Coaching and Care of Athletes

PREFACE out, and from it will come, in due season, those professional teachers of all forms of sport who should raise considerably the national standard of efficiency and physical fitness-for the know– ledge of these new-era students is bound to be wider than that of the old-time, self-taught trainers. Meanwhile the new Finnish School of Sport at Vierumaki is carrying on work of a similar nature. Quite as important is the fact that scientists of the standing of Professors A. V. Hill and H. Rottenburg (England), Professor W. W. Tuttle (U.S.A.), Dr Tait McKenzie (Canada), and Dr Carl Krummel (Germany), to name but a few investigators, are delving deeply into the scientific side of athletic sport. At first, however, so small an army of scientific pioneers can make but little headway by personal contact in the vast field of athletic talent which is waiting to be tilled. So in an earlier book, named Why?- The Science of Athletics, in several other books, and more particularly in the present volume, I have done my best to indicate the modern scientific deductions which have been made, the matters which are being taught, and how instruction is being given at the modern coaching colleges. Perhaps, even, I have done a little more, for I have included much information gathered personally at numerous celebrations of the Olympic Games, at international matches, and, generally, in knocking about the world from the hottest tropics to the Frozen North. My travels have enabled me to see the best products of athletic coaching throughout the world, and also the finest natural talent in the raw in such places as India and Central Mrica. I have tried also to make the reader-be he active athlete, would-be coach, or seasoned veteran trainer-feel some ·of that irresistible urge and keenness which all my days has inspired me to lend a hand in all possible circumstances to the persevering athlete. It follows, therefore, that this book is not for coaches alone. I have endeavoured to put knowledge-my own and that of other people-upon paper in such a way that the active athlete who is not lucky enough to have a coach to look after him may, by study– ing intelligently what I have written, teach and train himself, both mentally and physically, to a high state of athletic efficiency. I have been at even greater pains in an honest endeavour to make the book ofvalue to all those good sportsmen whose circum– stances in life prevent them from attending coaching courses or 9