CHAPTER XXIV
SOME HINTS ON GENERAL ATHLETICS, INCLUDING WALKING, RUNNING AND JUMPING
I do not think the advice I have given, as to the games appropriate for each season would be at all complete, if I did not give some advice that will be useful for all seasons and every day in the year.
To the boy the enjoyment of the sport is the first thing to be considered, but it is not the only thing. Our lives are often affected for good or ill by very little things. Injuries have been received by boys in sport that marred all their after lives.
It is natural for the young to delight in exercise. It is by taking it that they develop, but the development, to be of value, must be along sensible lines.
Every healthy boy wants to be an athlete; wants to excel in some line, and as this ambition is reasonable, it should not be discouraged. The youth eager to win in his sports is not apt to be found lagging when he takes up the more serious business of life.
Competition is said to be the life of trade, and it certainly adds greatly to our interest in sports, but the boy who starts in to learn by trying to compete is doomed to failure. There would be more success in the end if we learned to go slower and so became more thorough in the beginning.
There are certain exercises that every athlete must take to have a good physique, and the very first, and by far the most useful of these, is walking.
WALKING
Can you walk? I hear you laughing at the question; but let me change it slightly and ask, "Can you walk properly?"
"Of course I can," you reply. "I walk just like other folks who are not lame."
Now very few people walk properly, and no two people, unless it be soldiers or others who have been drilled to the exercise, walk alike. Just watch and see for yourself.
The good walker is always the graceful, easy walker. He stands erect, but not stiffly. His shoulders are well thrown back. He keeps his mouth closed, except when talking, and he breathes and exhales through his nostrils as the wise God meant him to do. His clothes fit him loosely and comfortably. He steps naturally, and without a trying stride, or a short step mincing gait, as if he wore hobbles. He walks by lifting his feet and not by raising his shoulders. And he wears shoes or other foot gear that do not breed corns or bunions.
Unless in a great hurry the walk, even the brisk walk, should never exceed three miles an hour; good heel and toe walkers have made forty miles without fatigue in ten hours, but this power comes only after long practice.
Walking is the very best, as it is the very cheapest, form of exercise, and it is best enjoyed on a country road with a cheerful companion.
Remember in all your exercising that good health is the one great object. Suppress all ambition to be merely strong. Many brutes are stronger than many of the strongest men, and many strong men have gone to pieces where lighter but more enduring men have come through the ordeal fresh and unharmed. This I have often noted in war times, when soldiers were called on to make a forced march over trying roads and in a downpour of rain.
Endurance is the great thing to strive for. The man who lasts is the man who wins. Therefore, in your walks, particularly when you are learning to walk well, like an Indian or a soldier, never try to do more than can be done without making too great a demand on your bodily strength.
RUNNING
Running is a fine exercise, provided always that it be done in season and in reason. To do it in reason you must start in by acquiring the skill to run and the endurance to keep it up.
There is one organ which if it stopped for a minute, the owner would be dead; that is the heart. Yet many young athletes act as if they were not aware that they had hearts.
No exercise that requires sudden violent effort, like fast rowing, or a hundred-yard dash in running, can be undertaken without serious effect to the heart. The Andean Indians will run, lightly and easily, at the rate of ten miles an hour, and keep it up for ten hours without rest, but you cannot induce them to make a short dash at high speed; they do not want to feel the warning thump of the heart.
In learning to run, breathe as in walking, keeping the body slightly bent forward, and the elbows gripped close to the sides. Under no circumstances start out by competing with any one, or by trying to run against time. Such a course will result in final failure, and may bring on a serious injury.
The jog trot is the thing to start in with. Try it for a week or two, and you will be surprised at the ease with which you can do it. At first a mile is long enough for a run. After a month you can do two miles without as much fatigue. Finally, if the gait be not too fast, you can keep it up for hours.
After you have mastered the jog, it will be time enough to quicken the pace into a run, not your swiftest run, mark you, but a run that you can keep up for a mile, with as little exhaustion as you did your first mile trot.
It is only by this slow, pleasant training, that you can ever learn to walk and run well, but when you have learned you will be paid for the effort, and then if the time comes to test your speed you will be ready to respond.
Jumping is closely related to running. It is an exercise in which boys delight, but which they seldom practice so as to achieve any skill.
We divide this exercise into standing and running jumps, and each of these can be subdivided into high and broad jumps.
In running contests, hurdles or other obstructions are placed in the path of the runner. These hurdles vary in height, but if you want to learn, start in with one or two about as high as your knee. Of course, you could take them standing, and it is not a bad exercise, but learn to take them at a moderate run. When you can do this with ease, increase the number or the closeness of the hurdles and add to the length of the run.
After a time you can take more and higher hurdles and lengthen the run, but never do either if you find your heart beating, or that the effort brings fatigue.
I do not think the running high jump pays for the effort. It is spectacular, that is all; not so the running broad jump. This may be of use. It is safe and sane, and with practice it is surprising the distance that can be covered.
After violent exercise of any kind, be sure to take a bath and a brisk rub down. If this cannot be had, a towel well soaked in cold water will make a good substitute, if you dry down with another towel.
If your clothes are wet and you are exercising, they may be allowed to dry on you with safety, but if you cannot do this, get dry clothes if possible. I have known sturdy boys to contract rheumatism from wet clothes; and they never got over it.
In conclusion, let me advise common sense. Think before you act, even when you are out for sport.