# How to Get Strong and How to Stay So (1899)/Chapter 5

Chapter V
Why Men Should Exercise Daily
"It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor."—Cicero.
"Anything is better than the white-blooded deterioration, to which we all tend."—O. W. Holmes.
One of the most prominent physicians in the world gives it as his firm opinion that four-fifths of the ills from which human beings suffer are caused by an insufficient amount of exercise.
"The measure of a man's vitality is the measure of his working power. To possess every faculty and function of the body in harmonious working order is to be healthy; to be healthy with a high degree of vital force is to be strong. A man may be healthy without being strong; but all health tends more or less towards strength; and all disease is weakness."—Blackie. (Self-Culture.)
"Napoleon said: 'The first requisite of good generalship is good health.' To the strong hand, head, limbs, and frame, fall the heavy burdens; and there fall the great prizes too. Perfect preparation for every contingency made Cæsar. By activity and giant determination, rather than military skill, he won."—Laws of Life.
"For performance of great mark, it requires extraordinary health."—Emerson.
"When God would secure to man the highest, best balanced, most long-continued action of mental and moral power; he does it by giving him a sound physique."—Mark Hopkins.
"The first requisite of success in life is to be a good animal. In any of the learned professions, a vigorous constitution is equal to at least fifty per cent. more brain."—Matthews.
​The advantages to men of a well-built body, kept in thorough repair, are very great. Those of every class, whose occupation is sedentary, soon find it out. Some part of the machinery gets out of order. It may be the head, or eyes, or throat; it may be the lungs or stomach, liver or kidneys. Something does not go—is wrong. There is a clogging; a lack of complete action; and often positive pain. This physical clogging tells at once on the mental work; either making its accomplishment uncomfortable and an effort; or becoming so bad as to prevent work at all. It may make the man ill. There is little doubt but that a large majority of ailments would be removed; or, rather, would never have come; had the lungs and also the muscles of the man had vigorous daily action, to the extent that frequent trial had shown best suited to his wants. One of the quickest known ways of dispelling a headache is to give some of the muscles, those of the legs, for instance, a little hard, sharp work to do. The reason is obvious. Dr. Mitchell puts it well when he says that muscular exercise flushes the parts engaged in it, and so depletes the brain.
But fortunately that same exercise also helps make better blood; gets the entire lungs into action; quickens the activity of the other vital organs; and so tones up the whole man, that, if the exercise is taken daily, and is kept up, disorder, unless very deep-seated, disappears.
It is well known that when the system, from any cause, gets run down; disease is more likely to enter; and slower at being shaken off. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of men and women have hard work, mental strain, fret and anxiety, daily, and for years together;—indeed, scarcely do anything to lighten the ​tension in this direction. They tell you they are subject to headache or dyspepsia, or other disorder; as if it was out of the question to think of preventing it. But had the work been so arranged, as it nearly always could be—far oftener than most persons think—to secure daily an hour for pleasant vigorous muscular exercise for all the parts; this running down would, in most instances, never come. The sharp, hot work, till the muscles are healthily tired, insures the good digestion, the cleared brain, the sound sleep, the buoyant spirits.
The president of one of the largest banks in this country told us that, disappointed one summer in not getting a run to Europe, reflection told him that one marked benefit such jaunts had brought him was from the increased sleep he was enabled to get. That thereupon he determined on longer sleeps at home. He got them; and found, as he well put it, that he could "fight better." Beset all day long with men wanting heavy loans; that fighting tone; that ability to say "no" at the right time, and in a way which showed he meant it; must have not only added to his own well-being, but to the bank's protection as well.
Again, many men are liable to occasionally have sudden and very protracted spells of head-work; where sleep and almost everything else must give way, so that the business in hand may be gotten through with. "Tom Brown" told the writer that, when in Parliament, he could work through a whole week together on but four hours of sleep a night, and be none the worse for it; provided he could have all he wanted the next week; and that, since he was twenty-five, he had hardly known a sick day.
