How to Get Strong and How to Stay So Part 6

While the older gained but three-eighths of an inch in height, his weight went up from 153 pounds to 161-1/2, his forearm from 11-1/4 inches to 12-1/2--an unusually large forearm for any man--and his upper arm from 11-3/4 inches to 13-1/4, 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; five inches smaller, for instance, than Daniel Webster's, but greatly ahead of what they were a year earlier.

There is no mystery about the Maclaren method. Others might do it, perhaps not as well as he, for Maclaren's has been a very exceptional experience; still, well enough.

Look what Sargent did with a Bowdoin student of nineteen, as shown in Appendix IV. In four hours' work a week this student's upper arm went up 1-1/2 inches--just the same amount as did Maclaren's student of twenty; his chest went up from 36-1/2 inches to 40, while that of Maclaren's man went from 34 to 40; but it should be borne in mind that 36-1/2 is harder to add 6 inches to in this kind of work than 34. In height the Englishman made three-eighths of an inch in the year, while the American made a whole inch. But the latter also led easily in another direction, and a very important one too; for, while the Briton, though but a year older, and of almost exactly the same height, gained but 8-1/2 pounds in the year, the American made 15! His case is further valuable in that it shows, beside this advance above the waist, splendid increase in girth of hips, thigh, and calf as well.

With us Americans fond of results, many of whose chests, by-the-way, do not increase a hair's-breadth in twenty years, better proof could not be sought than these figures offer of the value of a system of exercise which would work such rapid and decided changes. Had they all been with boys, there might have been difficulty in separating what natural growth did, in the years they change so fast, from what was the result of development. But most of the cases cited are of men who had their growth, and had apparently, to a large extent, taken their form and set for life. To take a man twenty-eight years old, tall and rather slim, and whose height had probably not increased a single hairs-breadth in seven years, and in a few short months increase that height by a good half inch; to take another, also twenty-eight, and suddenly, in the short period between September 11th and the 30th of the next April, add sixteen pounds to his weight, and every pound of excellent stuff, was in itself no light thing; and there are thousands of men in our land to-day who would be delighted to make an equally great addition to their general size and strength, even in twice the period. To add five whole inches of chest, and nearly that much of lung and heart room and stomach room, and the consequent greater capacity for all the vital organs, is a matter, to many men, of almost immeasurable value. Hear Dr. Morgan, in his English "University Oars," on this point: "An addition of three inches to the circ.u.mference of the chest implies that the lungs, instead of containing 250 cubic inches of air, as they did before their functional activity was exalted, are now capable of receiving 300 cubic inches within their cells: the value of this augmented lung accommodation will readily be admitted. Suppose, for example, that a man is attacked by inflammation of the lungs, by pleurisy, or some one of the varied forms of consumption, it may readily be conceived that, in such an emergency, the possession of enough lung tissue to admit forty or fifty additional cubic inches of air will amply suffice to turn the scale on the side of recovery. It a.s.sists a patient successfully to tide over the critical stage of his disease." A man, then, of feeble lungs--the consumptive, for instance--taken early in hand, with the care which Maclaren or Sargent could so well give, gradually advanced in every direction, would suddenly find that his narrow, thin, and hollow chest had departed, had given way to one round, full, deep, and roomy; that the feeble lungs and heart which, in cooler weather, were formerly hardly up to keeping the extremities warm, are now strong and vigorous; that the old tendency to lean his head forward when standing or walking, and to sit stooping, with most of his vital organs cramped, has all gone. In their place had come an erect carriage, a firm tread, a strong, well-knit trunk, a manly voice, and a buoyancy and exhilaration of spirits worth untold wealth. Who will say that all these have not a.s.sured him years of life?

Well, but did all this increase of weight and size actually change the shape of the chest, for instance, and take the hollowness out of it?

That is exactly what it did; and Maclaren has a drawing of the same chest at the beginning and end of the year, showing an increase in the breadth, depth, and fulness of the lower chest which makes it seem almost impossible that it could have belonged to the same person. It will be remembered that Maclaren claimed[I] that just such a readjustment of the osseous framework would result. Is not this, then, remaking a man? Instead of a cramped stomach, half-used lungs, a thin, scrawny, caved-in make, poor pipe-stems of legs, with arms to match, almost every one under forty, at least, can in a very few months, by means of a series of exercises, change those same slender legs, those puny arms, that flat chest, that slim neck, and metamorphose their owner into a well-built, self-sufficient, vigorous man, fitter a hundred times for severe in-door or out-door life, for the quiet plodding at the desk, or the stormy days and nights of the ocean or the bivouac. Who is going to do better brain-work: he whose brain is steadily fed with vigorous, rich blood, made by machinery kept constantly in excellent order, never cramped, aided daily by judicious and vigorous exercise, tending directly to rest and build him up? or he who overworks his brain, gets it once clogged with blood, and, for many hours of the day, keeps it clogged, who does nothing to draw the blood out of his brain for awhile and put more of it in the muscles, who, perhaps, in the very midst of his work, rushes out, dashes down a full meal, and hurries back to work, and at once sets his brain to doing well-nigh its utmost?

