The age-herald., 1900-11-01
KNOTTY MUSCLES
 OF LITTLE VALUE
You Need an AII-Around Train ing to be an AthIete-Train-
 ing in Spots is No Good
BY ROBERT FIrzsIMMoNs.


 A professional strong man came into my gymnasium the other day
 Say, Bob," he sad, "I'd like to be boxer"
 "A boxer, eh?' I replied. What makes you think you would make good boxer?" Why, l am as strong as lion. Just come in here and I'll show you.
 And then this strong man went into my gym and took the heavy weights and the heavy punching bag and the punching machine and made them look sick. He tossed them around like feathers. He was puffing and blowing like a porpoise in moment, but he stepped back and looked at me with a smile. He certainly was picture of strength The muscles stood out all over his body in big knots From top to toe he was one mass of knotty, pro- truding cords.
 Flows that for a starter?" he said.
 l didn't say word. His ignorance was pitiful to me Walking over to one side of the room, took a set of boxing gloves from the wall and handed him a pair. Following my lead he put them on.
 It took me about two minutes to show that chap just how useless, unwieldy and imprac ticable his muscles were. He hand- led himself like cart horse. He was as slow on his feet as a messenger boy.
 And his brain acted as did his muscles slowly and stifly Although a big man, weighing perhaps two hundred pounds, he
 
 as many amateur light-weights with whom I had put on the gloves
 I think I showed him clearly the useless ness of his heavyweight lifting muscles They were good for one thing, the service for which they had been trained Like every athlete in his profession he muscle-bound. Those huge masses of mus ce, gained at the expense of many, many hours hard work, were for all practical opposes of no more use than a hand or Ia fT chit lydA Cni raft in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. In fact, such muscles serve to help short en ones life. The muscle-bound man with every fibre of his body drawn to a tension that pulls at the very heart strings, mine times out of ten dies with what is known as an 'athlete heart"
 muscle-bound man is worse than a shin-bound horse. He is as awkward and ungainly a crocodile would be in a ball room. Take him away from his chosen profession and he is all at sea. He Is frightful object lesson against the use of heavy dumb bells OF heavy weights of any kind.
 The man or boy who wants to become quick strong and clever must avoid the of heavy weights as carefully as though they were poisonous snakes. They completely destroy all that suppleness and agility which marks every detail of the clever athletes work.
 Be man a runner, jumper, boxer or in fact anything under the sun except heavy weight litter, he can have no use for knotty, unwoiiding masses of strength. Even our best wrestlers nowadays re- cognize the fact that muscles of that kind are of no more use to them. They know that there are right and wrong muscles just as well as they do that there is a right and wrong way to wrestle. They know that such muscles bring them pre- mature old age and early death.
 And thus it is that every ambitious young athlete should strive to train his muscles in the proper way. Light dumb bells, In- dian clubs and other muscle building weights should never be forsaken.