A father, tired from his day of busy toil, may have a ​sick child, who for much of the night will not let him sleep. Such taxes as this, coming to one already run down and weak, cannot be braved frequently with impunity. Unless the five or six miles a day of Tom Brown and his fellow-Englishmen's "constitutional," or some equivalent, is resorted to, and the man kept well toned-up; one of these sudden calls may prove too severe, and do serious if not fatal injury. This toning-up is not all. If the bodily exercise is such as to get all the muscles strong, and keep them so; the very work that would otherwise overdo and exhaust, now has no such effect; but is gone through with spirit and ease. There is that consciousness of strength which is equal to all such trifles.
The very nervousness and worry which used to be so wearing, at the sudden and ceaseless calls of the day, have gone; and for the reason that strong nerves and strong muscles are very liable to go together, and not to mind these things. What does the athlete at the top of his condition know about nervousness? He is blithe as a lark all the day long.
Dr. Mitchell says:
"The man who lives an out-door life—who sleeps with the stars visible above him; who wins his bodily subsistence at first-hand from the earth and waters—is a being who defies rain and sun, has a strange sense of elastic strength, may drink if he likes; and may smoke all day long; and feel none the worse for it. Some such return to the earth for the means of life is what gives vigor and developing power to the colonists of an older race cast on a land like ours. A few generations of men living in such fashion store up a capital of vitality which accounts largely for the prodigal activity displayed by their descendants; and made possible only by the sturdy contest with nature which their ancestors have waged. That such a life is still led by multitudes of our countrymen is what alone serves to keep up our pristine force and energy."
​Now, while this rare hardiness and tone cannot be had by a person who has twelve hours of busy brain-work daily in-doors, and only one of bodily exercise; still, much can be done; quite enough to calm and tranquillize; and to carry easily over those passes which used to be dreaded.
If the man who habitually works too long without a rest, would every hour or so turn lightly from his work, for even sixty seconds, to some vigorous exercise, right in his office, or even in the next room or hall-way, until the blood got out of his brain a little; and the muscles tingled with a hearty glow; he would go back so refreshed as to quickly make up, both in the quantity and quality of his work, for the time lost. When his hour for exercise came, instead of having no heart for it, he would spring to it with alacrity, like the school—boy does to his play.
Even if the strong man does occasionally become jaded; he knows, as Hughes did, how to get back his strength and snap; and that a tired man is many removes from a tired-out one. There is a great deal in knowing whether your work is overdoing you; or only tiring you. One of the strongest and best oarsmen Harvard ever had, used, at first, to think he ought to stop rowing when he began to perspire; and was quite astounded when an older man told him that that was only the beginning of the real work. There is no end of comfort to a tired man, either mentally or physically, in the thought that sure relief is near.
Again, this relief by physical exercise will encourage the man to hope that, if war or accident do not cut him down; he may look for a long life, no matter how great may be the occasional strain. Few men, for instance, familiar with the life of the Duke of Wellington, will ​claim that they are better workers than he was; or that they get through more in a day or year; or that, heavy as their responsibilities may be, they surpass or even equal those which were his for years together. Yet all the terrible mental strain this illustrious man underwent; battling with one of the greatest captains this world ever saw; all the exposure and forced marching, privation and toil, which come to the faithful soldier; and to him who holds the lives of multitudes in his hands, this man knew; and yet so controlled his work, exacting as it all was, as to manage to keep his body superior to all it was called on to do; and his mind in constant working order, and this not merely up to threescore and ten, but to fourscore good years; and three more besides. Did not the vigorous body at the start, and the daily attention to it, pay him?
Will it be claimed that the president of one of the best-known corporations on this continent did any more work than Wellington? or than Gladstone? That president was at it all day, and far into the night, and when away in Europe, nominally on a play-spell, as well. Naturally, he was a strong, energetic man; but he had so worked, and so neglected his body, that he died at fifty-two. Which showed the better sense?
What does cutting one's self down at fifty-two mean? Five minutes' reflection should tell any reasonable person that the man was overworking himself; and going at a pace no man could hold and live. Does not this show a lack of sense; and especially when much of that work could certainly have been done by subordinates? Was not one of Daniel Webster's best points his skill in getting work done by others; and saving for himself the parts he liked best?
