Exercise

The road to health does not involve the cultivation of enormous muscles. Innumerable systems of exercise have been exalted as leading to healthfulness. All sorts of extraordinary springs, bicycles, walking machines, dumbbells, and similar apparatus are alleged to lead the user directly into vim, vigor, and vitality, the three objectives of the physical culturist.

Exercise is a means of stimulating the action of the muscles, improving the co-ordination of nerve and muscle, and improving the circulation of the blood. The chief value of exercise is to stimulate the general chemistry and physiology of the body through its effect on the circulation and on elimination. That's why a healthy person feels better after exercise.

Everyone should have sufficient strength of muscle to carry on the ordinary activities of life, and to permit some exceptional use in time of emergency. For young people exercise has the value of stimulating body growth. Competitive sports of a vigorous kind, such as running, tennis, handball, football, and baseball, are useful, but should never be tried by those not physically fit to undertake them. Among muscular activities suitable to people of all ages are swimming, walking, golf, horseback riding, fishing, and gardening. These sports cultivate endurance and grace. They may not make the heart beat faster, but neither will they make it hesitate or stop. Before undertaking any kind of strenuous physical activity let your doctor determine the capacity of your heart.

Here are the proper amounts of muscular activity for people of various ages: four hours of muscular activity at the age of five years, five hours daily from the age of seven to nine, six hours from nine to eleven, five hours from eleven to thirteen, four hours from thirteen to sixteen, three hours from sixteen to eighteen, and two hours from eighteen to twenty.

One authority has said that one hour should be given daily to activities involving the use of the large muscles of the body after twenty years of age, and that anything less will result in physical deterioration.

Effects Of Exercise

Just why do we exercise? People who do not exercise do not have positive health. They do not seem to have the vigor, vim, and vitality of those who take a reasonable amount of exercise. The muscles of our chests and hearts and of our bodies generally need a certain amount of activity in order to give them a factor that is called "tone." Tone includes the ability of a muscle to respond when called on.

Exercise increases the circulation of the blood, and thus aids nourishment of the individual cells of the body. Improved circulation also helps, to remove waste material from the body. The proper circulation of the blood is related to the regulation of the heat of the body.

Exercise also increases the depth and rate of breathing, thus giving the red blood cells more oxygen to carry, and helps to eliminate the waste carbon dioxide from body.

Following a reasonable amount of exercise in the open air, the body feels refreshed and not exhausted. With such refreshment comes the relaxation that is exceedingly important for rest and good mental hygiene.

The Muscles

If carbonic acid and lactic acid accumulate in muscle, the muscles become acid in their reaction. If lactic acid accumulates in considerable amounts the movement of the muscles will stop. Oxygen is required to aid continuous movement of the muscles. When oxygen comes in, the lactic acid disappears, the glycogen accumulates again, and the muscles become alkaline instead of acid. Large amounts of oxygen are necessary for continuous work by the muscles.

A person who is doing hard muscular work requires ten times more oxygen than he needs when he is resting. The extra oxygen, which is provided by speeding up the circulation, increases the rate of breathing and sometimes raises the pressure of the blood in the blood vessels.

During exercise the pulse rate becomes more rapid, the blood pressure rises, and more blood goes through the tissues. The amount of increase depends on the rapidity and continuity with which, and the length of time during which, the muscles are being used.

In addition to the value of exercise for improving the general health, there is its value in improving the condition of tissues that have been weakened by disease. Therefore, restricted exercise is prescribed for people who have such conditions as heart disease or high blood pressure. These exercises must be controlled by trained attendants, so that the sick person never becomes fatigued, exhausted, or subjected to over exercise.

Serious harm, at times even death, has resulted from having a doctor tell such patients casually that they need exercise, without specifically prescribing the character and the amount. The tragedies of the handball and tennis courts and the golf course bear eloquent testimony to this fact.

Blood Pressure

The blood pressure averages from 110 to 120 above the age of twenty years and up to the age of forty. From ten years to twenty years it averages about 100.

Exercises of strength, such as weight-lifting, will raise the blood pressure. Exercises of speed, such as tennis or speed-swimming, will cause the blood pressure to rise somewhat less rapidly and to return to normal more slowly.

When the blood pressure of a woman who had run up three flights of stairs in forty-five seconds was measured, it was found to have risen forty points. In exercises of endurance, such as thirty-six holes of golf, a long hike across the country, or a slow bicycle tour, the blood pressure will not rise as high as it does in speed exercise. At the end of the trip it may actually be lower than ordinary.

Breathing

Breathing also varies according to the nature of the exercise. Training in breathing makes the difference between winning and losing an athletic event. In the short dashes the racer breathes normally through the time when the starter says, "On your mark." At the order "Get set" the sprinter will take a breath and hold it until the gun indicates the start.

He will retain this breath until he is underway. Better sprinters hold their breath longer than those who are untrained.

Swimmers mostly shorten the time when the breath is taken in and given out and increase the rate of breathing with the rate of the stroke.

The average person breathes from seveI1teento twenty times per minute. Women breathe a bit more rapidly than do men. All of us breathe more rapidly when standing than sitting. The amount of air taken in with a single breath averages three quarts for a grown man, two quarts for a grown woman.

Superstitions About Exercise

Many peculiar devices have been developed for producing expansion or development of various portions of the body. Some contend that breathing exercises, which will greatly increase the expansion of the chest, are beneficial to health and long life. Actually the evidence shows that most such exercises are more harmful than beneficial.

Increased work brings increased need for oxygen and more and deeper breathing. Young people who participate regularly in a certain amount of wholesome physical activity, including ordinary games and competition, swimming, tennis, walking, rowing and bicycle riding, will not worry about their rate of breathing.

Large lungs and vital capacity developed beyond the usual needs of the body mean that much of the tissue concerned will not be called on enough of the time to be helpful. Unused tissue tends to become infiltrated with fat and to become weak. This happens to the man who develops tremendous muscles and an enlarged heart by exercising during youth, and then gives up all exercise suddenly as he gets older.

Young people need more exercise than do older ones, because their bodies are growing. They, therefore, take in more oxygen and give out more waste matter than does the ordinary adult. Training improves an athlete and the quality of his performance.

Training helps to co-ordinate the muscles, so that they give a better performance without using up as much energy as might otherwise be required. The danger of exertion may be overcome if boys and girls will be careful to warm up slowly before any activity, exactly as athletes do before football games or track meets. The warming-up process enables the body to reach its maximum requirement and prevents the short breath and discomfort which usually precede what athletes call the coming of the "second wind."

Training increases the vital capacity-that is, the amount of air that can be handled by the lungs. The average athlete has a capacity of four to five quarts of air, in contrast to three quarts for the non-athlete. The increase in endurance resulting from good physical training is shown by the fact that the onset of fatigue is delayed. Most important in training is practice in using the correct form. Dancing is exercise, but not a graceful one until you learn the steps.