The Tupelo journal., 1908-04-17
"CHlNNlNG" AND SIMPLE CHEST
ExERClSE-SURPRlSES OF EX-
ANIMATION TESTS.
BIG CHESTS AT THE OPERA
Deep Breathing Secret of Physical
Powerfully Athletes Should
Breathe Through the
NostriIS.
BY ALBERT PAYsoN TERHUNE.

BY ALBERT PAYsoN TERHUNE.
tAthletic Instructor New York Evening
World. Author of Muscle
Building" etc.l
Probably nine boys out of ten who
read this can chin" themselves. The
tenth boy thinks he can't. But he can
if he will practice the exercises L give
in these lessons. To chin yourself you
do not absolutely need a trapeze or a
ladder. You can do it on the wooden
ledge over the doorway of your room.
The door itself must, of course, be
open when you do this, and you must
make sure beforehand that the wooden
support is sound. If you are not tall
enough to reach the top of the door
way reach it by standing on a stool or
chair. Then kick the chair away and
hang by your arms. Not at full arms
length, however. That strains the
muscles without strengthening them.
The arms should be slightly bent, as
should the legs; every muscle tense.
Draw yourself up by your arm mus
Giles until your chin is on a level with
your hands. Then slowly lower your
self until your arms are almost
straight. In lowering yourself do not
relax any of the body muscles;
merely relax such arm muscles as
will lower the body the required dis
lance. While 1t is best to lower ones
self until the arms are nearly straight,
they should not be so straight that the
strain of holding up the body by the
muscles of the arms as we'll as of the
fingers is relaxed. Repeat this chin
ming process. Try it three times the
first day, increasing by one every al
ternate day until you bring the num-
Der up to ten. Don't try to do it often
er than ten times a day.
The "%Chinning" Strength Test.
I was one one of a dozen candi-
dates for the crew at one of the big
universities, who were sent to a IA
nous physical instructor to be ex
amined as to their physical fitness to
undertake such work. Among the can
didates were two whose utter contrast
to each other interested me. One was
over six feet tall, II years old and
weighed ITS stripped. At first glance
he seemed the ideal athlete. The other
was a dwarfish fellow, about five feet
two inches in height, weighing perhaps
120, with II shoulder higher than the
other. The little fellow was told by
the instructor to chin" himself as
many times as possible. To the amaze
ment of all of US, he 'chinned' him
self 80 times with perfect ease. But
in nearly every other strength test he
failed utterly, and proved himself
about as fit for a crew man as a three
legged horse would be for a race. The
big fellows turn came next. He
grasped the bar and hung there dan
Cling, unable to raise his body six
inches, but in every other test he was
successful, and rowed stroke in the
freshman crew the following spring.
This goes to show that inability to
chin ones self is no sign of weakness.
Such inability merely shows that a
certain set of muscles has not yet
been trained and that there is a lack
of coordination between the various
groups of muscles. Such lack will
soon be rectified by faithful practice
of the exercises 1 am describing.
Simple Chest Developer.
Here is a good exercise for enlarg-
ing the chest: Stand in your open
doorway with a hand on each side of
the jamb. The hands should be open,
the palms pressing either side of the
jamb at about the height of the Shout
der. Holding the hands thus, take a
step backward; then walk forward
through the doorway. You can, of
course, go only two or three feet be-
yond, as your hands are still on the
door jamb. Then step back again and
repeat this exercise 20 times, increas-
ing it by two a day until you get it up
to 80. You will at once feel the mus
Giles of the upper arm respond to this
exercise, and the chest muscles will
respond almost as rapidly, increasing
the girth of the chest more rapidly
than by almost any other exercise |
know of.
The above feat may seem absurdly
easy, but it is none the less beneficial.
Now a word as to breathing. /
touched on this in my last article, but
it is a subject of which much more
might be written. Breathing is the
most important factor of athletics and
indeed of life itself. And yet not one
man in one hundred knows how to
breathe.
Big Chests at Grand Opera.
Did you ever go to the opera?
mean grand opera. where the finest