Without for the moment taking into consideration those millions of London who stifle in crowded slums, on insufficient or unsuitable food, and many of whom have inherited from birth some taint of constitution, and concerning ourselves for the moment only with those within whose reach, broadly speaking, are all the expedients known for insuring health, we should find it curious and probably depressing to ascertain, if we could, what proportion felt well, given they had no definite cause of ill-health which it was out of their power to remove. Many would put down their comparatively lower level of health while living in London to the fact that they were working hard. This, if true, is a sad and sobering reflection, since it would seem to imply that Nature had not designed the average healthy individual to work hard; and though it is probably infinitely better that people should work hard, and feel slightly below par all the time, than that they should devote their whole time to keeping well, yet it would be unsatisfactory if we were forced to believe that continued hard work cannot be compatible with continued good health. Many again would say that they never feel well without exercise, and that it is impossible to get exercise in London. That they can get sufficient exercise anywhere, with a very small expense of time, we hope to show in a later chapter; but, in the meantime, have such tried deliberately and unswervingly to eat far less than they feel inclined, or to use some sort of definite selection in the matter of what they eat? Others again would (quite rightly) put down their slight but chronic indisposition to an absence of air; such perhaps do not know what an immensely increased supply of air everyone can get by always keeping bedroom windows wide open.

Now to many such the idea of using training as a means of merely keeping well is probably novel. They are accustomed to feel slightly unwell—that perhaps is too strong a term—when they are in a town and at work, and having always felt thus have acquiesced in what we may call a vicious habit. But they have always understood training to mean a rÉgime of fixed exercise (founded on beefsteaks), which is as impossible for them as it would also be unsuitable for them; or, in a modified form, twenty minutes or half an hour with dumb-bells every morning and evening. Many have probably tried dumb-bells; some, no doubt, reap considerable benefit from their use, but not a few, and both the present writers are among them, after giving them a good trial, loathe the sight of them. And numbers, in such a case, have abandoned themselves, with more or less content, to continuing to feel slightly below par, and praying for the holidays.

Now the use of dumb-bells and developers is becoming something of a fetish, of a cherished idol, and, backed as it is by well-known names, is a formidable-looking god to throw stones at. But there seem to the present writers to be many grave objections to such systems as are constantly followed, whether they are used by athletes or by the much larger class of those who merely wish to get exercise from them. The prim facie objection in the case of both is their extreme monotony. It is necessary apparently to raise the arms slowly in turn (bending the elbow till the dumb-bell is level with the shoulder) upwards of a hundred times or more: it is necessary to do the same again with the backs of the hands out, to extend the arms from the shoulder outwards, from the shoulder upwards, to bend the wrists to and fro (still with these infernal implements grasped in the hands), to make motions as if drawing water first on one side and then on the other, to hit out, with the weight in the hands, at an imaginary foe; in fact to push, raise, or pull this weight in practically every direction that it will go, a vast number of times. “Developers” have, as a rule, the same defects; the movements are slow, and a continued effort against permanent resistance, while the greater part of the exercise which they give is not for the greater muscles. Then follow—we are intentionally vague, and wish to show only the general lines of many systems—exercises for the muscles of the stomach and of the legs. For the breathing muscles of the chest, there are also exercises which not being concerned for the most part with these dead-weights we have found generally excellent. The masters of such systems also, as a rule, advocate practising in front of a looking-glass, stripped as far as may be, in order to observe the play of the muscles. This also is admirable advice.

