The benefit of exercises must be tested by the help they give to the actions of every-day life. The human body must perform certain movements which are continually necessary. These exercises enable us to do these movements with more grace and ease, with more pleasure to ourselves, with greater saving of strength and vitality, and in a way to give greater pleasure to others.
1. HOW TO STAND
"Man is the only animal," says Sir William Turner, "with a vertical spine." The bird stands upon two feet but the spine is not vertical. Strictly speaking no animal stands erect except man.
The primary aim of all true exercise for the improvement of health and the prolonging of life must affect the erectness of the human body and the counterpoise curves of the spine. The axis of the spine must be vertical.
Nearly all the exercises from the very first tend to accomplish this result. The expansion of the chest, the pivotal flexing of the torso, the lifting of the feet, the stretching, the co-ordinate action between the summit of the chest and the balls of the feet, and the exercises in sitting and standing, all tend to establish this most important condition.
There must be activity at the summit of the chest. The head and the chest are the first to give up and sag. We can see that the skeleton has no bones below the breast bone to support it. The lower ribs are floating ribs and the other ribs have an angle downward. Everything is arranged with reference to the expansion of the chest. This is the central activity in standing properly.
We can see, as has been shown, that man is held up seemingly from above. Man comes into stable equilibrium only when the body is supported from the summit of the chest. Levitation opposes gravitation.
It will be observed that the first exercises concern the expansion of the chest and when the exercises are properly performed, this expansion of the chest is indirectly sustained through them all.
If we observe a person standing properly, we find that a line dropped through the centre of the ear will fall through the centre of the shoulder, the centre of the hip, and the centre of the arch of the foot. The things that cause bad positions are: the chest inactive, the hips sinking forward, the head hanging downward or lolling to the side, the body sinking to the heel, and weak knees; but all of these seem to be corrected when the chest is properly expanded and elevated.
To stand well, therefore, one should stand upright; the chest well expanded so as to bring all parts into co-ordination and establish a true centrality in the body. In a certain sense, there seems to be an axis of the body by which it rests easily upon one foot while the other leg and hip are perfectly free. The body is also perfectly free to pivot and to pass the weight to the other foot.