HOW TO GET STRONG
then slowly straighten up his arms; and so raise his body again to the original position. Three such dips twice a day the first week; five or six the second; and by the end of the month ten or twelve; and that number then maintained steadily; will open and enlarge the chest materially before the year is out; while at the same time doing much to increase and strengthen the upper back-arm. This is harder work than pushing against the wall; because the hands and arms now have to sustain a much greater portion of the weight of the body; but it is correspondingly better for the chest.
Next practise the chest widener; and the deepener as described near the end of the chapter.
Thus far exercises have been described calling for no apparatus at all; nor anything save a floor to stand on, a wall to push against, two ordinary school desks, and a fair degree of resolution. For children under ten, wooden dumb-bells, weighing one pound each, ought to be had of any wood-turner, and ought not to cost over five cents apiece. There might be one pair of dumb-bells given to each child, or, if the class is large, then a single dumb-bell for each, and they could be distributed among two classes for dumb-bell exercises.
Standing in the aisles, and about five feet apart, every child taking a dumb-bell in each hand, keeping the knees unbent and the head and neck erect, let them raise or "curl" the bells slowly until they are up to the shoulders, the finger-nails being held upward. Then lower, then rise again, and so on twenty times each half-day for the first fortnight, and double that many thereafter. This tells principally on the biceps or front of the upper arm, on the front of the shoulder, and on the pectoral muscles, or those of the upper front chest. When, later on, any pupil endeavors to pull himself up
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