Athletics (British Sports Library)

34 ATHLETICS London Athletic Club, 72 Tierney's Road, Streatham Hill, London, S.W. 2. There is one feature which I feel cannot be too strongly emphasized, so far as the schools are concerned. It is that boys must be given a suffi· ciently long period of tim~ to prepare for the sports. Long road runs on afternoons when th~y are not required for football are of little use, because the average youngster, by the very nature of his games, is hard as nails and does not need what the mature athlete knows as the "long building up preceding actual training." What the boys do need is a month, and if possible more, before. the sports in which to acquire technique and build up muscles which the other games are not likely to call into play. This applies particularly to starting practice for sprinters, hip-socket loosening, which is half the hurdlers' battle for efficiency, shoulder loosening for the pole vaulters and shot putters, and practice for the jumpers. All these boys are liable to strain themselves by sudden, unaccustomed effort of seldom-used muscles if they are not allowed a reason· able time in which to build the special muscles up. At many schools it is the custom to prepare the . \ sports ground only a few days before the sports are actually due to take place. This is unfair to the boys, _who are thereby denied the opportunity of training on a four-lap track; it is also hard.on the