CHAPTER VII. OF AILMENTS--OF TRAINING AND DIET--OF STALENESS--OF DISCIPLINE--OF COACHING. Ailments.

I may preface what I have to say about ailments by stating, as emphatically as it can be stated, that every man who proposes to take part in a race ought, before he begins practice, to be thoroughly overhauled by a medical man. I do not believe that any man whose heart and lungs and general constitution are sound can be injured by rowing. On the contrary, I have seen scores and scores of instances in which sound but imperfectly developed youngsters were formed and solidified and made into robust men by the exercise. But if a doctor reports of an apparently powerful man that his heart is weak and his circulation defective, or that the state of his lungs is unsatisfactory, no power on earth would induce me to include him in my crew. Race-rowing is one of the severest strains to which a man can submit himself, and only a perfectly sound man can go through it without taking harm.

Coaches are sometimes ridiculed for the excessive care they take of their men; and there are not wanting those who draw the inference that rowing men are peculiarly liable to illness, and suffer, when attacked by it, more than others. Nothing can be further from the truth. If we are anxious, it is because we know that for the special strain involved in racing a man must be in specially good condition, and we desire, above all things, to avoid anything that may keep him back in his training and his work. Moreover, even a slight illness may entail temporary retirement from the crew, and thus necessitate changes in its order which will prevent the men from getting together.

In rowing hard a man should keep a good colour. If you see him turning green and yellow, you may be sure that something is wrong with him, and you must pack him off to the doctor at once. It may turn out that his digestion is in fault, and that a careful attention to diet is all that is necessary to cure him. I have seen only two men actually faint during a race. One of them was a distinguished Oxford Blue, who collapsed during a heat of the Grand Challenge Cup at Henley; the other was a college oar rowing in the Cambridge Fours. With regard to him, we discovered afterwards that he had overtaxed his strength by working in the Cambridge engineering workshop for about six hours every day. Both these cases took place a good many years ago, and in neither has any permanent injury resulted. I have, of course, seen hundreds of men absolutely rowed out at the end of a race; but, with hardly an exception, they were perfectly fit a few minutes afterwards and, possibly, in the course of a few hours they might be seen rowing in another severe race with unimpaired strength and vitality.

With regard to ailments generally, I cannot do better than quote Mr. Woodgate in the Badminton book: "A crew should be under strict orders to report all ailments, if only a blister, instantly to the coach. It is better to leave no discretion in this matter to the oarsman, even at the risk of troubling the mentor with trifles. If a man is once allowed to decide for himself whether he will report some petty and incipient ailment, he is likely to hush it up, lest it should militate against his coach's selection of him. The effect of this is that mischief which might otherwise have been checked in the bud, is allowed to assume dangerous proportions for want of a stitch in time. An oarsman should be impressed that nothing is more likely to militate against his dream of being selected than disobedience to this or any other standing order. The smallest pimple should be shown forthwith to the coach"—verily the coach is not only d???, but p???t?a?p???t?a?—"the slightest hoarseness or tendency to snuffle reported, any tenderness of joint or sinew instantly made known."

To these golden words I would merely add that in all more serious cases, such as boils, colds, coughs, severe diarrhoea, or strains, it is best for the coach not to attempt any amateur doctoring, but to send his oarsman at once to a qualified doctor. In nearly every large rowing club, and at the Universities, there are to be found doctors who have either rowed themselves, or have had long experience of treating the ailments of rowing men; and it is far better to take their advice, which, as a rule, does not incline to molly-coddling, than to run the risk of losing a valuable oar out of the crew through one's own quackery.

Blisters.

Blisters are a common accompaniment of the early days of practice. They are ordinarily innocuous enough if well treated; but a neglected blister may result in a raw hand, and lead to blood-poisoning. The best plan is to prick a blister at its side with a clean needle before going to bed, and on the following day or two to row with a glove and a pad of cotton-wool over the blister. The skin very soon hardens into a callosity.

Boils.

These are a sure sign that the blood is in a bad condition, due probably to over-eating. They afflict novices much more often than old oars, who have learnt by experience to diet themselves. A mild dose of Eno's Fruit Salt before breakfast may be recommended. The quantity of beef and mutton eaten must be largely reduced. Fish and the dark meat of poultry should be the staple articles of diet, and not too much of those. Nor must the mistake be made of making up for the decrease of meat by over-loading the stomach with immense masses of vegetables, though in moderation vegetables are excellent. Having thus done his best for the patient's inside, the coach must send him to a doctor to have the boil treated externally.

Diarrhoea.

