E. F. Benson

“ Now this interweaving of mind and body is so complex, so closely knit, that it would perhaps be beyond the sphere of safety to say that the knitting together of the body and that within us which is the spring of moral, not intellectual qualities, the soul in fact, is closer than that of the mind and body. ”

“ Indeed, it is even less ideal; for at tennis there is the fact that you are playing against an attacking opponent, to observe whom is no small part of the game, whereas one’s real enemy at golf is not one’s opponent, but one’s own mistakes. Consequently, with the idea of winning the match one studiously avoids such strokes as may land one in such a position as to require the use of a shot which one knows to be weak, whereas in practice one should, instead of avoiding such a shot, do it a dozen times and yet another dozen. ”

“ It is to the arms in dumb-bell exercise that all this slow weight-moving is assigned, while really the essence of gymnastics seems to be to treat the arms like legs, and let them bear the whole weight of the body either passive or in motion. ”

“ For that it is largely a habit is beyond question, and as a habit it is one of the entirely healthful habits—it is essentially good. But the contrary habit, that of lying awake, though largely remediable, is not fatal, and its ill-effects are immeasurably neutralized if the will is steadily exerted towards the grasp of that truth. To lie awake, fretting that one cannot go to sleep, is distinctly bad; to lie awake, if no remedy short of drug-drinking will cure it, does not appreciably matter, so long as one accepts “rest” as the best possible substitute. ”

“ When before in the history of the nation has there been such a phenomenon as the weekly crowds at Cup ties, or the rapt lines of spectators at county cricket matches, watching with the intensest interest the games they never play, and knowing the athletic history of heroes they have never spoken to? That the pleasure and excitement of betting enter into their{8} enthusiasm is, of course, undeniable, but we do not for a moment believe that this accounts for all of it. There is something else as well, and that something is the admiration and envy of the fitness of physical excellence. ”

“ It is here that the dumb-bell and developer system goes utterly and hopelessly astray. Used as an adjunct, it will assist a weak muscle to arrive at a certain girth and bulk, but considered as a cause of any successful stroke at a game, it is much more an enemy than a friend. For at all games, with a possible exception perhaps in the case of rowing, as far as strength comes into the question, it comes in as a motor-power to produce speed, whereas dumb-bell exercises have for their object, as a whole, the slow pushing of gradually increased weights. ”

“ To say that athletics are entirely responsible for the healthier way of life pursued by the average Englishman of to-day as compared to the average Englishman of forty years ago, would be of course an assertion utterly beyond the mark. On the other hand, it is quite certainly within the mark to say that athletics have appreciably contributed to it, inasmuch as they both demand, as mentioned before, a sobriety and moderation in life as an essential to continued success, and themselves directly contribute to health as well as demanding the conditions that are likely to lead to it. ”

“ Now every organ in the body is either in itself a muscle or a system of muscles, or is controlled by muscles. That is to say, none of the infinite processes incidental not only to any movement, but to even perfectly passive life, are independent of muscular action, automatic it may be, and unconscious or sub-conscious, but still muscular.
The action of the heart itself, for instance, which is, in ordinary circumstances, entirely automatic and absolutely essential to life, consists in the alternate contraction and expansion of muscle, which sends the blood to all parts of the body ”

“ There is a whole group of patients to whom it would seem at the first glance that all muscular work should be forbidden. Complete muscular inaction, however, would be as injurious to them as exaggerated work, and for them more than for all others the rule of progressive increase of work, of slow and methodical training, must be rigorously obeyed. They are perpetually on the verge of fatigue; their reserve of motor nerve-energy is, so to speak, nil, and the slightest voluntary movement is enough to exhaust them. ”

“ Mere size of muscle, we believe, is in no way a criterion either of health or of the sort of strength which we consider to be desirable, and it is infinitely better for a man to have muscles of but average size, provided they are prompt and obedient, than to be a Farnese Hercules, if the bulk of muscle which he has made for himself is but slow moving and incapable of briskness. ”

“ The fact is that most people when taking a great deal of exercise are able to digest, and, what is not less important, to assimilate, not only larger quantities of food than they can assimilate when in full sedentary work, but a different sort of food. As a rule they know of only one change of diet, alluded to contemptuously as “Vegetarianism,” and connected in their minds with huge platefuls of damp cabbage, of which the most valuable salts have been boiled out and thrown away by an ignorant cook. ”

“ This, if true, is a sad and sobering reflection, since it would seem to imply that Nature had not designed the average healthy individual to work hard; and though it is probably infinitely better that people should work hard, and feel slightly below par all the time, than that they should devote their whole time to keeping well, yet it would be unsatisfactory if we were forced to believe that continued hard work cannot be compatible with continued good health. Many again would say that they never feel well without exercise, and that it is impossible to get exercise in London. ”

“ But if your resolution breaks down, and you relax from the poor best still possible to you, stop at once, for always and always slack practice is worse than none.
Another demon that, like the Promethean vulture, tears at the vitals of the man practising for a special event, or for general improvement, is the apparent slowness of the improvement, and at times its apparent complete cessation. Such a man, for instance, with the best intentions in the world will take out a handful of golf-balls to practise, let us say, mashie shots on to a green. ”