Well, but is not the work which will effect such swift changes very severe, and so a hazardous one to attempt? That is just what it is not.

Is there anything very formidable in wooden dumb-bells weighing only two and a half pounds each, or clubs of three and a half-pounds, or pulley-weights of from ten to fifteen pounds? or is any great danger likely to result from their use? And yet they were Sargent's weapons with his Bowdoin two hundred.[J] Nothing in Maclaren's work, so far as he points out what it is, is nearly so dangerous as a sudden run to boat or train, taken by one all out of the way of running, perhaps who has never learned. There a heart unused to swift work is suddenly forced to beat at a tremendous rate, lungs ordinarily half-used are strained to their utmost, and all without one jot of preparation.

But here, by the most careful and judicious system, the result of long study and much practical application, a person is taken, and, by work exactly suited to his weak state, is gradually hardened and strengthened. Then still more is given him to do, and so on, at the rate that is plainly seen to best suit him. Develop every man's body by such a method, teach every American school-boy the erect carriage of the West Pointer, and how many men among us would there be built after the pattern of the typical brother Jonathan, or of the thin-chested, round-shouldered, inerect, and generally weak make, so common in nearly every city, town, and village in our land?

Look, too, at the knowledge such a course brings of the workings of one's own body, of its general structure, of its possibilities! What a lecture on the human body it must prove, and how it must fit the man to keep his strength up, and, if lost, to recover it; for it has uniformly been found that a man once strong needs but little work daily to keep him so. A little reflection on facts like the foregoing must point strongly to the conclusion that the body--at least of any one not yet middle-aged--admits of a variety and degree of culture almost as great as could be desired, certainly sufficient to make reasonably sure of a great accession of strength and health to a person formerly weak, and that with but a little time given each day to the work.

FOOTNOTES:

[I] See page 145.

[J] See Appendix II.

CHAPTER X.

WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD.

While the endeavor has been made to point out the value of plain and simple exercise--for, in a later chapter, particular work will be designated which, if followed systematically and persistently, will correct many physical defects, subst.i.tuting good working health and vigor for weakness--the reply may be made, "Yes, these are well enough for the young and active, but they will not avail a fleshy person, or a slim one, or one well up in years."

Let us see about this. Take, first, those burdened with flesh which seems to do them little or no good, and which is often a hinderance, dulling and slackening their energies, preventing them from doing much which they could, and which they believe they would do with alacrity were they once freed from this unwelcome burden. There are some persons with whom the reduction of flesh becomes a necessity. They have a certain physical task to perform, and they know they cannot have either the strength or the wind to get through with it creditably, unless they first rid themselves of considerable superfluous flesh.

Take the man, for instance, who wants to walk a race of several miles, or to run or row one. He has often heard of men getting their weight down to a certain figure for a similar purpose. He has seen some one who did it, and he is confident that he can do it. He sets about it, takes much and severe physical work daily, warmly clad, perspiring freely, while he subjects his skin to much friction from coa.r.s.e towels. He does without certain food which he understands makes fat, and only eats that which he believes makes mainly bone and muscle. He sticks to his work, and gradually makes that work harder and faster. To his gratification, he finds that not only has his wind improved, so that, in the place of the old panting after a slight effort--walking briskly up an ordinary flight of stairs, for instance--he can now breathe as easily and quietly, and can stick to it as long, as any of his leaner companions.

By race-day he is down ten, fifteen, or twenty pounds, or even more, as the case may be. While he has thus reduced himself, and is far stronger and more enduring than he was before, he is not the only one who has lost flesh, if there have been a number working with him, as in a boat-crew. Notice the lists of our university crews and their weights, published when they commence strict training, say a month before the race, and compare them with those of the same men on race-day, particularly in hot weather. The reduction is very marked all through the crew. In the English university eights it is even more striking, the large and stalwart fellows, who fill their thwarts, often coming down in a month an average of over a dozen pounds per man.