Cut off fruits of all kinds; reduce meat; give an extra glass of port, and if the complaint continues, send the afflicted to a doctor.

Strains.

Ordinary muscular strains generally yield to a good rubbing with an embrocation. For wrist-strains a leather band may be recommended. Abdominal strains must be seen to by a doctor.

Colds.

The best remedy for a severe cold is to give your man at least one day's complete rest, and make him keep his room. Indeed, with most ailments a day's rest will work wonders; and it is far better for a coach to make up his reluctant mind to grant it, than to run the risk of losing a valuable man altogether by keeping him chained to his oar when he is unfit to work. However, no man who takes proper care of himself, and always makes a point of wrapping up when his crew easies, ought to catch a cold.

Training and Diet.

The rules of training and diet should be the rules of common sense, applied to cases in which the body has to prepare itself, by severe work and perfectly simple, healthy living, for an exceptional effort or series of efforts. Rules there must be, if only on account of the advantage that comes of being able to make exceptions to them. But the chief points must be regularity and simplicity—a regularity, that is, which shall not entail an unvarying and wearisome monotony, and simplicity which shall not exclude occasional little luxuries that act as a stimulus to a man's jaded energies.

I shall give here two tables showing the hours and the dietary of an Oxford crew training during a little more than five weeks for the race against Cambridge, and of a Leander crew training for nearly three weeks for the Grand Challenge race at Henley Regatta.

I. Oxford Crew.

II. Leander Training at Henley.

A captain ought to be specially strict in insisting on getting his men out of their beds at a fixed time, and in seeing that they do not stay up too late at night. Absolute punctuality all round ought to be rigidly enforced. If, however, anybody should resent the severities entailed by this dietary, and pine for freedom, he may be recommended to try what I may call the Ouida system. It is fully set out in "Under Two Flags," from which, in a spirit of humble admiration, I venture to give an extract:—

"'Beauty don't believe in training. No more do I. Never would train for anything,' said the Seraph, now pulling the long blonde moustaches that were not altogether in character with his seraphic cognomen. 'If a man can ride, let him. If he's born to the pig-skin he'll be in at the distance safe enough, whether he smoke or don't smoke, drink or don't drink. As for training on raw chops, giving up wine, living like the very deuce, and all as if you were in a monastery, and changing yourself into a mere bag of bones—it's utter bosh. You might as well be in purgatory; besides, it's no more credit to win then than if you were a professional.'

"'But you must have trained at Christ Church, Rock, for the Eight?' asked another Guardsman, Sir Vere Bellingham—'Severe,' as he was christened, chiefly because he was the easiest-going giant in existence.

"'Did I! Men came to me; wanted me to join the Eight. Coxswain came, awful strict little fellow, docked his men of all their fun—took plenty himself, though! Coxswain said I must begin to train, do as all his crew did. I threw up my sleeve and showed him my arm;' and the Seraph stretched out an arm magnificent enough for a statue of Milo. 'I said, There, sir, I'll help you thrash Cambridge, if you like, but train I won't for you or for all the University. I've been captain of the Eton Eight; but I didn't keep my crew on tea and toast. I fattened 'em regularly three times a week on venison and champagne at Christopher's. Very happy to feed yours, too, if you like—game comes down to me every Friday from the Duke's moors; they look uncommonly as if they wanted it! You should have seen his face! Fatten the Eight! He didn't let me do that, of course; but he was very glad of my oar in his rowlocks, and I helped him beat Cambridge without training an hour myself, except so far as rowing hard went.'

"And the Marquis of Rockingham, made thirsty by the recollection, dipped his fair moustaches into a foaming seltzer.

"'Quite right, Seraph!' said Cecil. 'When a man comes up to the weights, looking like a homonunculus after he's been getting every atom of flesh off him like a jockey, he ought to be struck out for the stakes, to my mind.'"

The obvious inference from this is that if we want to avoid looking like "homonunculi" we must acquire dukes as fathers, and get fattened on venison and champagne.

Smoking.

There are no smokes in training.

Staleness.