“ At golf, particularly, there is no limit to the weight of his club, he may use what weapon he pleases, and since the carry of a ball is wholly dependent on its starting velocity, he with his great strength should be able to send it beyond the dreams of any medal-winner. But as a matter of fact he cannot, not because he misjudges it, for many strong men, we believe, have an excellent eye, but because his muscles, trained to overcome resistance by slow, prolonged effort, cannot act fast. ”

“ But it is infinitely more important that a city full of folk living, by the exigencies of their work, under far from favourable conditions, should be in decent health, than that a boatful of strong young men, living in the best conditions, should be at the tip-top of excellence of which they are capable on a given morning ”

“ And the muscles of those whose sole training is dumb-bell exercise are admirably unfitted to impart it. The weights they can lift are no doubt prodigious, but we doubt whether any man reared entirely on dumb-bells (and the more he had of that diet, the better for our point) could hit a ball over the pavilion at Lord’s, make a really difficult force at tennis, drive a golf ball two hundred yards, turn a fast outside back-bracket at skating, or send in a really hot shot at Association football. ”

“ Those people who are accustomed to gauge their exercise by the fatigue which it produces may not, it is true, be pleased with them, but for our part we do not for a moment believe that fatigue is any criterion of satisfactory exercise. It is perfectly easy to fatigue oneself in a very few minutes by unsuitable exercises, just as it is easy for a man accustomed to walk rapidly to feel real sensations of fatigue if he has to walk very slowly for half an hour. ”

“ The process of training that has to be undergone by athletes nowadays is reduced to hard-and-fast rules. That these rules are not so good or scientific as could be wished is a matter for regret. The work of training is left to ‘trainers,’ and they are men who, learning from their predecessors whatever facts were known to them, build up a code of rules framed largely on imperfect experience, and added on to by what they themselves have believed to be useful. ”

“ Thirty years ago patients were sent to warm enervating places, draughts and cold were treated as if they themselves were the microbes of disease. Now air, air, air, and when the damp and dulness of English winters arrives, up they go into piercing elevations of Swiss mountains. And if air will heal definite disease, we may take it completely for granted{184} that so natural a remedy will be highly beneficial to those in health, for it must and does act as a preventive to disease, and is in itself health-giving. ”

“ Short and violent exercises, exercises demanding top speed, or a swift stroke, are natural to youth, and, broadly speaking, as with advancing years (even though a man is still in his prime) strength increases, speed somewhat diminishes. Thus, though exercise and exercises are quite undoubtedly good for a young boy, it seems by the example of nature herself, that exercises demanding strength and continued effort are bad. ”

“ Thus, to take the instance already given, the gentleman who feels fatigued in the morning, had better go out of doors; the longer he lies in his stuffy bedroom the more tired he will become. This is one of the causes of the fatigue from which he is suffering—namely, a starvation of his body in point of oxygen. He would feel fatigued in the same way, if he was starved in point of proteid. His fatigue, though he has taken no bodily or mental exercise for hours, and has been resting, is genuine fatigue consequent on an insufficient supply of oxygen. ”

“ Now such a meal as this, which produced in the brain-worker somnolence and inability, would very likely have produced in the man who was shooting all day nothing but an added zest for his sport. In the one case the food goes, so to speak, to the right place; in the other to the wrong one. Yet how comparatively few of us study our health even in so superficial a manner as to know that appetite, when one lives in abnormal conditions, is not by any means the same thing as appetite when one lives wholesomely in the open air. ”

“ But it is quite possible that there is no obvious fault at all—only a general weakness. Then, having eliminated that most dangerous possibility—namely, of practising a fault, let this assiduous gentleman go on with his practice as long as he is brisk and attentive, and let him continue it every day for a week. Then, and this is the work of the demon alluded to, he may honestly think that he has not improved at all, and be disposed to label the principle of practice to a hot destination. ”

“ He does not, as a matter of fact, hurry home in order to practise his beloved dumb-bells, he is not late for dinner because he cannot leave his dumb-bells, but because he will finish his round at golf. A game, in fact, is more enjoyed by most people than mere exercise for the sake of exercise. The dumb-bells are used when a game is not to be had. But these dumb-bell exercises, as we have pointed out, do not, except in so far as they may strengthen an inordinately{50} weak muscle, improve or help a man’s game, unless we consider weight-lifting a game. ”

“ For training is supposed to be the ideal way of living with a view to complete physical fitness, but under most systems severe training entails an almost total cessation of brain work, while it does not imply a total cessation of mental worry. Men often get{126} fidgetty and stale before their weeks of training are nearly over, and this is due partly, no doubt, to the absurd system of training a whole crew, for instance, as if they were identical specimens of the same man, but also to the very fact that brain work is practically tabooed, just as tobacco is tabooed. ”

“ Clearly, then, the mere sensation of fatigue does not necessarily indicate the need of rest, or sleep, or food. A man, especially if he has dined late and heavily, may awake in the morning, even though he has had a good spell of sleep in an ill-ventilated room, feeling tired. Yet that feeling of tiredness is removed, not by further dozing, but by exercise, fresh air, or often brain work. ”

“ Many people hardly know what real attention means: there is no better way to teach it than to make rapid and correct movements, which cannot be made without it. In the same way, also, these exercises give the habit of control. A man who has brought mind and body into the relation of master and willing servant, even in so elementary a matter as this, is going on the right road to teach himself control in the largest choices and difficulties. ”