Why? The Science of Athletics

HUMAN MECHANISM Il9 But just what the exact relationship between mind and body is no one has yet discovered. A living being has the _power of feeling Need for Well- and thinking, and possesses also a will and a balanced memory, representing the mental faculties, Training of and on the other hand has the bodily both Mind properties of movement and the taking in and Body and storing of foodstuffs, but in how far energy-transformation is mental or physical cannot be assessed. But, again, the fact remains that our subjective and objective activity are inextricably iuter– woven one with the other. Arising out of the foregoing, we reach the conclusion that training, equally with competition, should constitute erljoyment. There are so many of the old Roman tags that we never can get away from, because they are so funda– mentally true. Mens sana in corpore sano is an axiom that must have been quoted millions of times, but a healthy mind must be a happy mind, and happiness has a definite physiological reaction) since emotion is accompanied by tensions and movements throughout the body "' and in changes in the secretions of the glands. For example, anger stimulates the suprarenal glands and the whQle body is thereby better prepared for a fight. The proper development of the nervous system, more– over, tends to the harmony of the body which has been prepared by physical training for intensive athletic action. On the other hand, the physical development of the body certainly aids in the training of the nervous system, provided that both types of training are well balanced and made interdependent. This means, of course, that an ideal system of training requires that psychology and physiol?gy should go hand in hand, the former concerning Itself with mental dietary, work, rest, play and the storing up of energy, while the latter has for its ideal bodily health and fitness correlated with a healthy mind.