Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/225

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EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES

full and strong; but your chest is getting deeper also. This time hold the bells out sideways, as if your arms were on a cross, and you give the muscles plenty to do. Now hold the bells far up behind you; lower, and lift them up there again; and repeat till you are comfortably tired; or simply hold them up so behind you, and walk around with them so; and now you are developing the backs of your shoulders.

To broaden your shoulders, hold your arms as if on a cross. Stretch your hands as far apart as you can, and hold them this way as often and as long as you can every day.


FOREARM WORK

Very many of these exercises for the biceps and shoulder have also called on the forearm; while those mentioned for the inner triceps have done the same. Very prominent among the latter is rowing; much of it soon bringing a strong forearm; especially on the inner and under side. Anything which necessitates shutting the hand, or keeping it partly or wholly shut; such as holding anything heavy in it; driving; chopping; hammering; fencing; single-stick; pulling one's self up with one hand or both; going up a rope or ladder hand-over-hand; batting, lacrosse, polo, twisting the dumb-bells around when at arm's-length, or a chair, or cane, or foil, or sword, or broom-handle, if the dumb-bells are not convenient, carrying a weight in the hand, using any of the heavier mechanical tools—all these, and more of their sort, will enlarge and strengthen the forearm, and will do much also for the hand. Probably the hardest work for the forearm, and that calling for the greatest strength here, is lifting very heavy weights suspended from a stick, bar, or handles which the hands grasp.


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