Evening capital and Maryland gazette., 1913-03-13
TYPICAL FORMS OF
PHYSICAL TRAINING
Numerous Theories and Inventors
But Five Basic Principles.
GENERAL FEATURES OF S TYPES.
Derived From Grecian Usage AgOnistic
Gymnastic and Athletic the
General Features.
TTaner ~. XXXITI-By Prof. n, s. krantz
ASST. pays Inst. Z, $. n. A..
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Asst Pays Inst. L, $. y. A..
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10 the eighteenth Olympiad they
a lded wrestling and the Pentathlon,
a five-fold contest in leaping. throw
ing the iavalin, wrestling and throw
ing the deus and running. Twenty
FIVE wears later boxing was made a
part Of the exercises and four-horse
chariot races and riding races were
added.
The influence of the national games
upon the Greek characer was incalcu-
liable. The periodical congregation of
the people of all the states and their
friendly competition in the games,
gave rise to feeling OF brotherhood
anu Of mutual interest that would
otherwise have been imposibla be-
tween independent states.
The games from the first, natural
ly, gave great impetus to the interest
in physical training generally, and
this inerest. together with a realiza-
ton Of the necessity for thoro and in
telligent preparation for the contests
gave rise to the Gymnasia, which be
came the enter points Of Greek life,
and the sources from which emanst-
ed, directly or INDIRECTLY, all that was
best IN Greek civiliz alton.
Being the place at which the most
intelligent men spent a gre at part
Of their time, they fostered confer
ences and an interchange Of ideas
whose effect was the general spread
of intelligence and the highest type
of which is seen in the dialogues of
Plato and Socrates and the teachings
of Aristotle. Naturally the discuss
ions held in the Gymnasia by men
who were themselves enthusiastic in
physical exercises, largely turned upon
gymnatics and led to the wonderful
perfection of the Greek system Of
bodily culture.
The Greek training was severe /;
that of candidates for the Olympic
games lasting for ten months 1t was
mostly conducted in the open air,
often under blazing sun. In their
practice exercises and in their match
es, the athletes were naked. They
were oiled and sanded before exercis-
ing and 5craped afterward and bathed.
Their dietary was also carefully reg
ulated. So. too, were their hours of
sleep and practice. In none of the
five national systems of exercises has
training been carried to so high a
degree or been so we'll ordered as it
was among the Greeks.
The ideal toward which ell the
athletes strove was three-fold; the
perfection of the intellect, the moral
nature and the body. How high
their ideal of physical perfecti IN.
and how well they attained it is at
tested by the marble and bronze
statues of their gods, heroes, and
athletes that have survived the rava-
ges of time. They did not understand
the functions of the muscles and they
knew nothing of the circulation of
the blood. They were, in fact, igno-
rant OF the science of physiology
in its true sense. but they were close
and intelligent observers.
The gymnasia were at first ept
by private persons and were simply
open places Cor exercising. Later,
buildings, the remains of some
still standing, were erected by the
states and governed by laws. In
Athens were three of great repute,
the Academy, the Lyceum and the
Cynosarges. Every city in Greece had
at least one gymnasium.
The Greeks used but little appara-
tus, either in their preparatory exer-
cises, which were taken in the pales-
trae and gymnasia, or in their match
games, which usually, as in Olympia,
took place in the stadium, or some
other uncovered place, and such APP
paratus as they did use was of the
simplest kind. The spear, the discus,
the vaulting pole, the halters and
himantes which latter two are proto-
types, respectively, of our dumb bells
and boxing gloves, pretty nearly ex-
haust the list of Grecian gymnastic
apparatus.
In the gymnssia assembled the
flower of Greek manhood. Athletics
and gymnastics have never played SC
large and so dignified and so promi-
nent part in the life and affairs of
any nation, as they did among the
Greeks. Grecian physician training
was Of an empirical nature, for the
Greeks, even the best of them, had
next to no scientific knowledge of the
human body. Aristotle looked upon
the muscles as mere padding for the
bones, not sUspecting them of being
the organs of motion. But the Greeks
were rare empiricists, aud saw with
wonderful clearness what lay within
the range of their unaided vision.
Having insight and experience loving
beauty of form, being favored of
Heaven as to climate and leisure,
their gymnasiarchs and athletic train
ers produced types of manly beauty
and health which have never been
STrDasead