The Savannah morning news., 1903-07-19
HOW TO GET STRONG
Vacation Time Talks for Boys About Real Strengh-Mo-
ton Is Strength-The Difference Between Lifting
Pounds and Foot Pounds"

Everything in this world depends on
motion. Motion is life. Your muscles
and the rest of your body are like the
stars and planets, wind and tide in
this respect. Their whole value lies in
what kind of motion they can per-
form.
When engineers describe engines,
water power or any other form of la
bor-producing motion, they do 50 by
telling how many "foot-pounds" the
force can lift or move.
There is a big difference between
'foot-pounds" and pounds" pounds"
are dead weight. "Foot-pounds" are
moving weights
The muscle that can lift one hundred
pounds one foot is not nearly as useful
as the muscle that can lift twenty-five
pounds eight feet.
One is doing only one hundred
foot-pounds' worth of work, while the
other muscle is doing two hundred
foot-pounds' worth.
This is the first rule.
Now there is a second one. Time en-
tiers into the matter.
Suppose one boy has muscles that
VIII illl ten pOu0uS OAAG 1OOI III 0iC
second. Now suppose another boy has
muscles that will lift only five pounds
one foot, but that will do 1t in quar-
ter of a second.
Perhaps most persons would say the
first boy is twice as strong as the Sec
ond boy, because he can lift twice as
much.
But what is strength? 1t is the
power to accomplish certain things in
a certain time.
The first boy lifts ten foot-pounds in
one second, but the second boy could
lift twenty foot-pounds In that one sec
ond.
This tells the whole story of the
| comparative values of slow muscles
and quick muscles. 1t explains why
athletic instructors don't want boys
TO practice with heavy dumb-bells or
other weights.
The perfect muscles in the one that
| can apply it's entire strength, whatever
it is, in the shortest possible time.
There fore, the athlete worthy of the
name cannot afford to have his muscles
developed so that he is muscle-bound
| The muscle-bound man is like q ship
whose rigging is made of ropes so huge
| that they will not move through the
tackle blocks. Such a ship would be
Just as badly off as If its ropes were so
thin and weak that they would break
under the first strain.
The whole body is like a ship, or 9TH
| err engine, full of such ropes, all run
ming back and forth over the pulley
blocks of bones and joints. If any of
these ropes Cor muscles) are so knotted
| that they will not move in the swiftness
| of a thought the body is Unbalanced.
| We can follow out the smile Of a ship
still further.
The ship must not only have stout
| rigging; it's hull, decks, spars and other
parts must be in harmony.
A man with big arms and weak legs
! is like a ship with big masts and a
weak keel. A person with strong arms
! and legs and weak lungs is as ship
with fine spars and hull but with poor
| boilers that cannot drive II. An athlete
with great biceps muscles, magnificent
| thighs and calves and poor chest is
| like a ship with rusty machinery. If 1t
/ ever gets near rocks, all the fine hull
| will not save it.
And many hundreds Of athletes die
every year from organic diseases be-
/ cause they never learned that muscles
alone do not mean health, or even true
| strength.
Never forget that the wonderful pow
er that made this world made nothing
without its uses. Your muscles are
only the outside part of the machinery
/ You wouldn't think much of a watch
/ that has pretty hands and a handsome
/ dial and a fine case If It had cheap
| works that wouldn't make those pretty
/ hands point to the right time every
second. Well. the person with big mus
cles and nothing behind them Is not Of
much more use.
Now to make the body work in haP-