ALCOHOL AND TRAINING.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20426, 5 June 1928, Page 18

ALCOHOL AND TRAINING.

BEER FOR THE CAMBRIDGE BOAT CREW. SOME COMMENTS AND OPINIONS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, April 3. That the winning boat race crew included beer in their training diet has naturally led to some ■ comments — mainly futile, but nevertheless interesting. For instance, the Rev. J. Shepherd, minister of Islington Chapel, North London, speaking at a week-night service, said all social workers deeply regretted the prominence given to beer in relation to boat race training. While young rowing men took beer to prepare for a hard contest. Signor Mussolini and Lord Rothermerc had become teetotallers because they found that alcohol was unsuitable for the strain of hard work. Lord Rothermere by his remarkable statement on hard work and alcohol had earned the gratitude of very social reformer. A LESSON FROM THE PUNJABI. In the Daily Telegraph Sir William Arbuthnot Lane also writes on the subject. He says:— The New Health Society has been much impressed by the announcement that the crew of the Oxford boat are eating plenty of fruit,, and the Cambridge crew has apples and oranges with each of its three daily meals. This fruit, which forms such a large and important part of the Cambridge dietary is excellent. The disclosure that the crew of the Cambridge boat' dring half a pint of beer for lunch and one pint for dinner is interesting in view of the fact that athletes in the Punjaub training for races involving at least as much exertion do so on milk and almonds. The same applies to the Zulu, who can stand more strain than any other human being. While generally approving of good beer as a portion of universal diet, the New Health Society considers that the Cambridge crew might with advantage take a lesson in drink from the remarkably vigorous Punjabi. THIRTY YEARS AGO A past-captain of the Jesus College, Cambridge, Boat Club, tells of the training conditions 30 years ago. “ What I have since heard and studied about diet,” he writes in the Daily Mail, “ makes me wonder whether there is any scientific basis for the course of discipline to which boat race crews are now submitted. Twenty or 30 years ago it was rather a point of honour among us to eat as much as possible, and training breakfasts ended with the consumption of large quantities of toast and marmalade. We knew little and cared less about vitamins and a ‘ balanced diet ’; and, looking back, I am now certain that the frequent breakdowns and the prevalence of headaches and boils were due to indigestion and to eating too much meat and starch and too litle fruit and salad. “On one occasion at Henley I got my crew to the starting point only by giving up strict training rules a week before the race, feeding the men like fighting cocks, and giving them burgundy and port to drink. “ There was a current theory that boils came from an excess of health and richness of the blood! Actually, however, they come from exhaustion. The rowing man in his third year has to face a severe strain at a time of life when he is still actually growing, and the strain was acutely felt even in the days when it was not thought necessary to be so deplorably intellectual as I believe the modern athlete to be. “ Our training rules were rough and ready, and the men had nothing like the care that is taken of horses or greyhounds or birds for racing or cock-fighting. It would be interesting to know if things have changed lately or whether boils still appear as the miserable accompaniment of one of the pleasantest of sports.”