How to Get Strong and How to Stay So (1899)/Chapter 8
Chapter VIII
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, a well-known and able New York 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 chest; and that, what 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, following Sargent's plan in a gymnasium in New York, in one winter, 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 afterwards 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.
The late Professor Maclaren, of the Oxford University Gymnasium, took W, a boy at Radley College, ten years old, and seven years later, his height increased from 4 feet 6¾ inches to 5 feet 10¾ inches, or a gain of 16 inches in all; in his 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 7¼ to 11¾ inches—very large for a boy of seventeen, and decidedly above the average of that of most men; his upper arm from 7½ inches to 13⅜—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 39½ inches; which is all of two inches larger than the average man's.
His description of this boy was: "Height above the 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 when ten years old, 4 feet 6¼ inches high, and weighing 73 pounds—much heavier than the other at the start—in eight years gained 13½ inches, making him 5 feet 7¾ 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 11½, a quarter of an inch loss than W's, yet his upper arm had gone from 8¾ to 13½, inches, or one-eighth of an inch larger, while his chest rose from 28¼ 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. Afterwards rapid, and comparatively regular."
He only gained in height three-quarters of an inch from thirteen to fourteen, where W——— had gained 3⅝ inches, and H——— 3⅛ 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 1½ inches, S———'s went up 3 inches.
Now, how long did these boys work? As Maclaren says, "Just one hour per week!"
At one time twelve non-commissioned officers, selected from all branches of the service, were sent to Professor Maclaren to qualify as instructors for the British army. He said:
"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 Dr. Sargent had one pupil who gained in chest girth four inches in six weeks.
And Maclaren 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; for part of the gain must have been of course from the enlargement of the muscles on the outside 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 frame-work 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.
And in his Types and Methods of Respiration, Dr. J. Gardner Smith, President of the Harlem Medical Association and Physical Director of the Harlem Branch of the Young Men's Christian Association, explains how and why the shape of the chest is thus changed. He says:
"Mechanically, the thorax is a conical box bounded laterally by the ribs; the sternum and costal cartilages anteriorly; the ribs and spinal column posteriorly; the diaphragm, a dome-shaped muscle with a tendinous centre forming the base. This conical box is capable of movement in every direction. Muscles raise the ribs upward and forward, increasing the antero-posterior diameter; muscles rotate the ribs outward and upward and raise them laterally like the bail of a pail; increasing the lateral diameter; the diaphragm moves downward, increasing the vertical diameter.
"The size of the chest thus increased, the air within the lungs becomes rarefied; the pressure within the thorax becomes less, and immediately the external air, with its continual pressure of fifteen pounds to the square inch, rushes in to fill this 'tendency to a vacuum.' Of course it is highly important that the nostrils and other air-passages and the chest and abdominal wall be free from constriction or obstruction."
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 2⅞ 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 1¾ 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 1¾ pounds in weight, of 2½ 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 5¼ 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 2¾ inches in height to 5 feet 4¾ 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 9¼ inches to 11¼.
While the older gained but three-eighths of an inch in height, his weight went up from 153 pounds to 161½, his forearm from 11¼ inches to 12½-—an unusually large forearm for any man—and his upper arm from 11¾ inches to 13¼, 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 student of nineteen, as shown in Appendix IV. In four hours' work a week this student's upper arm went up 1½ inches—just the same amount as did Maclaren's student of twenty; his chest went up from 36½ inches to 40, while that of Maclaren's man went from 34 to 40; but it should be borne in mind that 36½, 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 8½ 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. And in one instance of which we knew a five-foot-eleven youth of nineteen, in half an hour's run at an easy gait each secular evening for a month, put 2¼ inches on his thigh girth.
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 hair's-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 40 or 50 additional 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 the disease.
A man, then, of feeble lungs—the consumptive, for instance—taken early in hand, with the care which Sargent or Hartwell or Anderson 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 and Gardner Smith have drawings of the same chest at the beginning and end of the period, 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[1] 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 a while; 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 wellnigh 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 two hundred.[2] 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, under skilled and intelligent direction, 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.
- ↑ See p. 137.
- ↑ See Appendix II.