Now it will be noticed at once with regard to these exercises that by far the majority of them are for the arms, and that even when, as in certain of them, the object is to develop the breathing muscles, the hands still hold the dumb-bells. In other words, something like three-quarters of the ordinary dumb-bell exercises, as advised and practised, are exercises in which the stress of the movements lies on muscles of the wrist and fore-arm, biceps, triceps, and deltoid (the shoulder muscle). What is the result if the instructions are conscientiously observed? That the muscles of the arms get developed ludicrously out of proportion to the rest of the body, for no purpose as far as we can see except that of lifting and holding weights. The far larger and more important thigh muscles and calf muscles, the great muscles of the trunk and chest, have perhaps in some of these systems no more work to do, when added together, than the muscles of the arm alone. For certain games it is of course necessary to have considerable power in the arm, yet (even for games) it is of far more importance to have the larger muscles adequately developed. But granted (with certain important reservations to be stated hereafter) that such exercises are good for certain games, we contend that they are, if not harmful, at any rate most ill-adapted for the proper development of the whole body, and for supplying exercise to those who need it, particularly in town life, for the sake of health. Certain muscles, those of the shoulder and arm, are exercised out of all proportion, whereas the larger body muscles, those in fact which are particularly needed for the correct and healthful carriage of the body, so as to provide the heart and the organs of breathing and digestion with free room to work in, are left comparatively neglected. Indeed, as far as health goes, it would be probably better for the man who has to sit at a desk for six or seven hours a day to sit upright only, and take no exercise at all, than to go religiously through his course before coming to his office, and then do his work in the cramped and huddled position which is natural to many people. But, and this is an even more serious charge, some exercises recommended in certain systems, pursued no doubt by people who for years have been in search of strength, advocate exercises which are positively risky, with regard to strain on certain parts of the body, exercises in fact which might tend to increase the strength of a strong man, but would be almost dangerous for a less strongly-developed one. Again, and this objection applies to athletes even more than to the ordinary man in search of health by means of daily exercise, are not these slow movements of dumb-bells and slow steady resistance against india-rubber productive of quite the wrong sort of strength? No doubt the incessant raising of a dumb-bell above the head, a heavy pushing stroke, will tend to enable the pusher to raise greater and greater weights above the head, but does the ordinary man, does the athlete himself desire to get strength of that kind? For the ordinary man, in the first place, does the development of fore-arm, biceps, or triceps tend in any way to increase his health, except inasmuch as the exertion thus put forth certainly enlarges some few muscles and tends to produce action of the skin by reason of heat? As far as muscular development goes he would do far better to exercise the larger muscle-areas, and for the other, a Turkish bath will give him the equivalent of a week’s exercising. The fallacy that lies at the bottom of this dumb-bell and “developer” work, in fact, is that large and prominent muscles imply not only strength but health. That the use of muscles tends to both is undeniable, but for purposes of health the muscles employed are mainly the unimportant ones, while for purposes of strength, valuable chiefly to those who wish to employ muscles with a view to excellence in athletics, the strength obtained is wholly the wrong sort of strength.

It is here that the dumb-bell and developer system goes utterly and hopelessly astray. Used as an adjunct, it will assist a weak muscle to arrive at a certain girth and bulk, but considered as a cause of any successful stroke at a game, it is much more an enemy than a friend. For at all games, with a possible exception perhaps in the case of rowing, as far as strength comes into the question, it comes in as a motor-power to produce speed, whereas dumb-bell exercises have for their object, as a whole, the slow pushing of gradually increased weights. A modicum of strength is of course necessary to propel anything anywhere, but the main thing, the thing to be acquired, is speed in the muscle, in order to impart velocity to the object. And the muscles of those whose sole training is dumb-bell exercise are admirably unfitted to impart it. The weights they can lift are no doubt prodigious, but we doubt whether any man reared entirely on dumb-bells (and the more he had of that diet, the better for our point) could hit a ball over the pavilion at Lord’s, make a really difficult force at tennis, drive a golf ball two hundred yards, turn a fast outside back-bracket at skating, or send in a really hot shot at Association football. In fact, the more developed he was on dumb-bell lines, the less likely he would be to be able to do any of these things; the muscle acquired is of the wrong order, it has sacrificed its speed for bulk, it is the strong engine of the luggage-train, not the strong engine of the greyhound express. And if this is not so, how does it come about that some professional strong man has never yet attained immense pre-eminence in any branch of athletics, if such strength were the desirable sort? Surely in his spare moments he might send a few balls over the gasworks at Kennington, or drive the green of the long hole at Sandwich. At golf, particularly, there is no limit to the weight of his club, he may use what weapon he pleases, and since the carry of a ball is wholly dependent on its starting velocity, he with his great strength should be able to send it beyond the dreams of any medal-winner. But as a matter of fact he cannot, not because he misjudges it, for many strong men, we believe, have an excellent eye, but because his muscles, trained to overcome resistance by slow, prolonged effort, cannot act fast. Ah, if dumb-bells could speak, what a tale they would have to tell! They would also cease to be dumb-bells; this would be an advantage.

In addition to this the dumb-bell man is continually putting a comparatively long strain on himself. To hit a half-volley at cricket, to drive a golf ball is a short concentrated effort, and one in which the whole swing and weight of the body assists. But to raise an iron bar above the head is a long strain: the bar is slowly pushed up, arteries dilate, the face is suffused, the heart and the blood-vessels, though perhaps not taxed beyond what they were meant to bear—what that is one cannot say—are, at any rate, largely taxed. Meantime the arm, the function of which is mainly speed, moves slowly and with the utmost effort. From its length, in comparison to its girth, it was quite clearly designed for quickness, and yet the poor victim has been gradually trained, by means of most tedious exercises, to become a cart-horse instead of a racer. Pure gymnastics, which only turn the arms into legs, are bad enough—dumb-bells turn the arms into a lift at a second-rate hotel. It would be as sensible, in the hopes to acquire rapidity of finger at the pianoforte, to train each finger separately to lift heavy weights. Finally, what is the result if an abnormally developed man has by reason of rheumatism or other causes to drop his exercises? It is not, we believe, yet proved, but the opinion of medical men tends to show that if one has developed a muscle to very great bulk in the past, and then drops its use, a sort of fatty degeneration sets in. Cheerful.

