Keeping Fit All the Way / How to Obtain and Maintain Health, Strength and Efficiency

may be obliged to largely forego pleasurable exercise and wh

the men (and women, too, for that matter) who, unable to do service at the front, must support the troops in various ways behind the lines. It is said that it takes five men behind the line to support one man at the front, and, judging from the pressure that already has com

ey are to be used before entering upon the ordinary day of business routine. After a great deal of study a system has been devised which answers the need

PHYSICA

od enough even a year ago is antiquated and out of date to-day. Under the pressure of war we are driven, whether we wish it or not, to put to immediate te

is store of vitality and energy. Perhaps we find that the routine of his ordinary work will strengthen sufficiently his legs and arms. This is astonishingly true. What we must now do is to supple him, to quicken his co-ordination, to improve his poise, and to put his trunk and thorax into better shape. We must give him endurance, quickness of response, and resistive force. This, therefore,

F-DAT

g-boards. When one sees some two thousand men examined by draft boards to secure two hundred men for our army, as happened in some cases, when one reads that in a physical examination for the sanitary police force in Clevel

W MOST MEN SLACK IN SWEDISH EX

ment of our youth. They are antique. Permit me to illustrate. Only recently Professor Bolen, the authority on Swedish exercises, died and left behind him the record of his work. After twenty-five years of

ME FAL

e, and which, if coupled with a five-mile rapid walk and hopping first on one fo

each for a 165-pound man) fifty times without stopping. Then placing the bells on the floor at his feet, and b

far up and out behind him as he can, keeping the elbows straight and taking care,

ders, let him push them up high over the h

that we abandoned

re himself in the mirror? Or did he intend to make of himself a professional weightlifter? Practically the only real good in all this was the deep breathing, and that would not be lasting except in so far as a part of the exercises

TLY USEL

quotation illustrating perfectly the old-fashioned idea t

that it was from fifteen hundred to two thousand, varied some days by his holding in each hand, during the process, a twelve-pound dumbbell, and then only doing one thousand or thereabouts. The time he found most convenie

ses taken for the mere sake of adding an i

E AND POU

s are in a favorable condition to meet the increased demand put upon them. It is poor gymnastics if we desire to astound the world by nicely finished and smoothly gliding combinations of comple

the same condition in others-men with stiff muscles and slow movements, men with shoulders pulled forward and no chest expansion, breathing whol

E'S P

n her work. Every step she makes is a little one. She seems never to reckon time as an essential in her economy. We should heed the lesson. The man who eats, drinks, and neglects all care of himself for a year, and then rushes madly into a period of severe physical exercise and reduction, may at the end of

E GREAT

make them fit in the shortest space of time that will accomplish the result. And we must conserve our man-power. It is no longer a question of putting on such severe work as shall weed out all but the physical giants; we are not trying (as seemed to be the ide

man whose training and discipline have been along a kindred line becomes serviceable much earlier than the man who has to acquire the necessary spirit and quality. No one who has listened to the coaches of our

raining both mentally and physically, and who, under discipline, will make obedient, courageous, and enthusiastic fighters. But a large numb

world does move, and those who thought themselves up to date on boats, aeroplanes, drill, and the like have

IAL PR

ork at the end of his setting-up we have accomplished far more than if we tire him out or exhaust any of his store of vitality. If, in addition to t

ting-up exercises were shirked and the leaders were unable to detect t

iod of time than was necessary to accomplish the desired r

d legs are a disadvantage rather than an advantage. The real essential is, after all, the engine, the part under the hood, as

n teaching the leader so that he can handle setting-up exercises, extension of the number of leaders is rendered increasingly difficult. If, therefore, we can make thi

fort between heavy and light men. The light man would put in only a small amount of muscular effort, whereas the heavy

y can take the same amount and the same kind of exercise. On the other hand, if we consider the work each is required to do in his daily routine, we can, so far as the setting-up exercises

HYSICAL

the setting-up exercises so that we may obta

eriod of eight or ten mi

m simple for le

that, on account of the da

more difficult of e

the line of increased resisting

hing co-ordination, muscular control

em for use by both

t may be of nearly equal value to both enlisted men a

IN SETTIN

stations or cantonments a great many men were tired out with the setting-up exercises; so much so that they had neither life nor vitality for some little time for other work. For the sake of illustration, let us examine one particular movement. It consists of the men lying flat on the ground or floor; then, with straight back, lifting the

work and drill. The average man of the service needs expansion of chest capacity, which adds to his resistive power; a stronger, better-developed back; and suppleness and quickn

-RA

AND BODY WORK PLACES A

with big biceps and large knots of muscles. It was also found that, outside of weight-lifting and inordinate "chinning" and apparent great strength on the parallel bars, these men were

WORK THAT

epetition, some facts

emphasize the fact of time-saving. We must take ourselves

we are no longer trying to pick a team out of a squad of two hundred men; we are trying to get a hundred and seventy-five out of the two hundred that can stand a fair pace and have enough left to fight with when they get there. Any one who has been in touch with affairs in Washington, any one who has been engaged in our munition-plants and in our factories, any one who has worked upon Liberty Bond drives or Red Cross fund-raising, knows that if we are to support our boys on land and sea, these men who are trying to solve the problems of executive management, and wh

IG PR

tells. It is the man who can stay, who can work at highest efficiency, and who can hold out the longest who is going to be most valuable. If we save even ten minutes a day in the setting-up exercises, we save, with a hundred thousand men, 16,666 hours daily toward perf

IS EXERCISE PLACES A

TE LEG-

in this country are going into committee-rooms and conferences every day from nine in the morning till twelve at night to devise better and more efficacious means of stop

CONDENSED SYSTE

At the call of the Secretary of the Navy, he was asked to take a position on the Naval Commission to develop athletic sports and games and physical fitness in our men at the various naval stations. In one week alone requests came from over four hundred communities to establish units of this work among business and pro

umber of three hundred or four hundred from men who wished to make themselves better fit physically for the work of these strenuous days. This, together with the demands from so many communities throughout the country, show that we are all now awake to the necessity of this cardinal feature of the n

EXERCISE PLACES A H

llows a brief syllabus of the plan, in the hope of placing it within reach of men who can afford but little time for anything outside of their pressing office dutie

ONABLE

very chance of conserving their vitality and increasing their resistive forces. Those of us who must do work behind the lines should be kept equally fit for that larger work without which the machine must inevitably break down. The method is scientific and it has been tested on men of all ages from eighteen to seventy. It embodies the elimination of all wasted effort and concentration upon points of approved