GETTING FIT.

Mataura Ensign, 27 January 1911, Page 7

GETTING FIT.

HOW TO TRAIN. IvIETHODS AND MEN. Apparently simple, but really not so easy as it looks. Training an athlete is not a thing concerning which hard and fast rules can be laid down. A method that suits one individual may be detrimental to another. It is all a question of constitution and personality, and, to start off, the athlete should study himself and his surrounding conditions (states an athletic writer in the 'Sydney Daily Telegraph'). While one athlete may require hard j and gruelling work another may step on to the ground of contest and battle as fit as the proverbial fiddle, and trained up to concert pitch, with almost no more preliminary preparation than a shampoo and a shave. This man dwindles in weight as the result of training, that man keeps just about the same, while a third actually puts on avoirdupois. It all depends on the man and his environments. When a young fellow sets out to train he has to take a variety of things into account, and if he does not he will probably make his training ineffective, and it may be positively injurious to himself. Quite a change of late has come over the notions once generally held regarding training, and ideas on the matter are still more or less in a state of evolution. The old-time "correct" thing was for the ambitious athlete to train ' liargely on half-cooked meat, the stupid reason for this being that it was supposed to make the subject "savage" and full of "go." Very often he was worked like a galley-slave on a false ' diet to a shadow of his former real self, so that on the supreme day a puff of wind almost would blow the aspirant for championship honors down, and, unless he were a marvel, he would fail ingloriously. "Watch my boy run in this race! I've trained him on apples." Thus a proud and expectant father confided to a bystander before the event. The poor little fellow ran a bad last. Here we have the vegetarian extreme, the utmost revulsion from the blood-red meat regimen. Both extremes are wrong, as authorities on dietetics tell us that a mixed diet is the correct thing. Leave the table feeling you •could eat a little more, and don't be tempted by a plentious array of good things to gorge. The man who starts to dwindle in weight as, the result of quick, active exercise may do so from two causes. First of all, he may be grossly fat, and carrying a lot of superfluous tissue. Strenuous eexreise will bring his condition down, but this is a case where the training should proceed steadily, otherwise there is a danger of the system being weakened and the muscles overstrained. A well-known gymnast was a great believer in the system of graduated work when he wanted to get back from a state of rotundity to muscular shapeliness. The first day he contented himself with just a few swings of the horizontal bar, second day an extra twist or a twist-over. Third anf.'- other extra turn. By the end of the week he began to "feel himself" getting back into form, and in a fortnight he was able to tackle twice or three times as much. He then increased the amount until he could stand as much of it as he wanted. This is the method upon which the athlete should proceed who has allowed good living and a sound internal anatomy to send him a| stone or two above his true weight. The athlete most likely to get satisfactory results out of his training is the one who, without being in a constant state of physical high tension, manages to keep tolerably close to his true weight the whole time. Champions could be cited by the dozen who have trained into becoming first-flighters from being at first only mediocre performers not possessing any apparent flashes of genuis. In the end they succeeded in lowering the colors of men who might be regarded as naturally their superiors, but who were either too indolent or too indifferent to •bother bringing out by steady practice, their latent powers. The same holds good in every department of latent activity. Walking the Basis. Walking exercise should be the basis of all athletic preparation for a contest. The greatest cricketer the Old Country has ever produced was a perfect "whale" on walking, and strongly recommended it to cricketers. We in Australia saw W. G. when his girth measurement was all too ample, but, in the days when he used to run yards out of his creaseand energetioelly assail the bowling, he kept his condition by long strolls afield. Still another batsman, a well-known local celebrity this time, was Charles Bannerman, who ' was apt to swear by the virtues of sea bathing. Immersion in the water on a hot day and a sun-bath are certainly of the joys of life, but walking should be the basis exercise for the cricketer, just as it is with every other class of athlete, including boxers, swimmers and runners. The golden rule is to practise what one has to compete in. A cricketer should bat, bowl and field as much as possible, a swimmer should swim, and a runner run, and so on. One great mistake was pointed out in Jim Jeffries' training methods when he was preparing for Jack Johnson. The | big fellow stubbornly declined to do any boxing, for which ball-punching is only a substitute. Over and above training at what the athlete is about to contest in comes the question of general training and dieting. Question of Diet. Take dieting first. Although the gospel of no breakfast is- being preached nowadays the athlete should adhere to the old-fashioned three meals a day. The two meals a day might be right enough for the party who is shut up in an office all day, but the athlete who is out in the open and expending considerable energy needs a good breakfast, dinner and tea. The fourth meal, supper, he should eschew as an invention of the Evil One—at all events from the point of view of physical fitness. The amount of work the athlete should do depends on his constitution. If. he is the possessor of a generous appetite, and can take plenty of work without getting the tired feeling, this is the sort of preparation he will do best on when the momentous time arrives : but in this case the danger to be guarded against is over-training. An liour or les6 in the open air before

breakfast, walking, gardening or woodchopping, is to be recommended. The bulk of amateurs cannot afford any of the forenoon for training, which in most cases cannot be engaged in till before tea. Care should be taken to let some time elapse before sitting down to meals, because it is injurious to do so with the system over-heated. That is one of the points to be always borne in mind. A shower bath or a smart towelling after vigorous exercise is a good thing, and several shower baths a day are apt to be harmful as they tend to make too great a levy on his vitality. If he begins to lose his elasticity and alertness the athlete can be satisfied he is losing "tone," and should ease up. Advice to Cyclists. In conclusion, let not the budding cyclist tail up those fast-speeding motor cars. It is bad for him. How often we see our young wheelmen, with heads bent over the handle-bars, "hangingon" to the autos for all they are worth. They try to get the benefit of the draught the motor ears create whizzing along, but they foolishly forget all about the horrible dust the cars are stirring up, and which the cyclist is breathing in heavily, to the serious detriment of his lungs. For the cyclist steady road work is the thing that pays best on the track, and the great Zimmerman would never allow the fact that a brother wheelman passed him on the road to lead him into "scorching," which is a very mad-headed business for the young or old cyclist to embark upon. In a word, the athlete, while not omitting to spurt and extend himself occasionally, should always train so as not to draw too much upon the reserve forces of his energies, and in this way training oeprations should build up his system and render him better able to give a good acocunt of himself.