To recapitulate, the results we arrive at are as follows: Dumb-bell and developer exercises as a whole, according to the generality of received systems, are extremely monotonous. A motion is repeated many times, for the sake of obtaining bulk in a certain muscle—in order to produce quantity rather than quality, in fact. These motions take a considerable time owing to their number, and for the most part they are dull, owing to the slowness of the movement occasioned by the weight to be moved, which, as the patient gets stronger, is gradually increased. The slowness, the push of the movement, rather than the drive of the movement, is often recommended: the movements, we are told, should be made slowly.

In the second place, certain muscles, for instance, of the forearm and arm, are exercised unduly, unless the truth is that the business of man is not to keep well and be fit for his work, but like Sisyphus to roll a stone up a hill. Just as these are unduly exercised, so others are unfairly omitted or slurred over, the larger and more important muscles of the chest and trunk are starved of exercise in comparison to the arm-muscles. Also in certain systems certain muscles are wrongly used: muscles that are meant for support chiefly, as far as we can judge of the purpose of the human frame, are deluded into becoming muscles of motion, with the result that the naturally quiescent nerves and tissues underlying them are improperly excited.

Thirdly, supposing that this great development of muscle (chiefly muscle in the arm) is successfully attained, does it serve any practical use whatever as regards either health or use? As far as health goes, it passes the bounds of imagination to conceive that the main organs of the body will be benefited by excessive biceps, whereas as regards strength, for all purposes except the lifting and holding of weights, it is extremely doubtful whether an increase of such strength does not imply a corresponding decrease in speed and agility. The fastest runners are not those with prodigious muscles, the hardest hitters have not a swollen biceps. The test, in fact, of fitness and power of the body lies not in measurements, but in the ability to perform certain movements with correctness and rapidity, to be able to make complex movements, to be capable of endurance, and to perform such movements with economy of effort.

Many reservations must be made, however, in what appears to be an all-round condemnation, and if we criticise the system of the most prominent of the dumb-bell advocates, Mr. Sandow, we shall certainly find a great deal to praise in what he says. His remarks about practising before a mirror, for instance, are excellent, since to observe the play of the muscles is, or ought to be to anyone with an eye for movement, of immense interest, and takes off (this he does not say) from the unspeakable tedium of the exercise itself. So, too, when he advises cold water, open windows, moderate diet, abstention from anything which disagrees, he has nought which is not advisable. Equally true, too, is his insistence on attention of the most fixed order to the work in hand, though perhaps he does not sufficiently allow for the period in which a set exercise indulged in so often as some of his, must, almost necessarily, become mechanical and automatic. For just as it would be impossible that a practised player at any game should consciously attend to what he is doing (he sees, for instance, a ball which is certainly a half-volley, but does not know he thinks about half-volleys at all, yet hits correctly), so after a time a dumb-bell exercise becomes (or should become) mechanical. That perhaps is its strength: that certainly is its weakness. For this reason: all exercises are, or should be, exercises towards an end. When that end is attained, there is no longer any need for them, unless the end be merely to alter the circulation of the blood; and something fresh, for the sake of stimulus and interest, should be begun. By these dumb-bell exercises, strength sufficient for the purposes of life can be no doubt attained; but after that, unless our mission is to lift weights, they are superfluous. That the muscles of the arm, that all muscles in fact should be in a state of efficiency is highly desirable, but in a sedentary life, in the life for which exercises are most obviously useful, it is the large muscle-areas, the muscles which the stillness of sitting tends to degenerate, that should be kept up to the scratch. The inability, in fact, to sit habitually in a chair in a position in which the lungs and heart will act naturally, is a greater defect than the inability to raise 56 lbs. above the head in the left hand. Practically perfect health is compatible with an abnormally weak forearm and wrist: abnormal weakness, on the other hand, of the muscles of the chest and abdomen always implies imperfect health.

