Why? The Science of Athletics

\ CONSIDERATIONS IN CONDITIONING ATHLETES 17 and control, and the stimulation of the activity of the internal organs. On the other side of the ledger we have got to face the facts that athletic sport loses much of its value if there is undue concentration upon the performances of a few stars and if the competitive spirit so dominates training and competition that the instinctive pleasure of doing a thing for the sheer joy of doing it is killed. In both cases there is the danger, also, of working the willing horse too hard and even of aggravating existing disease or disability by using a man on the team who. is, at the moment, not really fit to compete. In relation to the present argument, however, the greatest evil is to be found when athletics are allowed to become no sport at all, when over-eagerness to achieve results turns training into sheer drudgery, with no recrea– tion in it, and everyone heaves a tired sigh of relief, and probably breaks out into an imperial beano, when the competition season is over. From all of which it follows that a person's main motive in taking up athletics should be for the health– giving fun which he anticipates getting out of the sport, and that, while training must certainly be seriously undertaken, it is equally important that the training work should be balanced by due periods of rest, play and recreation, of a suitable nature not to interfere with training, which will act both as anodyne and antidote. Correlation of Body and Brain It has been briefly indicated already that the strain imposed by training for athletic contests is both mental and physical. It is obvious that this must be so, for no matter how instinctive our actions may be, nor how much pleasure we may derive from any voluntary, spontaneo-y.s performance, it still remains the fact that muscles do not function unless they receive orders to do so. As we shall see later on, the training of the sym- · pathetiC nervous system plays a big part in this connection. Meantime, it will suffice for our present purpose if B