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  HOW TO GET STRONG
  AND
  HOW TO STAY SO

  BY

  WILLIAM BLAIKIE

  [Illustration: Decoration]

  NEW YORK
  HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS
  FRANKLIN SQUARE
  1883.




  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, by
  HARPER & BROTHERS,
  In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.




  TO

  ARCHIBALD MACLAREN

  _WHO HAS PROBABLY DONE MORE THAN ANY ONE ELSE NOW LIVING TO POINT
  OUT THE BENEFITS RESULTING FROM RATIONAL PHYSICAL EXERCISE, AND HOW
  TO ATTAIN THOSE BENEFITS_

  THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY
  Dedicated




PREFACE.


Millions of our people pass their lives in cities and towns, and at work
which keeps them nearly all day in-doors. Many hours are devoted for days
and years, under careful teachers, and many millions of dollars are spent
annually, in educating the mind and the moral nature. But the body is
allowed to grow up all uneducated; indeed, often such a weak, shaky
affair that it gets easily out of order, especially in middle and later
life, and its owner is wholly unequal to tasks which would have proved
easy to him, had he given it even a tithe of the education bestowed so
generously in other directions. Not a few, to be sure, have the advantage
in youth of years of active out-door life on a farm, and so lay up a
store of vigor which stands them in good stead throughout a lifetime. But
many, and especially those born and reared in towns and cities, have had
no such training, or any equivalent, and so never have the developed
lungs and muscles, the strong heart and vigorous digestion--in short, the
improved tone and strength in all their vital organs--which any sensible
plan of body-culture, followed up daily, would have secured. It does not
matter so much whether we get vigor on the farm, the deck, the tow-path,
or in the gymnasium, if we only get it. Fortunately, if not gotten in
youth, when we are plastic and easily shaped, it may still be had, even
far on in middle life, by judicious and systematic exercise, aimed first
to bring up the weak and unused parts, and then by general work daily
which shall maintain the equal development of the whole.

The aim here has been, not to write a profound treatise on gymnastics,
and point out how to eventually reach great performance in this art, but
rather in a way so plain and untechnical that even any intelligent boy or
girl can readily understand it, to first give the reader a nudge to take
better care of his body, and so of his health, and then to point out one
way to do it. That there are a hundred other ways is cheerfully conceded.
If anything said here should stir up some to vigorously take hold of, and
faithfully follow up, either the plan here indicated or any one of these
others, it cannot fail to bring them marked benefit, and so to gratify

                                                        THE AUTHOR.

  _New York, July, 1883._




CONTENTS.


  CHAP.                                                         PAGE

     I. DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES?                              9

    II. HALF-BUILT BOYS                                           23

   III. WILL DAILY PHYSICAL EXERCISE FOR GIRLS PAY?               42

    IV. IS IT TOO LATE FOR WOMEN TO BEGIN?                        57

     V. WHY MEN SHOULD EXERCISE DAILY                             74

    VI. HOME GYMNASIUMS                                           91

   VII. THE SCHOOL THE TRUE PLACE FOR CHILDREN'S
        PHYSICAL CULTURE                                         104

  VIII. WHAT A GYMNASIUM MIGHT BE AND DO                         117

    IX. SOME RESULTS OF BRIEF SYSTEMATIC EXERCISE                138

     X. WORK FOR THE FLESHY, THE THIN, THE OLD                   154

    XI. HALF-TRAINED FIREMEN AND POLICE                          177

   XII. SPECIAL EXERCISE FOR ANY GIVEN MUSCLES                   199

        _a._ To Develop the Leg below the Knee                   200

        _b._ Work for the Front of the Thigh                     208

        _c._ To Enlarge the Under Thigh                          214

        _d._ To Strengthen the Sides of the Waist                215

        _e._ The Abdominal Muscles                               218

        _f._ Counterwork for the Abdominal Muscles               224

        _g._ To Enlarge and give Power to the Loins              227

        _h._ Development above the Waist                         228

        _i._ Filling out the Shoulders and Upper Back            230

        _j._ To obtain a good Biceps                             233

        _k._ To bring up the Muscles on the Front and Side
             of the Shoulder                                     236

        _l._ Forearm Work                                        237

        _m._ Exercises for the Triceps Muscles                   238

        _n._ To Strengthen and Develop the Hand                  241

        _o._ To Enlarge and Strengthen the Front of the Chest    243

        _p._ To Broaden and Deepen the Chest itself              245

  XIII. WHAT EXERCISE TO TAKE DAILY                              252

        _a._ Daily Work for Children                             253

        _b._ Daily Exercise for Young Men                        273

        _c._ Daily Exercise for Women                            276

        _d._ Daily Exercise for Business Men                     278

        _e._ Daily Exercise for Consumptives                     283

  APPENDIX   I.                                                  291

     "      II.                                                  291

     "     III.                                                  292

     "      IV.                                                  292

     "       V.                                                  293

     "      VI.                                                  294

     "     VII.                                                  295

  CONCLUSION                                                     295


TABLE OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

  Fig. 1. A warped University Oarsman, imperfectly developed
          in Muscles not used in Rowing                           36

   "   2. A warped Professional Sculler, imperfectly developed
          in Muscles not used in Rowing                           37

   "   3. Horizontal Bar and Chest-bars, for Home Use             92

   "   4. Noiseless Pulley-weights                                94

   "   5. Appliance for developing the Sides of the Waist        217

   "   6. A Correct Position for Fast Walking                    220

   "   7. Device for developing the Abdominal Muscles            225

   "   8. A Chest-widener                                        248

   "   9. A Chest-deepener                                       250




                     HOW TO GET STRONG,

                            AND

                      HOW TO STAY SO.




CHAPTER I.

DO WE INHERIT SHAPELY BODIES?


Probably more men walk past the corner of Broadway and Fulton Street, in
New York city, in the course of one year, than any other point in
America--men of all nations and ages, heights and weights. Look at them
carefully as they pass, and you will see that scarcely one in ten is either
erect or thoroughly well-built. Some slouch their shoulders and double in
at the waist; some overstep; others cant to one side; this one has one
shoulder higher than the other, and that one both too high; some have heavy
bodies and light legs, others the reverse; and so on, each with his own
peculiarities. A thoroughly erect, well-proportioned man, easy and graceful
in his movements, is far from a frequent sight. Any one accustomed to
athletic work, and knowing what it can do for the body, must at times have
wondered why most men allowed themselves to go along for years, perhaps
through life, so carrying themselves as not only to lack the outward grace
and ease they might possess, and which they occasionally see in others, but
so as to directly cramp and impede one or more of the vital organs.

Nor is it always the man's fault that he is ill-proportioned. In most
cases it comes down from his progenitors. The father's walk and physical
peculiarities appear in the son, often so plainly that the former's
calling might almost be told from a look at the latter.

A very great majority of Americans are the sons either of farmers or
merchants, mechanics or laborers. The work of each class soon develops
peculiar characteristics. No one of the four classes has ordinarily had
any training at all aimed to make him equally strong all over. Broad as
is the variety of the farmer's work, far the greater, and certainly the