When, after long years of toil and perseverance, one ​has worked himself up to position and wide influence; is it sensible to do what his humblest employé could rightly tell him is overcrowding; and so forcing the pace that he certainly cannot hold it? Instead of taking that position and that influence, and wielding them for greater ends, and improving them very markedly; must there not be a keen pang to their owner, when, tantalized with what seems surely within his grasp, that grasp itself weakens, and the machine goes all to pieces?
These later years are especially the precious ones to the wealthy man. They are his best days. Then his influence widens; and his savings, and his earnings too, accumulate as they did not when he was younger. Look at the work done by Vanderbilt, for example, accomplished almost thirty years after he was fifty-two! Did not the active out-door life on the little periauger of his youth; and the daily constitutionals which, notwithstanding his infirmities, all New-Yorkers saw him taking in later life, pay him? And are they less precious in any other line of life?
Look for a moment at the value health is to a man in any of the learned professions—of having a sound and vigorous body, with each branch of his vital system working regularly, naturally, and in harmony with the rest. Do these things make no difference to the divine? Had the sturdy, prize-fighter make of Martin Luther nothing to do with his contempt for the dangers awaiting his appearance before Charles V. and his Diet of Worms; and which caused him to say he would go there though the devils were as thick as the tiles on the houses? And with the grand stand he made for the religious light which now shines so freely upon the whole Christian world?
​Thomas Guthrie, first tying one hand behind him, with the other could whip any man in Oxford who would also fight one-handed. Who doubts that the vigor so evinced had much to do with the faithful, arduous life's work he did, and did so well that all Scotland is to-day justly proud of him? Of Dr. Guthrie and Norman Macleod, Professor John Stuart Blackie says:
"Two men, the large human breadth, the sunny cheerfulness, strong good sense and the dignified grace of whose preaching will remain deeply engraven on every Scottish heart as long as Scotland is Scotland."
Had the magnificent breadth and depth of Spurgeon's chest, and his splendid outfit of vital organs, no connection with his great power and influence as a preacher of world-wide renown? Had the splendid physique and abounding vitality of Henry Ward Beecher—greater almost than that of any man in a hundred thousand—nothing to do with his ability to attend to his duties as pastor, author, lecturer, and editor—work enough to kill half a dozen ordinary men—and with the tireless industry which preceded his marked success in them all?
Is there anything feeble about any of these? Put the tape-measure around them anywhere you like, and see how generous nature has been with them. Is it all a mere chance that they had splendid bodies? Why is it that we never hear of such as these having "ministers' sore throat," and "blue Mondays;" and having to be sent by their congregations, every now and then, away to a foreign land to recruit their health, and keep them up to their work? Do sound and sturdy bodies, and due attention daily to keeping them in good repair, ​have nothing to do with their ability to cope at all times with the duty lying next to them—and with their attention to it, too, in such a way as to make them so much more effective than other men in their great life's work?
That the physician himself needs sound health and plentiful strength, no one will question; and yet, does he, from his calling alone, do anything to insure it? Dragged from his bed at all hours of the night, thrown daily, almost hourly, in contact with deadly disease—often so contagious that others shrink from going where he goes, like the brave man he must be to face such dangers—would not that general toned-up condition of the thoroughly sound and healthy man prove a most valuable boon to him—indeed, often save his life? And yet, does his daily occupation insure him that boon; even though it does enable him to get out-of-doors far more than most men who earn their living by mental labor? Hear one of their own number, Dr. Mitchell, on this point; for he says:
"The doctor, who is supposed to get a large share of exercise, in reality gets very little after he grows too busy to walk, and has then only the incidental exposure to outdoor air."
Would not a sensible course of physical exercise daily pay him—especially when pretty much all the muscular work he gets of any account is for his forearms and a little of his back, and then only when he drives a hard-bitted horse?