In the practice of almost every crew there comes a period, generally about half way through training, when they begin to show the effects of hard work by a certain lassitude and loss of vigour. This, in fact, is not genuine staleness, but is the half-way house to perfect condition. An experienced coach can always detect the signs of it amongst his men. Their tempers will be short, they will begin to mope about the room, and their general manner will betray languor and listlessness, instead of that brisk cheerfulness that one has a right to expect. Their appetite will decrease, and at meals they will dally with their food instead of consuming it with a hearty zest. If a coach is blind to these signs, and pursues, in spite of them, the scheme of work and diet which he may have laid down at the first, he will probably bring to the post a crew as stale and lifeless as London shrimps. If, however, he grants certain indulgences to those who are most affected; if he lets them lie in bed of a morning, adds a basin of soup to their lunch or dinner, gives them extra liquor, or champagne in place of their ordinary liquor, and eases the work of the crew all round, he will probably find that within three days they will be perfectly brisk and fit again. I remember the case of an Oxford crew which showed the worst symptoms of staleness on a Friday. Saturday to Monday they spent in Brighton, and returned so reinvigorated, that on the following Wednesday they were able in the race to row Cambridge down at Chiswick and win by a length. For extreme cases of what I call genuine staleness, I do not think there is any remedy except complete rest for a period more or less prolonged. I have seen instances of this at Henley amongst University oarsmen, who had had practically no rest since the previous October.

Discipline.

Not the least important point in the management of a crew lies in the preservation of strict discipline. While they are in the boat and engaged in rowing, no man, except the captain or the cox, should speak a word, unless he is appealed to by the coach. A wise captain, too, when he has a coach in whom he trusts, will content himself with saying very little indeed. To be constantly cursing his crew, or to be shouting directions to them from the boat, not only irritates the other men, but increases all the difficulties of a coach. To "answer back" a coach is a capital offence, which ought to lead to immediate removal from the crew. I can only remember one instance of it in all my experience, and that was promptly followed by a humble apology. Silence, prompt obedience, absolute subordination of the individual self to the collective good of the crew, a quick and hearty willingness in endeavouring to carry out orders or instructions, a cheerful temper when things are going awry, and a constant keenness whether in rowing or paddling—these are model qualities which will go far to make a man a valuable oar. Nothing has so bad an effect upon a crew as the display of moroseness or sullenness on the part of one of its members. If that member should chance to be the captain, the baneful effects are increased tenfold. There are times of inattention and slackness when a coach does well to be angry, and to bring his men sharply back to a knowledge of their duty.

The Coach.

I cannot deal with this subject at any length, for good coaching is a matter of temperament, sympathy, tact, and intelligence—qualities that cannot be taught. The man who has these necessary qualities, and adds to them a wide experience of rowing, can never go very far wrong in coaching a crew. If a man can once establish between himself and his crew that subtle bond which comes of their conviction that their welfare and success are his chiefest desire, and that everything he says is absolutely right, the rest will be comparatively easy. A few simple hints may, however, be given.

(1) Never nag at your crew, or at an individual. Point out his fault; explain to him as clearly as you can how he ought to correct it, and then leave him alone for a bit. Never weary your men with an incessant stream of talk. Periods of complete silence on your part are very valuable, to you and to the crew.

(2) If you see signs of improvement in a man whom you have been correcting, never fail to tell him so. A little encouragement of this kind has more effect than heavy loads of objurgation.

(3) Rebuke any carelessness very sharply, but always keep strong measures, such as taking a crew back to the start, for really serious emergencies.

(4) Show no partiality, and make as little difference as you can between man and man. It is useful to begin by coaching old hands with some severity. New hands are encouraged by feeling that even a Blue or a Grand Challenge winner is liable to error, and that a coach is not afraid to tackle these eminent men.

(5) Make a gallant effort never to lose your temper with an individual, though loss of temper with a crew as a whole need not always be avoided. When things go wrong in a crew, impress upon each and every man that he is individually responsible for the defects. Every man is probably doing something wrong, and in any case a determined and united attempt to row better can do no harm.

(6) Never tell your men that they are rowing "well," or " better," when these statements are contrary to the truth. The men in the boat can generally feel what is happening as well as you can see it from the bank or the launch, and they are apt to lose confidence in a man who talks smooth things when everything is rough.

(7) Never confuse a man by telling him more than one thing at a time while he is rowing. When the crew has easied you can lecture him and them more at length.

(8) Remember Dr. Warre's rule, that general exhortations, such as "Time," "Beginning," "Smite," "Keep it long," and the like, are to be given at the right moment, not used as mere parrot cries.

(9) Vary the tone of your voice as much as possible.

(10) Vary, if possible, the expressions you use in pointing out and correcting faults.

(11) Always insist on your crew putting on their wraps when they easy after rowing hard.

(12) Never allow men during summer training to stand, sit, or lie about in the full blaze of the sun.

(13) Teach by example as well as by precept. The coach should be able to take his seat in a gig pair, and to show his men practically the style he wishes them to row in, and how their faults may be corrected.

(14) Always remember, while paying attention to the form of individuals, that your main object is to secure uniformity in the crew. Never fail, therefore, to correct faults of time instantly.

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