Related article: gasp for breath or feel ill, but he
must nevertheless wait until the
towelled attendants come to take
him out to the region of cold slabs
and tepid water. Could anything
be further from the truth. And yet
this is hardly a more far-fetched
story than some of those which
have been told about athletes and
athleticism.
Even now, when training is
almost universal, and rowing
clubs, harrier clubs, bicycle clubs,
swimming clubs, and what not
are found everywhere, and upon
a more or less enlightened prin-
ciple the bulk of our youth train
for something or other, the prin-
ciples of training are but imper-
fectly understood by those who
have never undergone it. Since
the St, James's Gazette discussion
has been in progress one writer
has mentioned the question of the
training for the University Boat-
race, and it must surely be in-
jurious for any man about to
row in an important boat-race, to
starve himseH and work himself
to death, in order to get fit.
Good heavens ! Fancy the mem-
ber of a University Eight (or for
that matter of any other eight-
oared crew) starving himself!
Would that those who hold these
opinions could see the breakfasts
which are consumed by crews in
training, or the dinners either.
Before it became the fashion for
the Oxford and Cambridge crews
to follow the Apostolic fashion,
and live in their own hired houses
while at Putney, they used to stay
at one or other of the hotels, and
in one year the Oxford crew, be-
ing desirous of getting away from
the racket and inquisitiveness,
incidental to a waterside house,
decided to move up the street,
and sent to the landlord of the
required place for an estimate
of the housekeeping expenses.
These worked out on such moder-
ate lines that the offer was closed
with at once, and in due time the
crew appeared. At breakfast on
the following morning, a chop
(and not a very large one either),
was put before each man, and
when that was consumed, the
order was given to bring in the
others. ** What others ? " in-
quired mine host, and when he
found what a training breakfast
really meant, he is reported to
have gone with tears in his eyes
to the President of the Boat Club,
to say that he had but an imper-
fect acquaintance with the appe-
tites of men in training, and he
hoped that the contract would
either be cancelled, or that some
further remuneration would be
paid. So much for the starvation
of boats' crews.
On the wider question of
whether an athlete is a healthy
man or not in after life, there is
necessarily a good deal to be said
on both sides. An athlete's pluck Midamor Tablets
may be greater than his powers.
He may be physically a weak
man, in which case no amount of
chops and steaks, or other train-
ing diet, would render him fit to
302
bAlLY S MAGAZINE.
[OCTORER
withstand too violent exercise,
though at the same time careful
living might improve his health.
There are, as everybody knows,
a certain number of people in the
world who have no particular
tastes, or, if they have, lack the
opportunity of gratifying them ;
who are from early life compelled
to attend to business, and who go
from the cradle to the grave, with-
out ever having once experienced
real hunger, thirst, or fatigue. If
they have to wait half an hour for
a meal, they may say they are
hungry or thirsty ; if they walk a
mile further than usual they may
say they are tired, but as for ever
having mortified the flesh in any
shape or form, they have- never
done so.
Now, starting with the theory
that training is but imperfectly
understood, we would ask any-
body what objection there is to
wholesome living. The man who,
in the slang of the day, "does
himself well,'* can hardly be said
to live wholesomely, whereas Buy Midamor
training, or at least training diet,
which is " unlimited in quantity "
(as the £10 a year school advertise-
ments say), is comparatively plain
in its nature, while the nature,
and up to a certain extent the
amount, of drinkables, are also
regular. Now, a wholesome diet
and regular hours are surely the
first steps towards good health
(we will not call it training for the
present), and if to these we add
a certain amount of exercise, a
man is in a fair way to get fit.
Let us put the question in
another way. A young man,
earning, say twenty-five shillings
a week, is unable to indulge in
the luxury of a five-course dinner,
so he perhaps lives on chops,
steaks, or a cut off the joint,
which he washes down with either
water or a glass of beer. Rather
than spend some of his money on
riding he perhaps walks the three,
four, or five miles which separates
his home from his place of busi-
ness. Motives of economy again
may induce him to leave off smok-
ing, and here we have, for all
practical purposes, a man in train-
ing. The objectors will say, no,
you have not, because the exercise
he takes is really nothing more
than gentle exercise, just enough
to prevent the limbs from stiffen-
ing, and so forth, and this is the
line taken up by more than one
contributor to the Si, /ames's
Gazette discussion. But then, if
a wholesome diet be eaten and
regular hours kept, and even
moderate exercise indulged in, a
man speedily gets into such good
health, that what would be
moderate exercise to one who fed
less carefully, and lived less regu-
larly, would be absolutely no
exercise at all to him. He would
probably walk twenty miles with
far less fatigue to himself, than a
bon vivant would • walk five at a
slow pace.
One of the most dangerous
things a man can do is to under-
take hard exercise with no pre-
liminary training. The plethoric
gentlemen who sometimes cut
their trains rather fine, and who
have to run the last 200 or 300
yards, on seeing the train ap-
proaching, have been known to
end their lives in the railway
carriage, or on the station plat-
form, for no other reason than
that they have undertaken a task
which is beyond their powers.
And here it may be mentioned
that if instead of sitting down they
had walked about for a minute
or two, they might have warded
off the evil moment — but that by
the way.
Just, therefore, as pace is a
relative term so is exercise. What
would kill one man is simple
child's play to another. Who is
1897.3