And does not a lawyer need a good body, and one kept in good order? After the first few years, when his practice is once well established, he finds that, unlike men in most other callings, his evenings are not his own; and that, if he is going to read any law; and to ​attempt to keep up with the new decisions every year, even in his own State; what between court-work; the preparation of his cases; drawing papers, consultation, correspondence; and the other matters which fill up the daily round of the lawyer in active practice; that reading will have to be done out of office-hours often, or not done at all. Even in his evenings his business is too pressing to allow any time for reading. Here, then, is a man who is in serious danger of being cut off from that rest and recreation which most other men can have. The long, steady strain, day and evening, often breaks him down; where an hour's active exercise daily on the road or on the water, with his business for the time scrupulously forgotten; together with from a quarter to half an hour, on rising and retiring, in strengthening his arms and chest, would have kept him as tough and fresh as they did Bryant, not simply up to sixty, or even seventy, but clear up to his eighty-fourth year; or Gladstone to his eighty-eighth. Every lawyer who has been in active practice in any of our large cities for a dozen years can point to members of his Bar who have either broken clean down, and gone to a premature grave from neglecting their bodily health, or who are now far on the road in that same direction. This happens, notwithstanding the fact that in many places the courts do not sit once during the whole summer; and lawyers can hence get longer vacations, and go farther from home than most men.
Let any one read the life of Rufus Choate, and say whether there was any need of his dying an old man at sixty. He started not with a weak body, but one decidedly strong. But so little care did he take of it that, as he himself well put it, "latterly he hadn't much of any constitution, but simply lived under the by-laws." ​What a lesson he might have taken from his illustrious relative of to-day; one of the conceded leaders of the American Bar; who perhaps had his very case in mind, when, in February, 1898, he said to the Chicago Bar Association, at a complimentary dinner they gave him:
"When I look round me on this great company of busy and successful lawyers, resting for a moment from their never-ending labors; when I study the lines which time has traced upon their features, I can easily see that success in our profession rests everywhere upon the same foundation. It is the same old story of the sound mind and the honest heart in the sound body. The sound body is at the bottom of it all. The stomach is indeed the key of all professional eminence. If that goes back on you, you might as well throw up your sponge. And sleep without worry must cherish and nourish it all the time."
Nor did he give too much importance to that same good friend, the stomach. He need not have gone back to his father's renowned cousin for proof of what a neglected stomach will do. The proof was there; at the very door of the great city whose Bar he was addressing. Referring to a sad and startling experience which had shocked the nation, President Harper said:
"Of the five deaths that have occurred at Chicago University in five years, three may be attributed directly to starvation."
And he well added:
"The university is turning out men of strong intelligence, but wreak bodies. Some of them are moral and intellectual dyspeptics. It cannot be expected that they will be of much use in the world. If the body is not properly nourished, the mind will refuse to act as it should. I therefore hold that it is as necessary to take care of and cultivate the one as the other."
Nor is he the only one of our eminent educators who is awake to the need of an educated body, as well as ​brain, for a man entered for a life race of any really high class. What a grand thing it would be for this nation it every teacher in it not only awoke; but took wise action in this matter'.
And what holds good as to professional men in this respect, of course will apply with equal force to busy brain-workers in any other line as well.
In one of his annual reports of Harvard University, President Eliot, who has been exceptionally well placed to observe many thousand young men; and to know what helps and what hinders their intellectual progress; adds his valuable testimony to the importance of vigorous health and regular physical exercise to all who have, or expect to have, steady and severe mental work to do. Busy professional men may well heed his words. Speaking of the value of scholarships to poor but deserving young men, he says:
But the same lesson comes from a far wider range than mere professional biography. It is taught by all men in all lines who are engaged in important work. The race is so sharp; the competition so hot that none but tough, enduring men should enter; for they cannot stand the mighty strain.
The great merchant of to-day often makes in one year what would formerly have been rated a large fortune. The banker, the manufacturer, the railroad-man, the contractor, plans and carries through colossal undertakings so quietly that most persons do not know of their existence. Where there were scarce a hundred men in this country a generation ago worth a million dollars apiece; now there are probably fifteen thousand whose combined wealth will average more than that per man.
