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SYSTEMATIC PHYSICAL TRAINING |
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Exercise with Apparatus*
General Directions
I
N presenting this system of dumb-bell exercises, we wish to emphasize the necessity of carrying your physical culture into your habits of life to such an extent that you acquire the habit of involuntary right carriage and breathing. One may bathe, eat, and exercise according to rule; that is, by voluntary action, doing these things at regular times, and because you will to do them, and never attain to the greatest degree of physical or mental vigor, because as soon as the idea of doing them is absent from the mind, the wrong habits of breathing and carriage, acquired by years of custom, return, and the muscles you have been attempting to develop for use are allowed to lapse into disuse.
Strive to get into the habit of carrying the body correctly without having to think about it, and to breathe involuntarily in such a manner that the lungs are filled at every inspiration, and the blood is completely oxygenized all the time, and thus kept in the utmost degree of purity.
The illustrations presented herewith show the wrong and the right method of carrying the body. If you permit yourself to habitually slouch along as in Figure A, the beneficial effects of your systematic exercise will, to a certain extent, be nullified. On the contrary, if you strive to
* The illustrations used in this course of physical culture with apparatus were posed for us by Professor Barker, of New York, and are reproduced here with his permission.
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