The Middle-Aged Man And Too Much Exercise

North Canterbury Gazette, Volume 8, Issue 36, 1 September 1938, Page 4

The Middle-Aged Man And Too Much Exercise

"As a nation, we spend a great deal of our time on physical exercise. "Too much. Exercise in some respects is a most valuable part of our national life, and it has many uses. But when men come to mature years there is a real danger attached to the constant pursuit of exercise," states the London "Evening Standard." "Thousands of men, and women, too, as soon as they get out of bed each morning give up a quarter of an hour to physical jerks. Thousands more twist and heave on the bedroom floor for fifteen minutes every night before they fall into bed.

"Some persons may derive benefit from these performances, but for many the result is positively bad. "Physical jerkers overtire themselves. When they arrive at their office in the morning the first freshness of the day has already been taken from them. And when at last they get to bed at night their muscles twitch and ache from the unnatural strain they have been called upon to bear at the end of a long day. "Now when there is a definite object to be sought by exercise, and the exercise is limited to the attainment ot that object, it is not so dangerous nor so menacing. Women, for example, who take slimming exercises come under this heading.

But men and women hard at office work during the day need big reserves to carry the load. To put the brain to an intensive test, to lay a burden upon it, and at the • same time to bring the physique into violent action, to call upon your.muscles for extra effort, is to put too severe a strain upon the human frame.

"Week-end golf may develop into a pernicious form of exercise for those who work all the week on hard and arduous intellectual tasks. 'For many people indulge in it without moderation. - ■ ■•-•-•

"If you play golf every day it is perhaps good. But if you play once a week and play strenuously you take a

heavy risk. "Many a man does it. When he has spent the week in town at office or professional tasks, when he has hurried off on Saturday to> play golf, he is not centent with nine or eighteen holes. He must play thirty-six. He is bent on becoming 'pleasantly tired.' "There is no such thing as pleasant tiredness. Fatigue itself is a poison. And when it gets a hold of the body "the human frame is again called upon to exert more pressure to expel the poison. "Dangerous are the physical pursuits of men of mature years. These men retire from work. They are glad to have time to play. "And their play they pursue with such zeal that they shorten their days in the land which the Lord God has given them."