HOW TO GET STRONG
This rational way of carrying the body during a difficult feat, besides giving the heart and lungs full room for vigorous action, also gives the stomach and other vital organs ample play. And there are other ways of bringing up these useful abdominal muscles, equally easy to learn.
Sit down at the rowing-machine; placing the feet in the toe-straps. Now sway the body back and forth; and, placing the hand on the muscles in question, feel how they harden. An ordinary bit of strap screwed to the base-board of one's room; so that each foot shall have a loop of it to go into; and then a stool or hassock some eight inches high to sit on, save the expense of the rowing-machine; yet produce the desired result with these muscles.
Lie flat on the back, as, for instance, just on awaking. Taking first a deep, full breath draw the feet upward, keeping the knees unbent, until the legs are vertical. Lower them slowly till horizontal; then raise again and continue. It will not take many minutes—or seconds—to bring these muscles enough work for one morning.
Or, this time keep the legs down; and, first filling the chest, now draw the body up until you are sitting erect. Then drop slowly back; and repeat. This will be likely to take even less time than did the other; but it will tell tremendously on these muscles. Indeed, most people are so weak in them, that they can hardly do this once. Yet men who have them strong and well trained, will lie flat on their backs on the floor or gymnasium-mat; and while some one holds their ankles, taking a two-hundred-pound man, lying across their chest at right angles with it; will raise him several times till they are in erect sitting posture.
Sitting on one of the parallel bars in the gymnasium,
184
