Why? The Science of Athletics

128 WHY?-THE SCIENCE OF ATHLETICS The stretching exercises are just exactly what their name indicates, and we need go no further than any normal P.T. table of exercises to find plenty of movements well suited to our purpose. The formal exercises, however, are of an entirely different nature, and here I would, with all due diffidence, recommend the book Exercises for Athletes (Webster and Heys; John F. Shaw & Co. Ltd., London), which was written only after a quarter of a century of practical experience had gone _to the designing of complete series of exercises, which incorporate the informal movements, the essential stretching and supplying actions, and the actual form-exercises that are most closely allied to the movements a man must make in the evolutions of his event. In other words, the formal exercises constitute the :move– ments which a man makes in imitation of the actions involved in the actual practice of the event for which he is limbering-up. Now let us consider these three processes oflimbering-up in detail. Informal Movements The main purpose of the informal move– ments, which constitute one part of the limbering-up process, is to raise the tempera– ture of the muscles ; because, as we have noted so many times in this book already, a warm muscle works better than does a cold one. By swinging his arms, running, hopping, skipping and moving his trunk and limbs quickly a man liberates heat - during muscular contraction and also increases the blood flow from inside the body. The increased blood supply prepares the system for a larger output of energy, by providing the muscles with more oxygen and selective nourishment, and also by reason of the quicker elimination of the waste products of exhaustion. · Even more important is the fact that the warming of the muscle by the process of limbering-up gives it a lower viscosity, thus making it possible for the muscle to make faster movements. Of late years, athletes have been kept under close