The Athlete for 1866

116 HINTS ON TRAINING. ball avoided. A heave isnot so effective as a quick jump, with themuscle 8 concentrated at the same moment; the quicker the hop and the throw are made the further the distance put, provided that the balance is not lost. Any delay between the first hop and the final springis fatal. In delivering the weight, let it be put upwards—that is to say, aimto hit an object about fourteenfeet above the spot where the weight will pitch. The furtherthe weight has to bo put the higher must be the elevation. No exercise is a greater proof ofstrength than this. Very little skill is required, andwhen once the way of putting is learnt it seldom happens that a strong man gets beaten by the knack of a weaker antagonist. The ankle is the part most likely to suffer, from the fact of having to spring with the whole of the body, and the addition of the weight. Some difficulty is experienced by beginners in learning the change of legs after thehop. To practice this, a cricket-ball may be used instead of a heavy weight, and the spring made as before with tiie delivery of the ball. After a little practice a heavier weight maybe tried until the one required can be put properly. The best "puts" on record are for the 221b. weight over36 feet, and for the Itiib. over 41 feet; but the beginnerneed not be terrified by these distances, as he \\ ill find 29 feet with the221b. weight, and32 feet with the lighter one will beat most athletes. At some meetings a heavier weight, 561b., is sometimes thrown ; but as that weight is too heavy to put from the shoulder, and has to be thrown by swinging either between the legs, or with a run, like throwing the hammei%and frequently causes most serious strains from its great weight, it needhardly be dwelt uponhere. SPRINT RUNNING. Ha ring briefly sketched the most approvedmethods of practice for jumping weight throwing,&c., we find ourselves in limine of the more popular branches of athletics, viz. :—short-distance running, or, technically speaking, "sprint running." It is not a most difficult problem to solve, why sprint running should be more popular than any other branchof pedestrianism, for, from the fact of its comprising all distances from 50 yards to 300 yards, it must naturally offer some particular one favourable to nine out of ten pedestrians. There is hardly a man in sound possession f hislimbswhohas notperformed some feat in running of which heis proud, andwhich whenmentioned will bring back pleasing recol­ lections, and give him an i terest in the doings of the day. No sport, however, is so open to variety in mode of practice. Though theoretically the same, it is subject to slight modifications at the various distances; and beginning withthe typical oneof sprinting, viz., 100 yards—we willsuggest such changes as seem most adapted to their respective distances. Let the novice some five weeks or so before the day of his race, begin ]lis practice by a steady run three or four times a day of a quarter of a mile or so; so gently at first as to produce no stiffness ofthe muscles when the tempe- vature producedby the exercise has subsided, and the circulation has recovered it -usual condition ; this is on thesupposition that the beginner is in moderately robust health. Should he not be so, the first point to attainis to get him into, n tit condition to begin his training and practice. Until thatis acquired our suggestions will be of little value. When applied to a subject untit for their reception, a resultmight accrue totally opposite and unfavourable to what ought reasonably to be expected.We have, therefore, in all our notes on the subject of athletics takenas our datum line, from which to commence opera­ tions, a soundhealthy condition of "the body ; as by practice and training ad-