STRAIN OF SPORT.

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19010, 29 July 1933, Page 18 (Supplement)

STRAIN OF SPORT.

TRAINING THE ATHLETE. MIND CONQUERS MUSCLE. VIEWS OP MEDICAL MAN. Among the most exhausting ef physical battles is the annual boat race between the universities of Oxford and’ Cambridge. The recent race gave Squadron-Leader F. C. Livingston, of the Royal Air Force Medical Service, an opportunity to discuss in the Daily Mail, the psychological factor in sport. As a medical man and an athlete—he was a member of the Cambridge eight in 1914 —SquadronLeader Livingston is able to discuss both the physiological and psychological factors in sport from personal experience. We may approach the playing or games in general from two angles (he wrote). In the first place, we may consider our favourite branch of sport as a means of maintaining our general fitness and of creating for us a pleasant diversion from the usual routine of the day; or we may go farther and endeavour to bring ourselves within the limelight of the athletic stage. Both of these attitudes toward the sport in its many and varied bra'nches have their value in the production of bodily fitness, but it is one thing to take our pleasures lightly and quite another to face them with seriousness and with the determination to battle and to win. Herein lie the important general principles of training, both with regard to the body and the mind.

That there is a different physical standard demanded for the several commoner forms of sport is self-evi-dent. Let us take as our standard the physical and mental fitness demanded in such contests as the Marathon, the ■boat race, an important boxing contest, or an Association football final, and let us consider the very severe strain that such struggles put upon the contestants and the factors which make such endeavours possible. Constitution of Bodies.

Our bodies, when considered in terms of <athletics, are made up of the heart and blood vessels, the lungs, the nerves and the muscles. In the untrained man, the heart is concerned with the duty of supplying blood to the tissues (named above) in a leisurely fashion, sufficient for their peaceful needs.

The oxygen which is taken up by certain blood cells (the red cells.) during their passage through the lungs is carried along in the blood stream, and is used by the tissues In the normal processes of health. From the activity of these tissues through the process of walking, etc., certain waßte products are formed, among which we may name carbonic acid and musole acid (sarcolacti acid). These products of bodily activity, if over-accu-mulated, cause fatigue. They are therefore got rid of by means of the blood-stream again, and exhaled from the lungs. The nerves are maintained in a state of efficient action in a similar manner, and the delicate nerve endings demand their nourishment if bodily tone is to be maintained. Let us see what will happen, then, should our untrained man suddenly be called upon to undergo some great physical strain, e.g., run a

quarter-mile at full speed, box three hard rounds, cyclo a m;le at high pressure. Blood Pressure Rises. At first his heart will respond and send Increasing blood .to all points of his body. His blood pressure now tends, to rise. This causes more heart effort, and this cannot be effectively kept up. The blood volume drops in spite of quickened pulses, the heart dilates and weakens in force of beat, the tissues cannot get their needed oxygen and cannot conversely get rid of their harmful fields, which are now forming rapidly. So they are poisoned, as it were, and fail to respond. This untrained man drops back seriously fatigued, and fails. Incidentally, he may cause cause severe and lasting injury to hl3 body. Hence the tremendous importance of careful and regulated training. During- such preparation the heart muscle thickens (hypertrophies) and can take on successfully the extra load thrown upon it. The lungs give greater space for the absorption of oxygen and the removal of the poisonous produces of tissue and muscle wear and tear. But we may overtrain our man, so we must proceed cautiously. The overtrained athlete is defecTed in several ways. He exhibits 'signs of early weariness, ceases to enter happily into tests of endurance at practice, and becomes a changed being. Just as important is the mental or psychological outlook of the athlete towards extreme physical stress. The problem of the influence of "mlhu o'vdr ■body” in what may be termed higher athletics Is a very big and very Important one. It tells enormously at the ‘‘oraoking point” in a race. In a moment of intense physical strain the body may seem to say to the mind 11 Is It worth it?” The mind may answer "No” or “ Yes.” The moments when this crisis may arise are at a period of “second wind," a condition associated with certain of the so-called “internal secretions," and during the last phase of a contest, when -‘absolute fatigue” sets in. Finest Resolution. The greatest athletes maintain that “No race Is lost till it is .won ’; in other words, so long as a fight is being waged there can be no let up, however one-sided it may be. This is the finest resolution in all sport. It is the summation of physical fitness, determination, and confidence merged into One. It is that property in human mental construction that causes a competitor to labour on and on, though his mind is numbed almost Into unconsciousness. Actions then become automatic. The complex movements that are demanded in the struggle, be it running or rowing or boxing, are carried on through the medium of the subconscious mind. When sight Is dimmed, and the voices of the shouting crowd seem as though coming from the far distance, and the limbs feel as though weighted ; intolerably with lead and yet they keep moving and moving, then is man showing to his fellow-man the power of t mind over body, and thus he has attained the highest peak in the athletic . mountain range. j