DR. ANDERSON’S REPORT
“In February, 1903, I gave to Mr. Horace Fletcher the exercises used by the ‘Varsity’ crew. He went through these movements with ease and showed no ill effects afterwards. At that time Mr. Fletcher weighed 157½ pounds, and was in his fifty-fifth year. On June 11, 1907, Mr. Fletcher again visited the Yale Gymnasium and underwent a test on Professor Fisher’s dynamometer. This device is made to test the endurance of the calf muscles.
“The subject makes a dead lift of a prescribed weight as many times as possible. In order to select a definite weight, the subject first ascertains his strength on the Kellogg mercurial dynamometer by one strong, steady contraction of the muscles named—and then he finds his endurance by lifting three-fourths of this weight on the Fisher dynamometer as many times as possible at two or three second intervals. One leg only is used in the lift, and as indicated, the right is usually chosen.
“Mr. Fletcher’s actual strength as indicated on the Kellogg machine was not quite four hundred pounds, ascertained by three trials. In his endurance test on the Fisher machine he raised three hundred pounds three hundred and fifty times and then did not reach the limit of his power.
“Previous to this time, Dr. Frank Born, the medical assistant at the Gymnasium, had collected data from eighteen Yale students, most of whom were trained athletes or gymnasts. The average record of these men was 87.4 lifts, the extremes being 33 and 175 lifts.
Mr. Horace Fletcher
Making a World’s Record on the Dynamometer without previous training. Dr. William G. Anderson, Director of the Yale Gymnasium, in the Background.
“You will notice that Mr. Fletcher doubled the best record made previous to his feat, and numerous subsequent tests failed to increase the average of Mr. Fletcher’s competitors. Mr. Fletcher informs me that he had done no training nor had he taken any strenuous exercise since February, 1907. On two occasions only during the past year he reports having done hard work in emergencies; once while following Major-General Wood in the Philippines in climbing a volcanic mountain through a tropical jungle on an island near Mindanao for nine hours; and once wading through deep snow in the Himalayan Mountains, some three miles one day and seven miles the next day, in about as many hours. This last emergency experience came through being caught in a blizzard near Murree, in Northern India, at 8500 feet elevation, on the way to the vale of Kashmir. These two trials represented climatic extremes, and Mr. Fletcher states that neither the heat nor the cold gave him discomfort, a significant fact in estimating physical condition.
“Before the trial on the Fisher machine, the subject’s pulse was normal (about 72); afterwards it ran 120 beats to the minute. Five minutes later it had fallen to 112. No later reading was taken that day.
“The hands did not tremble more than usual under resting conditions, as Mr. Fletcher was able to hold in either hand immediately after the test a glass brimming with water without spilling a drop. The face was flushed, perspiration moderate, heart action regular and control of the right foot and leg used in the test normal immediately following the feat. I consider this a remarkable showing for a man in his fifty-ninth year; 5 feet, 6½ inches in height, weighing 177½ pounds and not in training.”
In order to make a more thorough test of Mr. Fletcher’s power of endurance under varying degrees of physical strain, he underwent on the 17th, 18th, 19th, 21st and 22nd of June, 1907, a number of other exceedingly severe tests, of which Dr. Anderson says: “After each test the respiration and heart action, while active, were healthy, and, under such conditions, normal.
“There was not the slightest evidence of soreness, stiffness or muscular fatigue either during or after the six days of the trials. Mr. Fletcher made no apparent effort to conceal any evidence of strain or overwork and did not show any. He informs me that he felt no distress whatever at any time. Should any one wish to become more familiar with the strenuousness of the movements selected, let him try them. The effort will be more convincing than any report.
“During the thirty-five years of my own experience in physical training and teaching, I have never tested a man who equalled Mr. Fletcher’s record.
“The later tests, given in June, 1907, were more taxing than those given in 1903, but Mr. Fletcher underwent the trials with more apparent ease than he did four years ago.
“What seems to me to be the most remarkable feature of Mr. Fletcher’s test is that a man nearing sixty years of age should show progressive improvement of muscular quality merely as the result of dietetic care and with no systematic physical training. The method of dietetic care, too, as given by Mr. Fletcher, is so unusual that the results seem all the more extraordinary. He tells me that during the four and a half years intervening between the first and the recent examinations he has been guided in his choice of foods and in the quality also, entirely by his appetite, avoiding as much as possible any preconceived ideas as to the values of different foods or the proportions of the chemical constituents of the nourishment taken.
“During this four year period he has more than ever catered to his body nourishment in subservience to instinctive demand. He has especially avoided eating until appetite has strongly demanded food, and has abstained from eating whenever he could not do so in comfort and enjoyment. Mastication of solid food and sipping of liquids having taste to the point of involuntary swallowing, according to his well-known theory of thoroughness in this regard, has also been faithfully followed.
“There is a pretty good evidence that taking food as Mr. Fletcher practices and recommends limits the amount ingested to the bodily need of the moment and of the day, leaving little or no excess material to be disposed of by bacterial agency. This might account for the absence of toxic products in the circulation to depress the tissue.
“The possible immunity from lasting fatigue and from any muscular soreness, resulting from the unaccustomed use, and even the severe use, of untrained muscles is of utmost importance to physical efficiency.
“My own personal observance and trial of Mr. Fletcher’s method of attaining his surprising efficiency, strengthened by my observation of the test-subjects of Professors Chittenden and Fisher who have come under my care meantime, lead me to endorse the method as not only practical but agreeable. As Mr. Fletcher states, both the mental and mechanical factors in selecting and ingesting food are important, the natural result of the care being a wealth of energy for expression in physical exercise.”