Scores of railroads are gradually absorbed into a few mighty systems. And more property is owned by a few hundred corporations than by all the people in the country outside of them. The responsibility and care of great sums of money; the enormous loss that may result from even one error of judgment; the shifting values of most property from causes beyond their owners' control;—all bring inevitable worry; and tend to burn the man out early; as they did William H. Vanderbilt, Robert Garrett, and Jay Gould, before they had lived out nearly all their days. It is apoplexy, or paresis; paralysis, or angina pectoris; or heart-failure; or diabetes; or Bright's disease; or some other ailment you never used to hear of; but hear of now almost every ​week, mowing down your friend who even yesterday looked to be all right. "There is no discharge in that warfare." And that worry eats at the vital organs and parts more than many know of. One writer says:
"Harassing anxiety, impatient expectation, disproportionate fear of the unknown; this is worry; and this is what causes the heart to struggle, the kidneys to contract, the arteries to weaken, and the mind to fail."
No one who is not given to worry can conceive of the power which the habit gains over its victim. Such a one will freely admit the excellence of the advice not to worry, but he will add that it is impossible to follow it. This is true only in a measure and in a few cases. Barring instances of exceptional trouble, of extraordinary "hard luck," almost every one can by resolute determination reduce his worry within living limits.
Look into the causes of these enemies, secretly sapping and undermining the vitals, and destroying life itself; and you will find, in almost every case, that lack of sensible bodily exercise has been a potent factor in opening the door, which let in these assassins. Indeed its share in keeping off other insidious foes is greater than many are aware of. Of the five departments of the sewage-system of the body,—the lungs, kidneys, liver, bowels and skin—many a man does not keep the millions of pores in the last one—the skin—open and free; indeed allows them to be clogged for years, till he almost forgets that he once had, and might have yet, as pure, sweet and clear a skin as any healthy babe has to—day.
What right has such a man to expect that the work of five departments, which he thus crowds upon the other four, will not wear one or more of them out before its time? A man who pretended to be an engineer, yet ​who treated an engine of yours in that way; would be discharged before Saturday night; yet the most important engine to you;—one of surpassing fitness for its work, if rightly handled; one that should outlast, and will outlast any device man's highest ingenuity has yet made, or even thought of,—you, its only engineer, treat in a way that you should check as swiftly as you would snatch the tiller of your yacht from a drunken sailor, who was driving you right upon the rocks. The strongest boy and youth we knew in our school-days; coming up to be a magnificent man; half an inch under six feet in height; superbly built; and weighing one hundred and ninety pounds of the best material; a strong, fearless, staying man, and of good habits, who looked as if he would out-last even a Brougham or a Gladstone; breaks down and dies at fifty. His friends say that, for a year or two past, he had looked anæmic; and that the cause was cancer of the bowels. But they also say that, inert, he had, for years, seldom taken exercise enough to even start the perspiration. But a writer in the American Encyclopædia says:
"Gymnastics—Active nutrition of the muscles also is unfavorable to the deposition of morbid matters, such as are found in tuberculous, cancerous, or scrofulous constitutions."
And he well adds:
"There is no doubt that judicious and habitual exercise favours the elimination of effete matters from the organism, particularly by the lungs, skin, and kidneys; increases the activity of the nutrition of the muscular system, rendering the food more relishing, more easily digested, and better assimilated; and develops nerve-power.
"One hour's honest exercise, followed by ablution, will usually suffice for the brain-worker; and this should produce prompt reaction, without a sense of exhaustion. Persons who take this amount of judicious exercise are often more powerful, and have more endurance than the hard-worked laborer."
​But what is the man to do who is to bear great responsibility? He cannot get young again, and rebuild his body. He must take such a one as he has, and do the best he can with it. But who does that? Do you know of any one? Are you doing the best you can for your body,—when you are doing nothing at all for it?
What daily work are you doing to make yourself strong?
Emerson says: "In all human action those parts will be strong, which are used." But if you do not use your arms and back; your neck and the front of your chest; your waist; your legs; your lungs, or your heart—need you be surprised if, by-and-by, they get weak; and, as you do nothing to make them strong, if they stay weak?