We have seen a student, after weighing himself on scales in the gymnasium, sit down at a fifty-five pound rowing weight, pull forty-five full strokes a minute for twenty minutes, then, clad exactly as before, weigh again on the same scales, and find he was just one pound lighter than he was twenty minutes earlier.

But the difference is more marked in more matured men, who naturally run to flesh, than in students. A prize-fighter, for instance, in changing from a life of indulgence and immoderate drinking, will often come down as much as thirty, or even forty pounds, in preparing for his contest.

It should be remembered that, besides other advantages of his being thin, it is of great importance that his face should be so lean that a blow on his cheek shall not puff it up, and swell it so as to shut up his eye, and put him at his enemy's mercy.

But most people do not care to take such severe and arduous work as either the amateur athlete or the prize-fighter. If they could hit on some comparatively light and easy way of restoring themselves physically to a hard-muscle basis, and could so shake off their burden of flesh without interfering seriously with their business, they would be glad to try it. Let us see if this can be done.

In the summer of 1877 the writer met a gentleman of middle age, whom he had known for years, and who has been long connected with one of the United States departments in New York city. A very steady, hard-working officer, his occupation was a sedentary one. Remembering him as a man, till recently, of immense bulk, and being struck with his evident and great shrinkage, we inquired if he had been ill. He replied that he had not been ill, that for years he had not enjoyed better health.

Questioning him as to his altered appearance, he said that, on the eighteenth day of January, 1877, he weighed three hundred and five pounds; that, having become so unwieldy, his flesh was a source of great hinderance and annoyance to him. Then he had determined, if possible, to get rid of some of it. Having to be at work all day, he could only effect his purpose in the evenings, or not at all. So, making no especial change in his diet, he took to walking, and soon began to average from three to five miles an evening, and at the best pace he could make. In the cold months he says that he often perspired so that small icicles would form on the ends of his hair. Asking if it did not come a little stiff sometimes, on stormy nights or when he was very tired, and whether he did not omit his exercise at such times, he said no, but, on the contrary, added two miles, which shows the timber the man was made of. On the eighteenth of June of the same year, just five months from the start, he weighed but two hundred and fifteen pounds, _having actually taken off ninety pounds_, and had so altered that his former clothes would not fit him at all. Since that time we have again seen him, and he says he is now down to two hundred, and that he has taken to horseback-riding, as he is fond of that. He looks to-day a large, strong, hearty man of about five feet ten, of rather phlegmatic temperament, but no one would ever think of him as a fat man.

Now here is a man well known to hundreds of the lawyers of the New York Bar, a living example of what a little energy and determination will accomplish for a person who sets about his task as if he meant to perform it.

During the war, M----, a member of the Boston Police force, known to the writer, was said to weigh three hundred and fifteen pounds, and was certainly an enormously large man. He went South, served for some time as stoker on a gunboat, and an intimate friend of his informed us that he had reduced his weight to one hundred and eighty-four.

A girl of fifteen or sixteen, and inclined to be fleshy, found that, by a good deal of horseback-riding daily, she lost twenty-five pounds in one year--so a physician familiar with her case informed us.

Brisk walking, and being on the feet much of the day--as Americans, for instance, find it necessary to do when they try to see the Parisian galleries and many other of Europe's attractions all in a very few weeks--will tell decidedly on the weight of fleshy people, and dispose them to move more quickly. When you can do it, this is perhaps not such a bad way to reduce yourself.

Now, if so many have found that vigorous muscular exercise, taken daily and a.s.siduously, accomplished the desired end for them, does it not look as if a similar course, combined with a little strength of purpose, would bring similar benefit to others? In any case, such a course has this advantage: begun easily, and followed up with gradually increasing vigor, it will be sure to tone up and strengthen one, and add to the spring and quickness of movement, whether it reduces one's flesh or not. But it is a sort of work where free perspiration must be encouraged, not hindered, for this is plainly a prominent element in effecting the desired purpose.

But, while many of us know instances where fat people have, by exercise, been reduced to a normal weight, is it possible for a thin person to become stouter? A thin person may have a large frame or a slender one.

Is there any work which will increase the weight of each, and bring desirable roundness and plumpness of trunk and limb?

