Having grasped his "three-pounders," the student is made to stand in an attitude of ease, the inner side of his arms fronting outwards. His very first step on the road to muscular development is to alternately bend each arm at the elbow, bringing the dumb-bell close to the shoulder. This has to be repeated some twenty or thirty times, to the measured "One, two, three," of the instructor.
LIFTING 70 LBS. WITH TWO HANDS.
The same thing is then gone through with the arms turned the other way, so that the knuckles instead of the finger-tips are brought up to the shoulders. Next the arms are extended outwards in a straight line, each being bent in turn at the elbow, and the dumb-bell brought immediately above the shoulder. And here comes the student's first difficulty; for in extending the arms each time it is necessary to keep them straight and rigid in order that the muscles may be benefited by the strain. It is amusing to watch various pairs of arms gradually drooping as this exercise proceeds.
Altogether the dumb-bells are used in about twenty different positions, each affecting a different set of muscles. There is the lunge, for instance, exercising both arms and legs. First standing at ease, the pupil takes a stride forward and strikes out alternately with his left and right, as though an adversary awaited the blow. Some twenty-five or thirty such lunges, however, are calculated to transform the most bellicose among Sandow's disciples into members of the Peace Society.
The wrists are strengthened in this fashion: once more extending the arms in a line with the shoulders the pupil now holds the dumb-bells by the ends, instead of in the usual way, and with a circular motion of the wrists revolves the bells first from right to left, then from left to right.
RAISING 40 LBS. WITH ONE HAND.
Next comes what the flippant call the "see-saw" motion. With the inevitable dumb-bell in each hand the student stands erect; the see-saw consists of nothing more remarkable than bending the upper portion of the body from side to side, without moving the lower limbs. These are cared for in the next exercise. Lying at full length on the ground, the pupil actually proceeds to kick his legs in the air! Not particularly graceful, perhaps, but highly beneficial, it is claimed, to the "hinges" at the knees and hips. What this motion does for the lower limbs, the next does for the upper part of the body. Lying at full length on the ground as before, and keeping the legs perfectly stiff, the student raises his head and shoulders from the ground, and with a quick movement swings forward until his body is bent almost double, then returning slowly to the former position. The dumb-bells are now forsaken for a time. The lesson to be learned is to support the body on the hands and toes, and to alternately lower and raise it by respectively bending the elbows and straightening the arms, taking care not to touch the ground with any part of the body. It looks and sounds easy enough; so it is, to do it once, but quite another thing to keep it up in quick succession until the instructor sees fit to cry "halt!" which is timed, it seems to the student, specially to remind him of the penultimate straw and the camel's back.