Barring the case of organic defect; there is just one person to blame if your body, or any part of it, gets weak. And that is yourself. At once you reply, as millions do, "Oh! I have no time for exercise." That is not true. You have time for it; no matter how busy you are.
Let us see. You are earning, upon an average, a certain sum each day. Let some man, or Trust Company, amply able to, give you as much more as you now earn, if, neglecting no duty, or part of your work, you yet exercise an hour a day, for the next year. Well, you would get that money. You would find out how to; and you would do it. And, instead of hurting you; it would do you good in two ways. You would do more and better work; and you would prolong your life. You would also be strong all over all the time, instead of weak; and so would increase your vitality, and, as Blackie well says: "The measure of a man's vitality is the measure of his working-power." Gladstone—almost as hard a worker as you; and used to almost as ​great responsibility; four times Prime-Minister of the richest nation in the world save one; dealing with problems of finance; of foreign policy; of home-interests; indeed of the whole field of statesmanship; and of literature too; problems so mighty that your most intricate and gravest ones would be trifles to him; yet somehow this man has found time through it all, to give a whole precious hour each day to renewing and rebuilding his fine body; and to keeping it a fit companion for the giant intellect and exalted character which have left upon his country and the world an impress which will be inseparably connected with England and her best interests as long as she is a nation.
And if he could do his work; and yet find time to exercise a whole hour each day; so can you. What did he do? More than once the story has come across the sea of his exercising with various gymnastic appliances each morning in his room, just after rising. You can do that in yours. In this, the greatest era of invention which the world has seen, a man can be heard by another a thousand miles away; can send a message to the other end of the world, and get an answer the same day; can ride comfortably 13,000 miles, across the entire length of Europe and Asia, in fifteen days; had Garfield been shot yesterday, could have exactly located the bullet which a decade ago eluded the highest skill of an entire nation; and can do many other marvels, the mere telling of which a few years ago would have been strong proof of his insanity. And, in the boundless range of human ingenuity, in giving man what he wants; sensible exercising-tools for his body have not been overlooked. Instead of, as till recently, a great room, with frames and rails; and bars and ropes; and mighty wooden steeds; and the long list of things thought necessary in a gymnasium; ​they have made one now that a couple of dollars will buy; and that you can carry in your overcoat-pocket. (See Fig. 4, facing p. 48.) Yet it will do nearly all the work of all the apparatus of the old one put together. Indeed no man yet begins to know all that can be done with it. Is your back-arm weak? It will make it full, and stout, and strong. Is your fore-arm small? It need not stay so long. Is your neck slender? If it is so a year hence, it will be your own fault. Is your back narrow, with the bones showing through all over? In half an hour a day's work for two years, you can have it encased with great layers of muscle, like a 'Varsity oarsman's. And your abdominal muscles; and your pectorals; and every cord and sinew of your legs, will soon have a profound respect for this magical little device. A mere rubber rope, as thick as your little finger; fifteen feet long, with a handle at each end; three small pulleys; a hook, screwed into the lintel of your bedroom door, near the upper hinge, say seven feet above the floor; and another in the base-board, a few inches from the floor; and you are equipped with a gymnasium, where certain single exercises would tire out Hercules in fifteen minutes; noiseless, weightless, and so simple that you can learn how to use it at the first trial.
Use one yourself, now a dozen strokes in one way; now in another; now over your head; or out, wide-armed, as if you were on a cross; or close past your sides; or down to the floor and up again;—or in any other way of your own devising; and in five minutes you will find that that machine is your master; and in ten, especially if you have had on a sweater, or other warm garment, that your skin is in a healthy glow, moist and ruddy; and ready for a sponge-bath in tepid water. Then the thorough rubbing, till you are red all over; and, when you go down to breakfast, you will be in fine condition to ​deal with it. And if Gladstone used to bite each bit of food thirty-two times; and so to thoroughly wet it in the mouth, before sending it on for the gastric juice to deal with; it will pay you to do the same. A well-known professor in one of the great medical schools in New York City said one day to his class: "Young gentlemen, your liver is a sponge. Squeeze it!" Well you do not squeeze it much in ordinary walking; and none at all in sitting still. But when your hands go high over your head; or you sway your body far over to either side; or backward; or forward; you do squeeze it; and greatly aid it in its usual work.
