The Modern Method of Training for Running, Walking, Rowing & Boxing

20 KEDESTUIAKISM, runs as the case maybe, is taken fromthe fair­ ness and brightnessof the skin, whichis a cer­ tain criterionofgoodhealth. The quickness with which perspiration is dried on rubbing with towels,sufEcient leannessand hardness of the muscles, is also the right test that reducing ias beencarried to the proper extent. Having given the above hints to the trainer, the next chapter treats on the oldand at present almost exploded system of training, in whichquick­ ness of results, in many instances far from happy, wasapparently the only object, under whichmany,and in fact almost all, of the old echool performed their wonderful feats. And how they did what was accomplished, proves the wonderful endurance of the human framo even whenpartially prepared. 21 CHAPTER III. OLD SYSTEM OF TRAINING. T HE old methodof training, as laid down by the trainer of the oldentime, appears to be to theniceobserverwhat it reallywas,—nothing but physicking-work and sweating, changed with sweating-work and physicking, until in almost everycase the patient under treatment —forhe could becalledby no other name—was jaded to the extreme, when, although enabled to undergoany amount of slow work without crying " Hold, enough," he had lost all that elasticityof musclewhich would have enabled In'm to makeuseful rushesduring his race, as wellas to have progressedfurther in his con­ test, and at a far superior pace, before his wrongly-named staying propertieswerebrought into requisition. There are some of the old schoolwhocry out aboutthe degeneracyof the present gymnasts and athletes, and advance that the present race ofmencannot put up with the fatigue and severe training undergone by the past generation. Theselugubrations,how­ ever,are silencedby the fact of the pace being invariably better in every kind of pedestrian contest. In the prize-ring,from the improved systemof preparation,the man who nowmeets his opponent in the roped arena at lOst. 71b,,