Girth

“ The least chest girth of the adult woman— that is, the under-arm girth around the chest— that is consistent with health is twenty-eight inches; and this girth must be enlarged three inches in forced inspiration. In ordinary respiration the waist expansion should be one-half to one inch, while during great muscular activity it should be from one and a half to three or four inches. One-third of the lungs lie below the point of beginning corset pressure, so that with tight corsets this amount of lung substance must be more or less useless. ”

“ Measure the slim man where you will, about his arm or shoulders, chest or thigh or calf, and the other outmeasures him; the only girth where he is up, and perhaps ahead, is that of his head—for thin fellows often have big heads. The muscles of the stronger youth are larger as well as stronger. ”

“ Every man's chest enlarged decidedly, the smallest gain being a whole inch in the four months; the average being 27⁄8 inches, and one, though twenty-four years old, actually gaining 5 inches, or over an inch a month. Every upper arm increased 1 inch, most of them more than that, and one 13⁄4 inches. As the work was aimed to develop the whole body, there is little doubt that there was a proportional increase in the girth of hips and thigh and calf. ”

“ Take a tape-measure and get the girth of chest, upper and forearm, of waist, hips, thighs, and calves of these little fellows, likewise their heights and ages. Now send to England and get the statistics of the boys of the same age who are good at hares-and-hounds, at foot-ball, and see the difference. In every solitary measurement, save height, there is little doubt which would show the better figures. Even in height, it is more than probable that the article just quoted would find abundant foundation for calling our boys "undersized." ”

“ In most instances consumptives have not large enough chests. Stripped to the waist, there is found to be a flatness of the upper chest, a lack of depth straight through from breastbone to spine; and the girth about the chest itself, and especially at the lower part of it, is often two or more inches less than it is in a well-built person of the same height. Now, to weed out these defects, to swell up and enlarge the chest, and bring [p.284] it proper breadth, and depth, and fulness, this will go far toward insuring healthy and vigorous lungs. ”

“ In girth they are less, and lighter in their limbs, and almost entirely free from corpulency or useless flesh. Their bones are lighter, their skulls are thinner, and their muscles less hard than those of their civilized neighbours, excepting in the legs and feet, where they are brought into more continual action by their violent exercise on foot and on horseback, which swells the muscles and gives them great strength in those limbs, which is often quite as conspicuous as the extraordinary development of muscles in the shoulders and arms of our labouring men. ”

“ Even after the age when full stature is supposed to be attained, that lung-room often comes, Nature furnishing the supply according to the demand. McLaren notes the case of one man, in his thirty-sixth year, whose chest, under systematic exercise, increased in girth from thirty-two to thirty-six and a half inches in two months. ”

“ Affecting the legs and feet alone, it swells them, in some instances, to the girth of a man’s body, covering the skin with scales. It might be supposed that one, thus afflicted, would be incapable of walking ”

“ Most horses have a trick, when they are being girthed, of expanding their sides and abdomen, for the purpose of securing a loose girthing; and girths that seem almost too tight when they are first buckled are often found to be too loose after the rider has mounted. ”

“ Too tight a girth is injurious to the horse, but too loose a one may cause the saddle to turn. A round, plump horse with low withers will need tighter girthing than a better shaped one. The lady rider should study the shape of her horse, and use her own judgment as to how tight the girths should be drawn, making due allowance for the trick alluded to above. If there is any second person present while the saddle is being arranged, matters may be facilitated if this person will hold the saddle firmly by the off-pommel while the girthing is being done. ”

“ D. The fourth gymnastic aim is symmetry and correct proportions. Anthropometry and average girths and dimensions, strength, etc., of the parts of the body are first charted in percentile grades; and each individual is referred to the apparatus and exercises best fitted to correct weaknesses and subnormalities. The norms here followed are not the canons of Greek art, but those established by the measurement of the largest numbers properly grouped by age, weight, height, etc. Young men are found to differ very widely. Some can lift 1,000 pounds, and some not 100 ”

“ This property of becoming extended and then returning to its original length is still by most physiologists described under the name elasticity, but I prefer to retain this term for the property a muscle has of returning to its original length after it has contracted. If, however, we regard muscle as a passive structure, then we find that it is a slightly but perfectly elastic body. It yields to a weight, but when the weight is removed the muscle readily returns to its former length. ”

“ If the circumference of the body, measured with an inch-tape just below the shoulders, be smaller than the circumference of the hips, the person will rock in walking, and plant his feet heavily upon the ground. If greater, so that the chief weight is above the limbs, the step will be light, as is familiarly seen in corpulent men, whose delicate mode of walking we witness with ever-recurring surprise. ”

“ To this every-day feat opposes itself the weight of the body simply, a thing of three dimensions, height, breadth, and thickness, while the ability to accomplish it resides in the cross-section of the muscles of the knee, a thing of only two dimensions, breadth and thickness. ”

“ At ten years girls add four pounds, at eleven six pounds, at twelve ten pounds, at thirteen twelve pounds, and at fourteen and fifteen eight pounds to their weight, and this sudden addition to the weight tells rapidly on ankles, feet, and knees, placed at a disadvantage by concurrent change in the position of the lower limbs by the evolution of the pelvis and the cramping of the muscles by tight boots. The arch of the foot often breaks down in the course of a few weeks, without warning or apparent cause, and in girls in perfect health, and especially those of an indolent habit. ”

“ The corset atrophies the articulations of the vertebral column, produces a round back, an inequality in the height of the hips and shoulders, with the resulting familiar awkward, waddling gait.
When the healthy skeleton offers to the muscles of the body a solid base of support, the action of the muscles of the back are not interfered with, there is nothing to prevent their contraction, and the body is held erect. With a perfect muscular development, the shoulders are effaced, the back is admirably straight, and the carriage is erect and graceful. ”

