Here is what was once considered to be a reasonable
morning “setting-up” exercise, and which,
if coupled with a five-mile rapid walk and hopping
first on one foot and then on the other for a half-mile,
would prepare a man for his day’s work.
On rising, let him stand erect, brace
his chest firmly out, and, breathing deeply,
curl dumbbells (ten pounds each for a 165-pound man)
fifty times without stopping. Then placing the
bells on the floor at his feet, and bending his
knees a little and his arms none at all, let
him rise to an upright position with them fifty times.
After another minute’s rest,
standing erect, let him lift the bells fifty
times as far up and out behind him as he can, keeping
the elbows straight and taking care, when the
bells reach the highest point behind, to hold
them still there a moment.
Next, starting with
the bells at the shoulders, let him push them
up high over the head
and lower them fifty times continuously.
Is it any wonder that we abandoned such “setting-up”?
Again, it was pointed out how, by special exercises,
a man might increase his biceps two or three inches
in a year and the calves of his legs an inch or two!
Now what was the average man to do this for? What
was the object? To admire himself in the mirror?
Or did he intend to make of himself a professional
weightlifter? Practically the only real good
in all this was the deep breathing, and that would
not be lasting except in so far as a part of the exercises
tended to open up the chest. How many of us have
heard that fairy-tale that if we practised deep breathing
for a few minutes daily our lungs would acquire the
habit and we should continue it unconsciously when
seated at our desks!
Just to show what we are not attempting to
do, here is a quotation illustrating perfectly the
old-fashioned idea that health depends upon extraordinary
muscular development:
At our suggestion he began practising
this simple raising and lowering of the heels.
In less than four months he had increased the
girth of each calf one whole inch. When asked
how many strokes a day he averaged, he said that
it was from fifteen hundred to two thousand,
varied some days by his holding in each hand, during
the process, a twelve-pound dumbbell, and then
only doing one thousand or thereabouts.
The time he found most convenient was in the morning
on rising, and just before retiring at night.
The work did not take much time; seventy strokes
a minute was found a good ordinary rate, so that
fifteen minutes at each end of the day was all
he needed.
We new recognize how silly are such exercises taken
for the mere sake of adding an inch or two to an already
serviceable muscle.
