Finally, after another minute's rest, start with the bells high over the head, and lower slowly until the arms are in about the position they would be on a cross, the elbows being always kept unbent. Raise the bells to height again, then lower, and so continue until you have done ten, care being taken to hold the head six or more inches back of the perpendicular, and to steadily face the ceiling directly overhead, while the chest is swelled out to its uttermost. Rest half a minute after doing ten, then do ten more, and so on till you have accomplished fifty. This last exercise is one of the best-known chest-expanders. Now that these five sorts of work are over, few muscles above the waist have not had vigorous and ample work, the lungs themselves have had a splendid stretch, and you have not spent over fifteen minutes on the whole operation. If you want to add a little hand and forearm work, catch a broom-stick or stout cane at or near the middle, and, holding it at arm's-length, twist it rapidly from side to side a hundred times with one hand, and then with the other.
In the late afternoon a five-mile walk on the road, at a four-mile pace, with the step inclined to be short, the knees bent but little, and the foot pushing harder than usual as it leaves the ground—this will be found to bring the legs and loins no inconsiderable exercise; all, in fact, that they will probably need. If, shortly before bedtime each evening, the youth, after he has been working as above, say for a month, will, in light clothes and any old and easy shoes, run a mile in about seven minutes and a half, and, a little later, under the seven minutes, or, three nights a week, make the distance two miles each night, there will soon be a life and vigor in his legs which used to be unknown; and if six months of this work brings a whole inch more on thigh and calf, it is only what might have been expected.
For still more rapid and decided advance, an hour at the gymnasium during the latter part of the morning, half of it at the rowing-weights, so thickening and stoutening the back, and the other half at "dipping" and other half-arm work on the parallel bars—so spreading and enlarging the chest and stoutening the back-arms—these will increase the development rapidly, and will sharpen the appetite at a corresponding rate. But it must be real work, and no dawdling or time lost.
Few young men in any active employment, however, can spare this morning hour. Still, without it, if they will follow up the before-breakfast work, the walking in the fashion named, and the running, they will soon find time enough for this much, and most satisfactory results in the way of improved health and increased strength as well. Indeed, it will for most young men prove about the right amount to keep them toned up and ready for their day's work. If they desire great development in any special line, let them select some of the exercises described in the [previous chapter], as aimed to effect such development, and practice them as assiduously, if need be, as Rowell did his tread-mill work for his legs.
Daily Exercise for Women.
And what should the girls and women do each day? With two-pound wooden dumb-bells at first, let them, before breakfast, go through twenty-five movements of each of the five sorts just described for young men. After six weeks or two months they can increase the number to fifty, and, if this does not bring the desired increase in size, and strength of arm and chest and back, then they can try dumb-bells weighing four or five pounds each.
Out-of-doors, either in the latter part of the morning or afternoon, if they will, in broad, easy shoes, walk for one hour, not at any listless two-mile pace, but at first as fast as they comfortably can, and then gradually increasing until in a fortnight or more they can make sure of three miles and a half at least, if not of four miles within the hour, and will observe the way of stepping just suggested to the men, they will get about walking enough. And if once in awhile, every Saturday, for instance, they make the walk all of five or six miles, getting, if city ladies, quite out into the suburbs and back, they will be surprised and gratified at the greater ease with which they can walk now than formerly, and at their freshness at the end. Recent reports from India say that English ladies there often spend two or three hours daily in the saddle. Every American lady who can manage to ride that much, or half of it, and at a strong, brisk pace, will soon have a health and vigor almost unknown among our women and girls to-day.
If walking and horseback parties, instead of being, as now, well-nigh unheard of among our girls, were every-day affairs, and there was not a point of interest within ten miles which every girl, and woman too, did not know well, it would prove a benefit both to them and to the next generation which would be almost incalculable.
Girls should also learn to run. Few of them are either easy or graceful runners; but it is an accomplishment quickly learned; and begun at a short distance and slow jog, and continued until the girl thinks nothing of running a mile in seven minutes, and that without once touching a heel to the ground, it will do more than almost any other known exercise to make her graceful and easy on her feet, and also to enlarge and strengthen her lungs. A roomy school-yard, a bit of lawn, or a gymnasium-track, either of these is all the place needed in which to learn this now almost obsolete accomplishment. The gymnasium is perhaps the best place, as there they can wear costumes which do not impede freedom of movement.
If besides these things the girl or woman will determine that, as much as possible of the time each day in which she is sitting down, she will sit with head and neck up, trunk erect, and with shoulders low, and that whenever she stands or walks she will at all times be upright, she will shortly find that she is getting to be far straighter than she was, and, if she has a larger and finer chest than formerly, it will be nothing strange, for she has simply been using one of the means to get it. If a still greater variety of daily work is desired, she can select it from [Chapter XII.]; the exercises on the pulley-weights and on the apparatus sketched in [Fig. 8] being especially desirable.