Mr. Huxley says that in ordinary respiration, only about twenty to thirty cubic inches of air pass in and out of the lungs, which he calls tidal air. But every time you slap the backs of your hands together high over your head; you start a hundred or more cubic inches of air hurrying in and out of your lungs; using and toughening your lung-fibre; and all the plumbing from nostril on down to air-cell; and making it harder for pneumonia or other disease to enter.
And after breakfast what? Then you must go to your work. But how do you go now? As short a walk as you can take, to the nearest car. Then a ride as close to your place of business as you can get; and $30; $50; $75; $100 a year for the ride. But why not walk? Of Gladstone, Garibaldi, Lowell, it is said that they never rode when they could walk. Be sure that you always have easy walking-shoes; low-heeled, and broad enough to let every toe go down flat. Try at first a short walk—of a mile—at a comfortable, but not brisk pace, say of three and a quarter miles an hour. If you are a strong, easy walker, increase the pace at the rate of half a mile an hour. Walk this mile each day the first week. If ​it is stormy, dress for it; and walk it just the same. Add to it each week, till you are doing two miles. And you may work about as hard as you like now at your business, till far down in the afternoon, without need of more exercise; if you will do two things. First—always while seated, sit erect. By-the-way, Professor Blackie well says: "Sitting, in fact, is a slovenly habit; and ought not to be indulged. Why should a student indulge so much in the lazy habit of sitting? A man may think as well standing as sitting; and often a little better." Second, and even more important; take as many slow, deep, and full breaths through your nose as you can. Not straining, or violent breaths at all; but large, easy, and ox-like ones; till each would almost fill a football. Oh! but you cannot think to do this! Let some one pay you ten cents a breath, and see if you cannot think to do it. And, if you can do it for pay;-you can do it without pay. And if you persist in it a while, you will at length do it without thinking of it. Mr. Beecher says that "the reason that most men do not get rich is because they are too lazy." It is even more true with getting healthy and strong. Can't, in nearly every instance, means won't.
On the way to and from luncheon; or dinner, if that is the noon-meal; the hard-pressed brain-workers often find it better not to dine till the day's work is over—again breathe slowly and deeply. It relieves the brain, and fits the stomach for its work; and it helps it do that work as soon as you have eaten. A very few minutes of rest, after eating; a walk of even a block or two, breathing deeply (with some laughing, if you can get it), will fit you for the work of the afternoon. But, right after eating, just try a few times seeing how high you can reach with each hand. Now try a quarter of an inch higher yet; or an eighth of an inch even; and hold ​it there say for thirty seconds! This is good work to give the stomach a little more room in which to play.
And now comes the important part. If the busiest Englishmen somehow find time in the late afternoon for their daily "constitutional"; why cannot Americans do the same thing? The field of healthful recreation was never so large as now. A man of moderate means may walk; row; ride horse or wheel; bowl; play tennis; hockey; baseball; football; hand-ball; raquet; can swim; skate, and paddle his canoe; and, if he likes sharper work, can box, fence, run or wrestle; or have anything he will of field-sports or track-athletics. And two more doors have opened to us in recent years, though one of them is generations old—namely golf and cycling. Perhaps you do not sleep well. As in most persons the heart beats, and so lifts its load, about ten times less a minute while they sleep than when they are awake; or six hundred times in an hour; or about five thousand times in the night; it will be seen that any inroad into sleep, especially for many nights in a year, cuts down the rest the heart should have, and so overworks it, and makes it wear out early; and also its owner. If you do not sleep your full quota,—that which is best for you—read this from the London Hospital, quoted in the New York Evening Post of October 5, 1894:
"'Sleeplessness, so far as the writer was able to discover in a three-weeks' sojourn at St. Andrews, was absolutely unknown to the regular golf-player. One may almost say it is impossible. Living as he does in the open air; and taking several hours of daily exercise without unpleasant fatigue; and with a mind constantly, but not laboriously interested; he eats well, and so the brain is adequately nourished. The blood, too, is thoroughly oxidized; and, by the due exercise of all the muscles, is made to flow evenly throughout the body, without abnormal concentration upon the brain. Those are the indispensable conditions of sound and certain sleep; and these conditions are admirably fulfilled by regular and systematic golfing.