Take, first, the slim man. Follow him for a day, or even an hour, and you will usually find that, while often active--indeed, too active--still he does no work which a person of his height need be really strong to do. Put him beside such a person who is not merely large, but really strong and in equally good condition, and correspondingly skilful, and let the two train for an athletic feat of some sort--row together, for instance, or some other work where each must carry other weight in addition to his own. The first mile they can go well together, and one will do about as much as the other. But as the second wears along, the good strength begins to tell; and the slim man, while, perhaps, sustaining his form pretty well, and going through the motions, is not quite doing the work, and his friend is gradually drawing away from him. At the third mile the disparity grows very marked, and the stronger fellow has it all his own way, while at the end he also finds that he has not taken as much out of him as his slender rival. He has had more to carry, both in his boat's greater weight, and especially in his own, but his carrying power was more than enough to make up for the difference. 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.

Now, take the slim fellow, and set him to making so many efforts a day with any given muscle or muscles, say those of his upper left arm, for instance.

Put some reward before him which he would like greatly to have--say a hundred thousand dollars--if in one year from date he will increase the girth of that same upper left arm two honest inches. Now, watch him, if he has any spirit and stuff, as thin fellows very often have, and see what he does. Insist, too, that whatever he does shall in no way interfere with his business or regular duties, whatever they may be, but that he must find other time for it. And what will he do? Why, he will leave no stone unturned to find just what work uses the muscles in question, and at that work he will go, with a resolution which no obstacle will balk. He is simply showing the truth of Emerson's broad rule, that "in all human action those faculties will be strong which are used;" and of Maclaren's, "Where the activity is, there will be the development."

The new work flushes the muscles in question with far more blood than before, while the wear and tear being greater, the call for new material corresponds, and more and more hearty food is eaten and a.s.similated. The quarter-inch or more of gain the first fortnight often becomes the whole inch in less than two months, and long before the year is out the coveted two inches have come. And, in acquiring them, his whole left arm and shoulder have had correspondingly new strength added, quite going past his right, though it was the larger at first, if meanwhile he has practically let it alone.

There are some men, either at the college or city gymnasiums, every year, who are practically getting to themselves such an increase in the strength and size of some particular muscles.

We knew one at college who, on entering, stood hardly five feet four, weighed but about one hundred and fifteen pounds, and was small and rather spare. For four years he worked with great steadiness in the gymnasium, afoot and on the water, and he graduated a five-foot-eight man, splendidly built, and weighing a hundred and sixty-eight pounds--every pound a good one, for he was one of the best bow-oarsmen his university ever saw.

Another, tall and very slender, but with a large head and a very bright mind, was an habitual fault-finder at everything on the table, no matter if it was fit for a prince. A friend got him, for awhile, into a little athletic work--walking, running, and sparring--until he could trot three miles fairly, and till one day he walked forty-five--pretty well used up, to be sure, but he walked it. Well, his appet.i.te went up like a rocket. Where the daintiest food would not tempt him before, he would now promptly hide a beefsteak weighing a clean pound at a meal, and that no matter if cooked in some roadside eating-house, where nothing was neat or tidy, and flies abounded almost as they did once in Egypt in Pharaoh's day. His friends frequently spoke of his improved temper, and how much easier it was to get on with him. But after a while his efforts slackened, and his poor stomach returned to its old vices, at least in part. Had he kept at what was doing so much for him, it would have continued to prove a many-sided blessing.

If steady and vigorous use of one set of muscles gradually increases their size, why should not a similar allowance, distributed to each, do the same for all? See (Appendix V.) what it did in four months and twelve days for Maclaren's pupil of nineteen, whose upper arm not only gained a whole inch and a half (think how that would add to the beauty alone of many a woman's arm, to say nothing of its strength), and whose chest enlarged five inches and a quarter, _but whose weight went up eight pounds_! Or what it did (see Appendix IV.) for Sargent's pupil of nineteen, who in just one year, besides making an inch and a half of upper arm, and three and a half of chest, went up from a hundred and forty-five pounds to a hundred and sixty, or _a clean gain of fifteen pounds_. Or (see Appendix VI.) for Maclaren's man, fully twenty-eight years old, who, in seven months and nineteen days, made _sixteen pounds_; or (Appendix VII.) for his youth of sixteen, who in just one year increased his weight _full twenty-one pounds_!

These facts certainly show pretty clearly whether sensible bodily exercise, taken regularly, and aimed at the weak spots, will not tell, and tell pretty rapidly, on the thin man wanting to stouten, and tell, too, in the way he wants.

It will make one eat heartily, it will make him sleep hard and long.