“ Only think of wearing a thick, heavy girdle of many pounds' weight around the whole zone of the abdominal region—a sort of engirdling poultice, heating and pressing like a girdle of hot lava, day after day and year after year! Is it a wonder that you have so many weaknesses and pains and saddening afflictions upon you? ”

“ It was a man who, if he had only been in an erect attitude, would have stood at least eight feet in height, and this would have been in an under-proportion to the size of his head, the massive breadth of his body across the breast and shoulders, and the length of his arms. ”

“ But if we were to take a girl of the same age and height, whose shoulders and hips measured the same, but who from childhood had been gradually accustomed to tight lacing, we should find that, with a waist of only sixteen inches, the vital functions were still being performed, although, as might be expected, health was feeble for not one organ of her body on which the pressure had been exerted would be in its right place. ”

“ I believe, when I think of it, that you are the biggest man I've ever known—and by that I don't mean in height— for I have seen men with a greater number of physical inches. Inches, somehow, have very little to do with the impression—and so has muscle, strong as yours is. ”

“ The Muscular System.—The bony skeleton forms simply the framework of the body, and, while it determines the general outlines and height for the most part, the weight and general size of the body depend upon the muscular development and the amount of adipose tissue. The bones are not only padded about with muscles, but the muscles are inserted into the bony sheaths in such a way that a development of the muscles causes a development of the bones as well. ”

“ But those arms which, as they ought, distribute an equal weight to all the parts of the body, that join upon the neck, the shoulders, the breast, the back, and the hips, may be said to be glued to the body, and to weigh nothing at all. ”

“ The Measures we advuse are as follows:— Chest, Waist, hips, depth of scye, length to waist, full length, width across back, continue to elbow, continue to cuff, neck, front shoulder,over shoulder, across chest, and height of neck. The only measures we need specially refer to, are the depth of scye, the front shoulder, and over shoulder and the cross chest. ”

“ While the older gained but three-eighths of an inch in height, his weight went up from 153 pounds to 1611⁄2, his forearm from 111⁄4 inches to 121⁄2-—an unusually large forearm for any man—and his upper arm from 113⁄4 inches to 131⁄4, while his chest actually made the astonishing stride of from 34 inches to 40. Not yet a large arm, save below the elbow, not yet a great chest ”

“ Obviously, then, if you are lifting a pound weight, the actual equivalent of energy expended by the contracting biceps must be twelve pounds. But, in the meantime, when the pound weight in your hand moves through the space of one inch, the muscle has contracted by one-twelfth of an inch; and you may sweep the weight through a distance of two feet by utilizing the two-inch contraction, which represents about the capacity of the muscle. ”

“ In height five feet four and one half inches, her weight is one hundred and ten pounds. True, her slender feet are small, her limbs shapely; but her arms are full long, her expressive hands rather large, her shoulders narrow, her bust that of a young girl. ”

“ If now you either pull or push the empty scale downwards, the beam may be brought into the horizontal position again, and the effort required to bring it into the horizontal position will be the greater, the greater the weight of the body in the opposite scale. An ounce in the one scale is easily raised by the pressure of a finger in the other. A pound requires more effort; ten pounds needs putting out the strength of the arm; to raise fifty pounds involves still more exertion; while a couple of hundredweight will not be stirred by the strongest push or pull upon the empty scale. ”

“ Imagine, if you can, a man weighing all of three hundred pounds, not more than five feet ten-and-one-half inches in height and yet of so lithesome a build that he gave not the least sense of either undue weight or lethargy. ”

“ Tight Lacing.—"The waist of well-formed women, of the average height, varies in circumference from twenty-seven to twenty-nine inches; and there is scarcely any difference in its proportional size between male and female. But such is the power of fashion, that the waist is seldom permitted to expand to the dimensions of twenty-five inches; the majority are within twenty-four; thousands are compressed to twenty-two ”

“ Of the few among us who are full six feet high, scarcely any are broad and muscular in proportion to their stature, but look rather like men of the common bulk, run up accidentally to an unusual height; and a man who should measure only six feet two inches, and equally exceed a stout well-set man of the common stature in breadth and muscle, would strike us rather as being of a gigantic race, than as an individual accidentally anomalous ”

“ If, for example, the balance is attached two inches from the fulcrum and the weight twelve inches, the pull on the balance is found to be six times greater than the weight that is being lifted. If other positions are tried, it is found that the power exerted in each case is as many times greater than the weight as the weight-arm is times longer than the power-arm. ”

“ See also Dr. Beddoe’s remarks in Journ. Anthr. Inst., xvii, 1888, pp. 202-9.
1532 I say ‘for our purpose’ because of many of the skeletons with which we are here concerned the only relevant measurement that exists is that of the thigh-bone. Dr. Garson (Journ. Anthr. Inst., xxii, 1893, p. 9) thinks that the ‘most reliable estimate of stature is obtained from the length of the femur and tibia added together’ according to the formula (Femur + Tibia x 100) / 49.4 ”

“ At five months the length of the body, including head and feet, is from eight to ten inches, and weighs from eight to eleven ounces; at six months the weight is about one pound, and the length is eleven to twelve and a half inches. ”

“ The chest width should be about 21⁄2 inches more than the chest depth.
The largest hip measurement should be 4 or 5 inches larger than the smallest natural waist measurement.
The thigh should measure 6 or 7 inches more than the calf.
The neck, arm and leg measurements are never found to fit save when the subject is good at gymnastics, athletics, aerobatics, ground-tumbling, wrestling, rowing, etc.
The neck is always a little the largest; then the legs; and lastly the arms. The ground-tumbler has these measurements; the neck, legs and arms the nearest equal. ”