Do you—tired, overworked man, not half as strong as you used to be when at your best;—do you know of many investments that will pay you better than this same golf? Though you may not know it, ask your physician;—or the medical-examiner of your life insurance company,—to try his stethoscope upon your heart. He may tell you that this most important of all muscles is weak, as well as the others. And he can also tell you that worry and over-nerve and brain work weaken it; but that moderate muscular work strengthens it. And this golf is just such work; to bring you "a toned-up heart," just what you need; and which may save you from suddenly joining the list of those who drop with heart-failure; indeed may add many years to your life. What if an hour a day is not enough? Once, maybe ​twice a week, make it two, or even three hours. It is glorious work; and will renew your youth, not only in a delightful way, but to an extent little short of incredible. And it scours your mind of business; and sends you back to your work a different man; and a better-natured one; and so a stronger one, for Carlyle fitly says: "Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness; altogether past calculation its power endurance. A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market. Have a smile for all; a pleasant word for everybody. To succeed, work hard, earnestly and incessantly." And in walking, and sitting; in playing golf; and in everything else you do, always hold yourself erect. But how can you do that? Easily. As already seen, simply keep the back of your neck against the back of your collar. Not too firmly, or you will strut. But firmly. Never mind about your shoulders. Let them go where they will. Holding your shoulders too far back is just as much a deformity as rounding them forward. Keep your neck well back; and inevitably your chest fills up in front, tends indeed to draw upwards towards your chin; which is just what you want. And taking the long, deep, slow breaths makes it easy to keep it there; and brings a pleasant sensation besides. And keeping it there gives you a bigger power-house; and makes you a stronger man. The power-houses of most Americans are too small by a fifth. Hear Sargent on this point, in The United States of America, Vol. II., p. 472:
In sitting, one other thing should be done. Always sit as far back on the seat as you can,—not crossing the legs. This gives you a broader base to sit upon; tends to quiet the nerves; and will do much to prevent lateral curvature of the spine, which is so common. And, if you get your afternoon constitutional or not, it will be well, just before retiring, to again do your ten minutes of smart work with the Exerciser. And if you want to make it a little harder than before; keeping your heels together, rise high on your toes at each stroke you take with your hands. But do not do this many times at first; or next morning your calves will tell you just what muscles you have been giving most to do. Have a sweater handy—a very useful garment, by-the-way—so that wearing it, you can be sure of some perspiration.
Do this work each day, and you will not get run down; and will likely find the flow of spirits that comes usually to the healthy man, and adds so much both to his usefulness and attractiveness. And if, at the time of year ​a vacation does you most good, you can put in a fortnight, or better yet a month; not of sitting around upon porches; or driving doubled up in a carriage; or cramped up in a small cat-boat; but get in several hours of pleasant out-door exercise, of a sort you like, till you come in comfortably tired, you will stand a good chance of knowing little about sickness. If instead of spending money on your vacation you want to make some; hire out as a farm-hand through the haying, and grain harvest season; rake and do the lighter work at first till you get in good trim; then the harder work. It may prove one of the most profitable months you ever spent.
The few exercises suggested here have been aimed rather to give one enough each day to keep him in health, and good spirits; and to fit him for his duties, whatever they may be. To keep him also from getting run down; and so opening the door to let disease come easily in. "My experience," says one physician, "is that three-quarters of the sufferers from the grip are those who suffer otherwise; or who are not in prime condition. They are for more liable to it than those in sound health and lively spirits. If you heap yourself in tip-top order, and watch your ways; you have a far better chance of escaping it than if you do not." How to build any special part; as well also as the bicycle and its work, will be considered in another chapter.