To all aspiring young athletes I would say: Be moderate, and take care not to overdo it; lead healthy, active lives; and avoid stuffing yourselves between meals with pastry and sweets.
CHAPTER II.
HOW TO BECOME A GYMNAST
Much benefit can be derived from gymnastic appliances if they are used understandingly. No advantage is to be gained by exercise that is carried on in a careless manner. Neither too much nor too violent exercise is beneficial, though constant and regular work is necessary. It is better to work for a certain length of time every other day than to devote all of one week to exercise, and not go near the gymnasium the next.
To use any apparatus carelessly is to use it dangerously. The writer has had many of his worst falls in doing some of the simplest tricks, because he was careless, and did not put his entire mind upon what he was doing. There is something besides and beyond the mere pleasure of being able to perform tricks in a gymnasium; there is a lasting benefit to be obtained in careful gymnastic exercise.
In beginning your exercises there are two points that you must bear in mind always. Stand erect, and before beginning any work draw a long deep breath. Breathe from the abdomen, so that the lower parts of the lungs are expanded. You will find by following this simple advice that anything you attempt will be much easier for you than if you go about your exercises in a careless or slouchy way. There should be no round-shouldered gymnasts. There is no one who has achieved distinction as a gymnast who is not as straight as an arrow, and across whose shoulder-blades a yardstick could not be placed without touching his back.
In your exercises avoid devoting too much time to one kind of work. Do not spend all your time, for instance, on the horizontal bar, or on the parallel bars. What all would-be gymnasts should strive for is a symmetrical development of their muscles. You do not want to have legs like a piano, hard and knotted with muscles, and arms like pipe stems. Nor do you want to have the arms and chest of a blacksmith, and legs like those of a crane. You want to have all your muscles developed alike, not one at the expense of another. To avoid this lop-sided kind of growth is the reason that gymnasiums have such a variety of appliances.
Now for the apparatus, and how it should be used. What boy, especially if he has lived in the country, has not tried to climb a rope, or go up a ladder hand over hand, and then, for the first time in his life, realised how heavy he is? Perhaps no form of exercise develops so quickly the upper arm and the chest as work on the rope and ladder in a gymnasium. In practising on the ladder, first try to pull yourself up until your chin is even with the rung. Keep at this exercise until you can repeat it three or four times without tiring yourself; then try to reach the rung above. Do not go up too far at first, for you may find yourself many feet from the floor without strength enough to come back as you went up. That, it is almost needless for me to remind you, means a fall—and a hard one too it may be. The same advice applies to the rope.
Almost as quick results may be obtained by practice with the dumb-bells, with which it is possible to exercise almost every muscle in the body. The dumb-bells should be light. Too heavy dumb-bells are apt to make a boy slow and sluggish in his movements. The proper weight for a beginner is half a pound, and under no circumstances should a boy use for regular exercise bells that weigh more than two pounds. Indian clubs are valuable, chiefly in strengthening the muscles of the arms and wrists.