Physical stamina

“ The importance of a physical education will be more fully referred to hereafter, but at this stage of the subject it is pertinent to suggest that violent use of the muscles for short periods is generally not the best mode of exercise; that the sudden expenditure of so much nervous force in training and in contests, as is necessary in order to secure the highest attainable power in rapidity, skill, and strength of stroke, during a half or one hour ”

“ Ordinarily, a few minutes of exercise each day, supplemented with some walking and deep breathing will suffice. About five minutes of vigorous exercise night and morning are generally enough to keep a person in good physical condition, if he is prudent otherwise.
Many strive to build up a great musculature. This is a mistake, unless the intention is to become an exhibit for the sake of earning one's living. Big muscles do not spell health, efficiency and endurance. Even a dyspeptic may be able to build big muscles. ”

“ The nerves can never be open channels while the body wants either proper nourishment, the stimulus that comes from open air exercise, perfect rest, or true economy of force in running the human machine.
The physical training should be a steady shunning of personal perversions until the nervous system is in a natural state, and the muscles work in direct obedience to the will with the exquisite co-ordination which is natural to them. ”

“ Exercises of endurance do not require supreme efforts, but they do accelerate the action of the heart and lungs, and the aggregate of work done is very much greater than in exercises of strength, but the exercise must be sufficiently active to provide for the free circulation of lymph, which is carried on mainly through the massage of muscular contraction. ”

“ They are then to be classed only as passive physical culture, in which the patient permits the operators to exercise the muscles instead of working them himself. During a fast, all muscles of the body are in a state of perfect relaxation, a natural result of the process of rest and elimination in progress. ”

“ Physical exercise, by accelerating the circulation of the blood, stimulates the activity of all those internal organs whose functions conjointly constitute the phenomenon of life, and counteracts innumerable functional disorders, any one of which is sure to react on the nervous system and the organ of the soul. ”

“ This may consist of exercises that call into play all the muscles of the body, or which are concentrated upon special parts. When general tonic effects are desired, the exercise should be well distributed; but when counteractive or remedial effects are wanted, it must be applied chiefly to the parts that are weak or that have not been called into action by the regular work. Unfortunately, health is sometimes confused with physical strength and exercise is directed toward the stronger parts of the body with the effect of making them still stronger. ”

“ And even if those of exceptional vitality can neglect their physical requirements without suffering, the man of limited energy, who is trying to build vitality, certainly cannot afford to do so.
We ought to take a reasonable amount of exercise at intervals, regular or otherwise, in order to keep fully alive. It is not a case of exercise for the sake of muscular strength alone, but for the sake of health and life. ”

“ In taking up a new exercise requiring considerable exertion, precautions should be observed to prevent an overstrain of the heart. The heart of the amateur athlete, bicyclist, or mountain climber is frequently injured by attempting more than the previous training warrants. The new work should be taken up gradually, and feats requiring a large outlay of physical energy should be attempted only after long periods of training.
Since the heart is controlled by the nervous system, it frequently becomes irregular in its action through conditions that exhaust the nervous energy. ”

“ The athlete works to the predetermined number of repetitions. The repetitions may be 10, if the work is short and recovery is long. Interval Training is designed by its intensity not to exercise muscles much faster than you can supply them with oxygen. You never perform at maximum; i.e. you never go all out but you stay in that phase where you supply oxygen nearly as rapidly as you need it.
The circulo-respiratory endurance is dependant on the effectiveness of heart, blood vessels and lungs which together capture oxygen and deliver it in the blood stream to the muscles. ”

“ It is by their action in exercise that the muscles are enlarged, hardened, and brought to their greatest state of perfection. And it is only by exercise, and by exercise alone, that they can be maintained at the acme of physical condition.
Now, in the same way that education develops and increases the power of the brain, so exercise has a similar effect on the body. When the muscles are strengthened, the beneficial effect is also participated in by the heart, lungs, and digestive organs, and thus the removal of worn-out material from the body is assisted. ”

“ Good chest and lung development, a strong heart, well-developed and firm muscles are the tripod on which rests physical endurance and resistance to disease. And this was just where the entire class was found to be gravely subnormal.
Physical training consists primarily of heart training; in increasing the breathing capacity; in strengthening and developing the heart and other muscles of the body. As [Pg 22] the muscles become stronger the body is held more erect, and this favors, as we have seen, all of its functions. ”

“ If running has resulted in strengthening the heart and lungs of these athletes, in improving their digestion, in stimulating to greater efficiency the functioning of their vital organs, in endowing them with greater physical vigor, it has evidently given them greater vitality, greater resistance to disease; if, on the other hand, it has injured their hearts, weakened their lungs, injuriously affected their vital organs; if a fair percentage of them have become broken down athletes, it has impaired their physical vigor and drained vitality. Every one admits the value of running per se. ”

“ The effects of physical exercises on body are completely reversible except the brain changes that account for learning. Physical exercise brings the body under stress and the body adapts to this stress with a series of immediate or acute changes and if the stress continued for a chronic changes.
Acute changes are such as heart rate, respiratory rate, rise in blood pressure, concentration of blood, modified muscle-chemistry, resetting of thermostat for high temperature etc. All of these changes are temporary untill we recover our normaley. If we do not return to normal we would die. ”

“ Here, there are five factors which contribute to the development of muscular efficiency i.e power, endurance, volume, speed of contraction and co-ordination. Whenever an athlete faces any accident he/she is reconditioned by this training method first and then specific conditioning.
To develop power to a normal athlete, heavy equipments which give greater resistance may be used. This method may develop power, endurance, speed of contraction and co-ordination. ”

