons
with his Bowdoin two hundred.[J] Nothing in Maclaren's work, so far as
he points out what it is, is nearly so dangerous as a sudden run to boat
or train, taken by one all out of the way of running, perhaps who has
never learned. There a heart unused to swift work is suddenly forced to
beat at a tremendous rate, lungs ordinarily half-used are strained to
their utmost, and all without one jot of preparation.
But here, by the most careful and judicious system, the result of long
study and much practical application, a person is taken, and, by work
exactly suited to his weak state, is gradually hardened and
strengthened. Then still more is given him to do, and so on, at the rate
that is plainly seen to best suit him. Develop every man's body by such
a method, teach every American school-boy the erect carriage of the West
Pointer, and how many men among us would there be built after the
pattern of the typical brother Jonathan, or of the thin-chested,
round-shouldered, inerect, and generally weak make, so common in
nearly every city, town, and village in our land?
Look, too, at the knowledge such a course brings of the workings of
one's own body, of its general structure, of its possibilities! What a
lecture on the human body it must prove, and how it must fit the man to
keep his strength up, and, if lost, to recover it; for it has uniformly
been found that a man once strong needs but little work daily to keep
him so. A little reflection on facts like the foregoing must point
strongly to the conclusion that the body--at least of any one not yet
middle-aged--admits of a variety and degree of culture almost as great
as could be desired, certainly sufficient to make reasonably sure of a
great accession of strength and health to a person formerly weak, and
that with but a little time given each day to the work.
FOOTNOTES:
[I] See page 145.
[J] See Appendix II.