WHY NOT ZANDER?

Otago Witness, Issue 3595, 6 February 1923, Page 25

WHY NOT ZANDER?

Dr Zander was a Swede who made a study of ali the muscular movements of mankind. When he had mastered them he invented a series of mechanical aids to muscular development, so graded and controlled that the middle-aged or elderly folk with flabby hearts and superabundant tissue can take advantage of them. Zander exercises are divided into four groups. The first consists of active movements for the arms (12), active movements for the legs (12), trunk movements (10), and balance movements (2). Group 2 consists of eight passive movements; the patient merely submits. Group 3 included vibratory turning and stroking movements with percussion and kneading. Group 4 is for orthopaedic troubles. A doctor prescribes in the first instance. From the 60 or 70 exercises that constitute a complete course for all the muscles of me body he picks out (hose specially required by his patient. He decides the strength and time of each. The card is handed to the attendant, who can control the effort needed. For passive movements (writes “5.L.8.” in the Daily Mail) you sit in a chair or lie on a couch or mount a saddle, some ingenious implement does the rest. It is possible to spend a pleasant hour in a Zander Institute, passing through from 20 to 30 different exercises, and to leave with less fatigue than 10 minutes of ordinary gymnastics would impose. Only the coat is removed, and in tlie smaller institutes men. women, and children exercise together, passing in procession from chair to chair. One of the most amusing inst ruments consists of a couple of leather pads, which move in circles round what we will call the lower waist. The patient dons a leather apron to meet this polite atlention The importance of Zander exercises to invalids, middle-aged people, and all who follow sedentary occupations is very great. It gives them, without, straan. the measure of carefully-directed movement that, calls the muscular system l>ack to re newed life. The beginner is coaxed into a state of activity, he is brought from what fie regards as child’s play to endeavours that leave muscle behind them, and one of the special qualities of the graduated course directed by a physician is that it makes no demand upon the heart. We may ask ourselves why the fruits of Dr Zander's clever work should not be found in England. Year by year people who have tried the system seek the Continent to enjoy it under favourable conditions at strictly moderate prices. The trouble is that Zander apparatus, if it exists at all in this country, is probably beyond the reach of all save the moneyed classes.