PHYSICAL FITNESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20518, 20 March 1930, Page 16

PHYSICAL FITNESS.

QUESTION OF EXERCISE.

SIMPLE IDEAS ABOUT EATING,

IGNORING THE CALENDAR. ■

U No one can spend the greater part of twenty years in a desk chair, eat himself into a state of lethargy, and then suddenly prod himself into unwonted activity in- some field of sport without finding that his heart, lungs, and stomach have entered • into a conspiracy against him," writes Douglas Fairbanks, the well-known movie picture athlete. "This belated conversion to exercise as a last desperate resort, after one has allowed oneself to get completely out of shap6, in the hope that it will restore youth, aid digestion, improve the heart action, reduce the girth, and repair tho damage done by years of neglect is a foolish and dangerous delusion.

"Hard exercise is not a corrective or cure. It is not to bo listed among the medicines nor to be prescribed as a sort of bodily discipline to correct past mistakes to prevent future ills. Ido not propose it as a form of penance for those who have lived improperly, but as a privilege and reward for those who have lived so that they can enjoy it. "A man who a little more than a decade ago was a nationally known athlete was chatting with me lately as I went through some of my daily stunts at the studio. I was not needed for the moment in the production of the picture, and this -was as agreeable a way as any of filling in the time. I was not exercising to build up my system, harden my muscles, stave off a physical decline, or keep the doctor away. I was doing it for the simple reason that I liked it.

To. Enjoy Exercise. "TJ'io athlete comjiared our condition somewhat to his own disadvantage. He remarked, that he wished he had kept himself in shape as I had by daily exercise. Whereupon I told him in substance what I am saving now that I did not exercise to keep fit; I kept fit so that I might enjoy exercise.

"I think ihe understood me better at lunch time. As I recall it we had corned beef and poached eggs, a fruit salad, a dessert, and coffee. Now I had been exercising and was entitled to a healthy appetite. I could have eaten three complete. lunches with relish. But I observed that I ate about a third as much as my guest,' and I omitted dessert altogether. "Breakfast is for me an equally frugal meal ' and although I let myself go a little "farther when it comes to dinner it is not in tho nature of an orgy. I suppose my simple ideas about eating would be laughed at by a dietarian, for I cannot converse intelligently about phos- : phoi'us, nitrogen, and carbohydrates as ? articles of diet, and if anyone offered me only a small portion of glucose I should resent it.

"l-iiese food elements mean little to me, but the quantity in which they are taken means a great deal. I usually cut this down to about half what I want, divide what I should really like to eat by two, go easy on sweets, and I don't have,to worry that some militant group of albumins will sneak up and do me an injury.

"There is an idea current, as I have said, that exercise is a kind of antidote for excess, that it possesses a restorative property that will build up the tissue and restore the bod.ily vigour lost by overeating and other forms of dissipation. In other words, the more we exercise the in or 6 we may misbehave with iriipunity.

Greatest' Single Factor. "The exact opposite is nearer the truth. Physical exercise is not a taking-in, but a giviug-out of energy. The man who tries to offset indulgence by exercise is attempting to relieve one strain on the system by adding another to it. Instead of restoring tissue ha is further depleting it. I do not make any claim that temperate eating will ward off all bodily ills and keep* one a perennial stripling. But it is the 'greatest single factor in keeping fit. The others are, I think, mostly mental. "I believe the greatest enemy of youth, besides a maltreated stomach, is a stiffness, not so much of tlie body as of tlio mind—a cultivation of settled ways and fixed habits, a spiritless acceptance of the handicaps we fancy the years bring. We like to classify ourselves according to years and label ourselves as 30, 40 or 50 and to- accept the limitations that conventionally belong to each age. "We have now reached such and such an age, we tell ourselves with great gravity, 'and we must forsake the ardour of the tennis court for the quieter pastures 9 1 golf, or give up golf for bowling. We must reduce our gait from four to three miles an hour, stop running upstairs,. and in general watch ourselves carefully to see that we are acting in a manner becoming our age, and that no jjart of the anatomy creaks or breaks.' _ " This attitude is mostly mental. It is not our arteries, but our ideas that are hardening. You may say that this springiness of mind, however much we should like, to' retain it, is a quality of which the years inevitably rob us. I do not believe it. I do not believe that the mere passage of years has much to do witfa mental or bodily condition.

Ignore the Calendar. " Personally. I refuse to be ruled by a calendar. This calendar tells me that I arn 43 years old, but 1 do not permit it to dictate what I can and cannot do, or that I must reform my behaviour and ideas to suit this august age. I can do anything in the nature of physical exercises that I could do at 20, and extract benefit and pleasure frotn it, and J am not going to let any calendar tell mo I can't. "I do not believe in magnifying any kind pf sport into a business or religion, as is sometimes the case. .To clutter it up with too many rules and conventions as to how one should behave, dress, talk, and thus to formalise it into a serious lite, is to kill it as a diversion. The best sport, I think, is the one that is nearest to hand—one that you can plunge into with a minimum of preparation and formality,; the best clothes are those you can get into the quickest, and the best competitors are those you have with you. A Child Again. "I do not play many games that require , elaborate preparation and much journeying back and forth, for the simple reason that I - cannot afford the time, and neither, I suppose, can the average reader. But I can find time for all sorts of exercise at the studio. We have no gymnasium., no elaborate machinery for exercise. If you enjoy exercise," it isn't necessary. " Fun in exercise is mostly a matter of imagination. If you haven t a competitor handy, it is easy to invent one. A clothoshorse may not be as spirited as a polo pony, but I can get as much exercise out of it. A, simple set of steps offers unlimited possibilities. A fence is always a challenge. ■ Digging a ditch can become a romantic and colourful pastime it you are throwing up a rampart against an imaginary enemy or hunting for buried treasure.

"Silly? Possibly. Childish? Absolutely! That is just what I mean to be! • An occasional yielding to childish impulse, even at a temporary loss of dig* nity, which I think we sometimes esteem too highly; a little exercise not formalised into a ritual of sport, taken not seriously but lightly, not as a duty but as a prevent us from "taking purselves and life top seriously."