Why? The Science of Athletics

CONSIDERATIONS IN CONDITIONING ATHLETES 13 can be answered, in almost every instance, upon the merits and in accordance with the circumstances of each individual case alone. Some youngsters thrive on a sensibly balanced amount of hard work, others eat up much of their nervous force in the brief space of a single contest. It is not safe to be dogmatic. The two things to remember are these. A boy overtrained and given too great an opinion of the importance of athletic success is likely not only to lose his fire, but will become nervy, anxious and unhappy, and all the joy will be banished from the game for him. On the other hand, too great care, taken obviously, may well create in his mind the impression that he is taking risks with his health, and in that case the creation of a namby-pamby sort of youth is well on the way. Speaking generally, the ideal scheme is to get boys under I6 years of age to regard athletics as play. Boys at this stage of their lives should not be allowed to train seriously for any athletic contest, as the word "training" is understood in its generally accepted meaning. What I have said must not be construed as meaning that I do not approve of competition for even the tiniest of children. On the contrary, my own youngsters were (\ged respectively 2!, 4t and 6t when they ran in their first races at the same village sports meeting. In the years between I924 and 1927, when we spent our summer holidays at the little Norfolk fishing village of Bacton, Waiter Henderson, the old Oxford Blue, and I used to collect dozens of children each day, on the sands, or in a field at the top of the cliffs, and would organize for their amusement games in jumping, throw– ing a very tiny discus, putting the stone, pole vaulting, and so on. The inevitable outcome of those games was the holding of a children's sports meetL.J.g in a kindly farmer's field towards the end of each summer holiday. The form some of those children produced was nothing less than remarkable, merely because they had learned correct technique by playing at athletics during the