Finally, the personal equation is not sufficiently considered in any system of exercise that has come across our notice. There is Chart I. for children, Chart II. for boys between 14 and 18, Chart III. for adults. Any system of weight-moving, such as dumb-bells, will never satisfactorily fill such a need as here exists, unless the teacher will see and examine personally (provided also he has the requisite knowledge) each one of his pupils. A thick-set boy of fifteen, though he weighs the same as a tall lanky boy of the same age, requires a perfectly different set of exercises to produce in him fit and robust manhood, while the tall lanky boy may be injured by exercises that are good for the average boy of his age and weight. But that there are exercises which are practically good for everybody we fully believe. Of this we treat later. Again, for people who wish to excel at games, to begin with dumb-bells seems a mistake, for it teaches first the slow movement, whereas speed of movement should come first. That they give bulk to the muscles is undeniable, and there is a great deal to be said for bulk, if only it has the power of speed. In any case these dumb-bell and developer exercises should be alternated with quick, full movements, so as to preserve the speed of the action of the muscles.

Now most people who feel the need of, and are better for, regular exercise are accustomed, when they have leisure and opportunity, to play some sort of game; and how enormously this tendency is increasing is shown, to take one instance alone, by the huge number of golf links which have sprung up all over the kingdom, and in particular round and close to London, accessible to the city man in summer for a short round perhaps when he returns home in the evening, and certainly used by him on Saturday afternoon and probably Sunday. He does not, as a matter of fact, hurry home in order to practise his beloved dumb-bells, he is not late for dinner because he cannot leave his dumb-bells, but because he will finish his round at golf. A game, in fact, is more enjoyed by most people than mere exercise for the sake of exercise. The dumb-bells are used when a game is not to be had. But these dumb-bell exercises, as we have pointed out, do not, except in so far as they may strengthen an inordinately weak muscle, improve or help a man’s game, unless we consider weight-lifting a game. Six months’ continuous exercise of the slow pushing and pulling order to overcome the inertia of the dumb-bell or the contraction of india-rubber will probably not lengthen his drive, since they do not teach speed of movement. That the long driver at golf may be very strong is beyond question, but it is equally beyond question that the professional strong man will incessantly be out-driven by a player whose muscles are half the size of the other’s, because the latter has cultivated swiftness of movement, the former has not. It is for this among other reasons that in the chapter on exercises we advocate, at any rate, until great speed has become easy, not the use of dumb-bells—anyhow not of dumb-bells of more than nominal weight—but a system of brisk, full movements, increasing not in regard to the resistance to be overcome, but in their own complexity. They require the same concentration of attention, but they are not fatiguing, although they give full exercise to the muscles. For it is a great error to suppose, as so many do, that fatigue is a criterion of exercise, that one has not had enough exercise, in fact, until one feels tired. Indeed, the converse, or something like the converse, is more nearly true, namely, that exercise which leaves one tired is either excessive or more probably is of the wrong sort. Fatigue is, perhaps, necessary if very severe exercise has been gone through, but it is a thing not to be sought after, and if possible to be avoided. As far as it is concerned with the muscles themselves, it shows that they have been overtaxed (an automatic signal put out by nature, saying, “Stop”), but probably in many cases feelings of fatigue arise from other causes, and a very little exercise will produce it, not because the muscles are overtaxed, but because there is something wrong with other organs of the body. Morning fatigue, the disinclination to get up after a good night’s rest, not from laziness pure and simple, but from genuine languor, is an extreme instance of this. But the dumb-bell user will not get over this by putting in a vast amount of work for the biceps and triceps, though a couple of minutes spent in using certain larger muscle-areas, with the accompaniment it may be of massage, which one can easily administer himself, will probably largely alleviate it. But instead he flexes the arm a hundred and twenty times, lifting to each shoulder, perhaps, in all a dead weight of 960 lbs.

