TRAINING ADVICE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21244, 14 January 1939, Page 4

TRAINING ADVICE

Talk to Athletes Opinions of Dr Lovelock LONDON, December 12. A sharp criticism of the practice in his day at the Timaru Boys’ High School of a regulation run before breakfast, followed by a cold shower or a cold bath, was made by Dr J. E. Lovelock when he spoke to members of the English Amateur Athletic Association on “Medical Aspects of Athletics.” “I thought it was a pretty poor idea at the time,” he said, “and, when I look back on it, I wonder at the stupidity of the people who organised it and the school doctor who allowed it.” It was a definitely bad practice, both from a physical and mental point of view. Dr Lovelock, at the beginning of his talk, said that he would necessarily be brief and dogmatic, but his views were not invulnerable because there were always two points of view. Starting with the subject of strains and pulled tendons, he said that prevention was the big secret. They could be prevented by understanding their causes. They were associated with Improper training, poor general health, or constant and continued strains. Medically they were largely accounted for by bad health, which meant bad teeth, bad tonsils, running with a streaming cold, or running with boils. A man might appear to be training well, when suddenly, in the middle of a big race, he had a stabbing pain, and found that a few muscles had broken away because they could not stand the strain. These things happen in epidemics at the beginning and end of tha training season. At the beginning they were largely due to faults’ training, and trying to run too hard before the proper time. With long, steady .efforts, with the health right, runners would find that they suffered much less from pulled ’muscles and strained tendons. At the end of the season, they were usually due to overwork, and other reasons. Highly strung men, who got worked up before races, often became run down nervously and physically, and found their muscles “go.” Fatigue and overwork should be avoided by taking things easily at the beginning of the season and at the end by not overdoing things. The causes of strained tendons were much the same as those of pulled muscles; an incompletely prepared body with sepsis floating around somewhere. They might also be due to faulty actions, or a number of other small factors.