Suppose that you eat on an average two pounds’ weight of food a day. Do you think that it would be equally beneficial to take the fourteen pounds of food on one day and then have six days’ starvation? Some animals can do this, but man is not fitted for living in this way. With the usual logic evinced by most people when they are contradicted, we are at once answered, “Oh, if what I do is no good, as I cannot take exercise when I like, I shall not go out at all!” Evidently concluding that she takes care of her own health out of consideration for our feelings!
You must be a physician to hear this form of argument without smiling. Perhaps you would feel inclined to answer this lady, “Well, it does not matter to me what you do. It is your health, not ours, that is at stake.” So, indeed, would we like to answer; but if we did, what would be the good of us? No, we will not offend this lady; we will wait till to-morrow, when she will have come to the same way of thinking as ourselves.
You must never walk so as to over-tire yourself. We are not going to say that an occasional long walk is injurious. It is not, but it is not the proper way to take exercise.
All forms of exercise are not equally good. Some are very beneficial, others are doubtfully healthy, others again are downright noxious.
Walking is so infinitely the best form of exercise, that to compare any other with it is ridiculous. Walking is essential to health, and no other form of exercise can be substituted for it.
Boating, riding, and bicycling are fairly good forms of exercise, but none of these possesses the value of walking. Driving in a carriage is simply not exercise at all. You get a little fresh air and change of scene in driving; but as there is no exertion required in the process, there is no exercise.
Many of our outdoor games are good exercise, many are a little hard and excessive perhaps, but on the whole they are very healthy, unless carried to excess. These games are good because walking or running is an essential part of them. Golf is by far the most healthy of all games. As far as outsiders can tell, it seems to us to be walking with a little skill and excitement added to render the walking pleasant to those who will not walk for walking’s sake alone.
Of the forms of exercise that can be carried on indoors, we will say but little. A little dumb-bell or Indian-club exercise in the morning after the bath is very beneficial to healthy people. The dumb-bells should be made of wood, should not weigh more than two pounds, and should be used for a few minutes only. The heavy iron dumb-bells so often used to “improve the figure” are exceedingly injurious and should never be used.
Of gymnastics we would rather be silent altogether; but, since this form of exercise is very popular and largely on the increase, we must say a word or two about it. In our opinion gymnastics of any kind are poor forms of exercise, and the severer kinds and “strong man exercises” are exceedingly injurious to everyone.
We have been accustomed, when we look at a man whose muscles are enormously developed to consider him a strong man. But if you were to question him on his health or powers of endurance, you would probably discover that he was a very sickly specimen. We have seen a “strong man,” a rather famous one too, sit down in a corner and cry for half an hour because a boy threw a cherry stone into his eye—an injury at which a healthy person would laugh. Does this denote strength? Another strong man whom we knew was always shivering with the cold both in summer and winter. And once, when he happened to catch a cough, he was completely prostrate for weeks.