“ Resistance to disease. Muscular strength and Muscular endurance. Cardiovascular—respiratory endurance. Muscular power. Flexibility. Speed. Agility. Co-ordination. Balance. Accuracy. Though the physical fitness components are specific but they are inter-dependent. If one component is developed the other related components are also slightly improved. Strength and Endurance are very important components to be developed first. Strength has its influence in all other components of physical fitness so strength has to be developed first. ”

“ Never do weight training alone. Always start weight training with a general warm-up. Warm-up with weight using half of the weight (normally used) and take 10 repetitions. Always have your purpose of weight training—Body building, Sport, Fitness etc. All Isotonic movements do with slow speed. Isometric exercise movements are held at the terminal positions for about 6 to 12 seconds. Exercise both agonist and antagonist muscles to maintain body balance. ”

“ In the present day, however, varied muscular exercise is an absolutely necessary element for the development of the brain, and upon the right development of the brain is dependent the large bulk of our psychical activities.
3. The subject of fatigue must interest all physical trainers. Muscular fatigue, as we usually speak of it, is our consciousness of the partial exhaustion of the motor centers of the muscles that have been worked. It is thought that we do not often experience in ordinary life genuine fatigue of the muscle cell. ”

“ The upper part of the left lung is the first part that consumption attacks.
We cannot build up the body if we drain its powers by excesses of any kind. Exercise is one of the best means to enable a young man to lead a chaste life, for it uses up some of his surplus vitality.
If one will moderately exercise, he will do better mental work in shorter time. Mental health depends upon physical health; and physical health depends upon the liver, and the state of the liver depends upon bodily exercise. ”

“ Du Bois Réymond says that it is easy to demonstrate that such bodily exercises as gymnastics, fencing, swimming, riding, dancing, and skating are much more exercises of the central nervous system, of the brain, and spinal cord than of the muscles.
It is further urged that healthful energy of will is impossible without strong muscles, which are its organs, and that endurance, self-control, and great achievement all depend on muscle habits.
The philosophy of work consists in its necessity. The brain-cell in health cannot cease to be active, except to a partial extent during sleep. ”

“ When the muscles are exercised the vital, organs are energized and the activity of the entire functional system greatly increased-all clearly indicating that in taking physical exercise the internal organs are aroused and stimulated.
Gigantic strength is not especially needed. It is not necessary for one to strive to eclipse the feats of famous strong men. Unusual muscular development is of no great value in this age, but a normal degree of
strength is absolutely necessary in the struggle for health and vitality. ”

“ The Toxins of Fatigue.—By speeding the machinery to the utmost, a strain is placed on nerves and muscles, and they are kept keyed up to the greatest possible tension. There is a natural pace that one can keep up; force the pace, and weariness results. A man can go for hours at the rate of five miles an hour; he can run at the rate of six miles an hour for quite a long while; but if he tries to run eight miles an hour, he will drop out very soon. The powers of endurance must be gradually developed, but no machine should ever be run at its utmost speed. ”

“ Now it is evident, without comment, how immense must be the benefit of muscular exercise. Not only does it allow time for the brain to rest when exhausted by mental work, but, by increasing the circulation all over the body, it promotes the threefold function of oxygenation, nutrition, and drainage. ”

“ During a contraction each muscle-cell shortens and thickens, giving off some of its substance into the lymph-space which surrounds it, and absorbing food, consisting of carbohydrates and oxygen, from the surrounding plasma. Exercise improves nutrition by the rhythmic, automatic massage caused by the contraction and relaxation of the muscles on the vessels which they contain, while warmth favors the elimination of waste matter. ”

“ Passive exercise does not require any exertion of the will power. Massage increases the local nutrition of the parts, stimulates the nerves, and is restful, rather than exhausting, to the overwrought brain and wearied nerves.
Active exercise is further divided into exercise of effort and exercise of endurance. Under exercise of effort are classed all gymnastic feats. ”

“ It has been proved by Hawk, of the University of Pennsylvania, in his experiments on the blood-count of an athlete in training, that various forms of active muscular exercise produce an average increase of 16.8 per cent. in the number of red corpuscles. When exercise is long-continued, the rate of increase lessens, and, further, the number may be decreased in greatly prolonged violent exercise. The explanation of this is that a large number [Pg 295] of cells lie inactive in various tissues of the body until they are brought into the circulation by muscular exercise. ”

“ To these three essentials of physical education—health, harmonious development, economical utilization of muscular force—correspond a series of exercises which can not produce their maximum useful effect without being subjected to regulations of which we proceed to sketch the principal features.
Health may be with equal ease confirmed or destroyed by exercise. It is only necessary to refer to the deplorable condition of the ancient athletes, with whom the enormous mass of the muscles absorbed all the activity of the organism. ”

“ Rules for Taking Exercise.—The first things to be aimed at are the proper ventilation of the lungs, together with their development, and the strengthening of the heart. During the exercise the windows must be thrown wide open, or the very object of the exercise is defeated.
Always begin with the simplest exercises and stop at the first sign of fatigue. The very first exercise will, therefore, be the simple respiratory exercises, taken in bed until one acquires some control of the muscles ”

“ Exercise strengthens the parts exercised, because it increases the nutrition of those parts. When any organ or muscle is inactive, the circulation in it becomes less and less; the smaller net-work of its blood-vessels are empty or but half filled; the streams gradually run in fewer channels, and the organ, ceasing to be thoroughly nourished, wastes away. ”