Athletics and Football (extract)

i66 ATHLETICS CHAPTER VI. TRAINING. WHEN the great athletic movement bfierstcame popular in England there wmasuch strenuous opposition to itn, ot only from timid parents but also from the medical profession. Upon whatever ground this latteorpposition was based, there niso doubt that the parental prejudice was not so much to the athletics as to the ' training.' To thaethlete eaorfly times as well asto his friendsand relations esthsential part and chief characteristic of training was not the takinogf proper prepara­ tory exercise, but the sudden and violent change of diet. ' Going into training' was takento meanthe commencement of a peculiar odfiethalf-cooked beefsteaks and dry bread and the reduction of the daily drink to a minimum, and not to imply the beginning of the proper training or cultivation of the muscles required for arace. Even to thepresent tdhaey word ' training' is applied in its popular connotation to the choice dioeft alone.It iscarcely to bewondered that, iann age whicchonsidered that ea ing adnrdinking would do more to makea runner than the practice of running, the systemof training adowptoeudld be a mistaken on , and that the mistake should be glaring. Men going into training adopted a course of diet whicdhid not agrewe ith them, aancdcordingly became ill in body and ill in mind. Of the very oldest system of training, which is now thoroughly obsolete, little need be said, as no amateur of recent years has thought of followingit. It waas method which may almost cbaleled pre-athletic, as it w in fact nothing but that