Page:How to Get Strong (1899).pdf/249

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WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY

and about two feet from the wall. Place the hands against the wall, just at a level with and opposite to the shoulders. Now, keeping the heels all the time on the floor, and the neck back against the collar; let the body settle gradually forward until the chest touches the wall, keeping the elbows pretty near to the sides; the knees never bending a particle; and the face held up turned; the eyes looking at the ceiling directly overhead. Now push slowly off from the wall until the elbows are again straight, and the body back at vertical. Then repeat this, and continue six times for each half of the day, for the first week. Keep on until you reach fifteen by the third week; and twenty-five by the second month. For expanding and deepening the chest; helping to poise the head and neck so that they will remain exactly where they belong—in an erect position—and for giving the main part of the upper back-arm quite a difficult piece of work to do, this will prove a capital exercise. Whoever will make a specialty of this one form of exercise until they daily take two or even three hundred such pushes; will find that any tendency he or she may have to flatness or hollowness of chest will soon begin to decrease, and will very likely disappear altogether. Also that the back of the arm above the elbow is getting large, strong, and shapely.

In this last exercise most of the weight was on the feet; the hands and arms sustaining the rest. If the aisles are not over two feet and a half wide, let each pupil stand between two opposite desks and place one hand on each. Now, walking back about three or four feet; his hands still resting on the two desks; let him, keeping his feet on the floor but his body rigid and knees unbent, bend his elbows and lower his chest very gradually, until it is nearly or quite level with the desk tops;

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