Every ounce of the food is now digested, and the long sleep is just what he needed. Indeed, if, after a hearty dinner, a man would daily take a nap, and later in the day enough hard work to make sure of being thoroughly tired when bedtime came, he would doubtless find the flesh coming in a way to which he was a stranger. Many thin persons do not rest enough. They are constantly on the go, and the lack of phlegm in their make-up rather increases this activity, though they do not necessarily accomplish more than those who take care to sit and lie still more.

The writer, at nineteen, spent four weeks on a farm behind the Catskills, in Delaware County, New York. It was harvest-time, and, full of athletic ardor, and eager to return to college the better for the visit, we took a hand with the men. All the farm-hands were uniformly on the field at six o'clock in the morning, and it would average nearly or quite eight at night before the last load was snugly housed away in the mow. It was sharp, hard work all day long, with a tough, wiry, square-loined fellow in the leading swath all the morning. But to follow him we were bound to or drop, while the pitchfork or rake never rested from noon till sunset. Breakfast was served at five-thirty; dinner at eleven; supper at four; and a generous bowl of bread-and-milk--or two bowls, if you wanted them--at nine o'clock, just before bedtime, with plenty of spring-water between meals; while the fare itself was good and substantial, just what you would find on any well-to-do farmer's table.

And such an appet.i.te, and such sleep! Solomon must have tried some similar adventure when he wrote that "the sleep of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much." Well, when we returned to college and got on the scales again, the one hundred and forty-three pounds at starting had somehow become a hundred and fifty-six! And with them such a grip, and such a splendid feeling! We have rowed many a race since, but there was as hard work done by some of that little squad on that old mountain farm as any man in our boat ever did, and there was not much attention paid to any one's training rules either.

It is notorious, among those used to training for athletic contests, that thin men, if judiciously held in, and not allowed to do too much work, generally "train up," or gain decidedly in weight, almost as much, in fact, as the fleshy ones lose.

Now, were the object simply to train up as much as possible, unusual care could be taken to insure careful and deliberate eating, with a generous share of the fat and flesh making sorts of food, and quiet rest always for awhile after each meal, to aid the digestive organs at their work. Slow, deep, abdominal breathing is a great ally to this latter process; indeed, works direct benefit to many of the vital organs, and so to the whole man. All the sleep the man can possibly take at night would also tell in the right way. So would everything that would tend to prevent fret and worry, or which would cultivate the ability to bear them philosophically. But most thin people do not keep still enough, do not take matters leisurely, and do not rest enough; while, if their work is muscular, they do too much daily in proportion to their strength.

They are very likely also to be inerect, with flat, thin chests, and contracted stomach and abdomen. Now the habit of constantly keeping erect, whether sitting, standing, or walking, combined with this same deep, abdominal breathing, soon tends to expand not only the lower ribs and lower part of the lungs, but the waist as well, so giving the digestive organs more room and freer play. Like the lungs, or any other organ, they do their work best when in no way constrained. Better yet, if the person will also habituate himself, no matter what he is at, whether in motion or sitting still, to not only breathing the lower half of the lungs full, but the whole lungs as well, and at each inspiration hold the air in his chest as long as he comfortably can, he will speedily find a quickened and more vigorous circulation, which will be shown, for instance, by the veins in his hands becoming larger, and the hands themselves growing warmer if the air be cold; he will also feel a mild and agreeable exhilaration such as he has seldom before experienced. Some of these are little things, and for that reason they are the easier to do; but in this business, as in many others, little things often turn the scale. Of two brothers, equally thin, equally over-active, as much alike as possible--if one early formed these simple habits of slow and thorough mastication, deep and full breathing, resting awhile after meals, carrying his body uniformly erect, and sleeping plentifully, and his brother all the while cared for none of these things, it is highly probable that these little attentions would, in a few years, tell very decidedly in favor of him who practised them, and gradually bring to him that greater breadth, depth, and serenity, and the accompanying greater weight of the broad, full, and hearty man.

And what about the old people? Take a person of sixty. You don't want him to turn gymnast, surely. No; not to turn gymnast, but to set aside a small portion of each day for taking such body as he or she now has, and making the best of it.

But how can that be done? and is it practicable at all for a person sixty years old, or more? Well, let us see what one, not merely sixty, but eighty, and more too, had to say on this point. Shortly after the death of the late William Cullen Bryant, the New York _Evening Post_, of which he had long been editor, published in its semi-weekly issue of June 14th, 1878, the following letter:

"MR. BRYANT'S MODE OF LIFE.

"The following letter, written by Mr. Bryant several years ago, describing the habits of his life, to which he partly ascribed the wonderful preservation of his physical and mental vigor, will be read with interest now: