Los Angeles herald., 1907-11-03
ENORMOUS BlCEPS NOT
NECESSARY TO ATHLETES
BACK TO JUNK HOUSE FOR BIG
MUSCLES AND KNOTS
Mike Murphy, Delaney, MuIdocn and
and other Famous Trainers Claim
Quantity of Beef Kills Speed
and Strength

An old fashioned idea that huge, bulg-
ing muscles are essential to athletic
prowess is being steadily discarded by
the developers of athletic skill today.
1t used to be that the man who would
succeed in baseball, football, track and
field athletics, rowing, swimming and
tennis felt 1t first requisite to build up
on his shoulders back, arms. thighs and
calves great piles of knotted muscles.
This was called development, and the
possessors were prouder of such an equip
ment than woman of good figure. But
the modern tendency is getting entirely
away from this idea.
Men like Delaney Mike Murphy, Null
doom and Coakley, who know how to turn
out winners, have discovered that a
quantity of muscles can only be gained at
the cost of speed, and that excepting in
wrestling, where a man has need of ab-
solute brute strength, the big muscles are
more a detriment than an aid.
The ideal athlete of the future will un-
doubtedly be the man built on the lines
Jim Corbett had when he fought John L.
Sullivan fifteen years ago.
Sullivan an Example
Never was a greater disparity than be-
tween these two men of the old and new
school. Sullivan had wonderful neck
shoulders and arm. Corbett was slender
and 1.-THE. No muscles showed on his
body when he got into action. His were
the long, slender fibers that could rot
be detected under the white skin. but
which did their work so swiftly and well
that the giant who in a wrestling bout
or rough and tumble fight could have
crushed "Pompadour Jim" to death, was
a child in his hands in a bout governed
by the recognized rules of boxing.
Kid Mccoy offers still better fllustra-
ton of the fighter without muscle devel-
opment, yet who could hit hard enough to
knock out men twice his size.
Mccoy was flat-chested, his arms were
thin as pipestems, his legs were nothing
in point of muscle, and in the ring,
stripped for the fray he would have made
q laugh but for the knowledge held by
the public of the terrific hitting force
that those puny little arms held.
Tommy Ryan, wonderful fighter,
whose sway has extended over fifteen
years. and who is still probably good
enough to take care of any man any
where near his size, is another case Of
the boxer who boasts no heavy muscles.
Joe Cans, the lightweight champion of
the world for many years, shows no more
DEVELOPMENT than the ordinary man out
of training, yet a blow from his ebony
fist carries a knockout message with 1t.
In baseball the transition is the same.
More little men are playing now tnan
ever before.
The famous teams of the past were
made up almost entirely of big fellows
Anson, Pfeffer Williamson. Gore, Flint,
Kelly, Brouthers, Conner. White, Thomp-
son. Browning, all famed hitters, were
men who lowered up to the six-foot
mark, or close to it, and who were built
in proportion.
Then 1t was thought that only a big
and powerful muscled man could hit the
nail hard, but nobody pays any atten-
ton to ideas like that now.
Willie Keeler is one of those who
blazed the way for the ball player with
out prominent muscular development
While the giants with the kind OF bodies
that the ancient sculptors depicted are
warming benches or are out of Jobs,
Keeler goes along year after year rank
ing among the leading batters, and in
cidentally drawing one of the biggest
salaries of any man in baseball.
During his long stay with Baltimore,
Brooklyn and the New York Americans,
Keeler has been accounted one of the
greatest hitters in baseball history yet
If he got in a fight on the street with
an ordinary sized man the latter would
be condemned for punching such an easy
mark.
Ty Cobb is another prominent example
of this class of athlete.