HOW TO GET STRONG
they have made one now that a couple of dollars will buy; and that you can carry in your overcoat-pocket. (See Fig. 4, facing p. 48.) Yet it will do nearly all the work of all the apparatus of the old one put together. Indeed no man yet begins to know all that can be done with it. Is your back-arm weak? It will make it full, and stout, and strong. Is your fore-arm small? It need not stay so long. Is your neck slender? If it is so a year hence, it will be your own fault. Is your back narrow, with the bones showing through all over? In half an hour a day's work for two years, you can have it encased with great layers of muscle, like a 'Varsity oarsman's. And your abdominal muscles; and your pectorals; and every cord and sinew of your legs, will soon have a profound respect for this magical little device. A mere rubber rope, as thick as your little finger; fifteen feet long, with a handle at each end; three small pulleys; a hook, screwed into the lintel of your bedroom door, near the upper hinge, say seven feet above the floor; and another in the base-board, a few inches from the floor; and you are equipped with a gymnasium, where certain single exercises would tire out Hercules in fifteen minutes; noiseless, weightless, and so simple that you can learn how to use it at the first trial.
Use one yourself, now a dozen strokes in one way; now in another; now over your head; or out, wide-armed, as if you were on a cross; or close past your sides; or down to the floor and up again;—or in any other way of your own devising; and in five minutes you will find that that machine is your master; and in ten, especially if you have had on a sweater, or other warm garment, that your skin is in a healthy glow, moist and ruddy; and ready for a sponge-bath in tepid water. Then the thorough rubbing, till you are red all over; and, when you go down to breakfast, you will be in fine condition to
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