Furthermore, these dumb-bell exercises, in which the weight of the dumb-bells is gradually increased, become after a year or two very severe indeed, and one would like to know the collective opinion of doctors on such a point as this. Can it be good for a man of forty-five or fifty to manipulate weights like these, performing say for half-an-hour a day a series of exercises with them, some of which at any rate entail considerable strain? And if these exercises are not good, what is he to do? If after some years of hard work at them he does drop them, does he not become liable, or tend to become liable, to a fatty degeneration of the muscles, or at any rate to an increase of fat over the muscles? In the meantime, if the course has been “successful,” if the man is enormously developed in the muscles, particularly of the arm and shoulder, it will quite assuredly be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for him to change those muscles whose birth and breeding is due to these slow pushing movements that are intended to overcome the inertia of dead weight, into muscles which have to deal swift, not heavy, blows at objects which for practical purposes (golf balls, tennis balls, even cricket balls) have hardly any inertia at all. In other words, he will find it difficult to become even passably proficient at games which require rapidity of striking—and it is hard to name the game which does not—and yet entail almost no strain on the heart and arteries, in order to supply the place of those heavy exercises which he feels himself unable, without risk, to continue. Besides this, it seems not unlikely that the perpetual straining may deaden the fineness of touch and judgment so necessary in most games. But the quick, brisk movements such as we recommend in the chapter on exercises seem to us to be singularly without the disadvantages of dumb-bell systems, as regards monotony, for their very speed is undoubtedly exhilarating; nor do they admit of any risk in the way of straining, while they exercise the muscles more than dumb-bells do, though they do not so much strengthen them. They are, therefore, quite as health-giving, since health, unless a man is positively suffering from muscular feebleness, has practically nothing to do with sheer muscular strength, while it has a great deal to do with muscular fitness. On the other hand, they have this great advantage over dumb-bell systems, namely, that they directly and rapidly tend to increase the speed with which the muscles can make their effort, and thus for that very large class of people who desire to play games, and do so whenever they can, these movements are of the greatest help even in learning the game, and also in keeping the muscles in actual and absolute practice for the game itself. They help, in fact, the right sort of muscle, they teach the light, rapid stroke which drives a ball. For the special exercises for each game, exercises which have been tested and found of service, we shall have to refer readers to the volumes on those games, which will subsequently appear, though even in the general list given in the chapter on exercise in this volume, no doubt they will pick out some that will be of service to them, whatever game they may wish to be in practice for.

But it is to the ordinary unathletic man, the man who does not really care about being in practice for a game, that we quite as sincerely recommend them, for it is our hope that he will find them, as we ourselves have done, pleasant and exhilarating (where we have found dumb-bells tedious and wearisome), economical in point of time, though they give, so we believe, more exercise than dumb-bells do, without strain and without fatigue. But they do not, and not for a moment do we claim it for them, increase the actual bulk of the muscles with anything approaching the rapidity possible in dumb-bell exercises, and if a man happens to want a sixteen-inch biceps without delay (or reason) it will be mere waste of time for him to use them.

There are many other points in which systems of training, in common with these dumb-bell exercises, seem to be defective, which need not be mentioned here. It is perfectly true that, as a whole, men in training—say a week after they have been training—are in excellent health. But this health we soberly believe to be realisable by men living in towns, with sedentary occupations, and, as they say, no opportunity for exercise. The man who must be in London six days out of the seven, practically abandons the attempt to keep in good health, without knowing what easy aids lie ready to his hand. He has no idea how much simple treatments, in the way of heat, baths, exposure of the body to the air, can do for him in the way of enabling that wonderful mechanism, the skin, which never sleeps, but works night and day at its business of cleansing, to have a fair chance. Such a man has a cold, and acquiesces in this state of things, saying he always has a cold in February, as if he were rather doing his duty than otherwise. It never occurs to him that to have a cold is to be unhealthy, that in such a case there is inflammation, and the mucous membrane is working double tides to throw it off. Such inflammation, of course, must have a cause, and is usually put down, often correctly, to sitting in a draught, or not changing when wet. But when one is really well, living, let us say, in the country, and getting wet perhaps two or three times a day, one does not catch cold. In London under such circumstances many people do. Why? Not because it is London, but because they are below par, liable to attack. And it is a gross mistake on their part to acquiesce in such a state of things. It is in most cases easily remediable, and that with little expense of time, and none at all in money for doctors’ bills and abhorrent drugs.

Finally with regard to training and practice for certain games, there are two fallacies, commonly considered truisms, which are worth commenting on. The first is that mere practice is conducive to excellence, than which astounding statement there was never anything less proven. It is dreadful to think of the amount of time which real enthusiasts give to lone and solitary practice without ever dreaming that what they are doing is probably merely emphasizing and making more radical an already existing fault. Such an enthusiast (and the professors of his game encourage him in it) will take half a dozen golf balls on to a lonely upland, or half a dozen racquet balls into a lonely court, and there continue with unabated zest to do things wrong. Such practice is merely pernicious.

A second fallacy, connected with this point, is that style is unattainable. For what is style? Apparent ease to the man who knows little about it: real ease to the man who does know. And this ease is—with certain exceptions, as in a tour de force necessary to get out of difficulties—certainly acquirable. Awkwardness and effort are, as a rule, the effect of bad teaching or no teaching. For it must be remembered that while a ball an inch above the net at tennis, a back bracket at skating, a slog over the pavilion at Lord’s, to repeat instances already used, are natural, in the sense that they are compassable without misuse of the human frame, yet they imply accurate and complex movements, which no one person would guess for himself. We say “guess” advisedly, for all games are empirical.

And thus having to a certain extent cleared the ground we will pass to construction.