Why? The Science of Athletics

SKILL AND PHYSICAL CLEVERNESS 201 and work at!, i and! effort creates, as it were, a sensory cinematograph film of his action and a · subconscious recollection of his experiences while he is building up and training his muscles for the performance of the particular functions he requires of them. He is, further, training his nervous system to pass the necessary orders from brain to muscles at the maximum rate of speed. Nor is it enough for a person merely to practise the whole evolution in slow time and at reduced degrees of effort. The building up of physical skill, in point of fact, is a more detailed and in some ways a far more compli– cated business. A man picking up a javelin for the first time and at once attempting to make a hard throw is a_s likely as not to whip himself painfully across the shoulders with the tail of the weapon; or considerValste's description of the grip and try for yourself whether the 6.3 ins. binding of whipcord comes comfortably into your palm when the fingers are disposed in the way described ; or try, if you like, to maintain a discoi under the palm of your hand by centrifugal force alone, as you swing your arm slowly backwards and forwards, and you will find, inevitably, that javelins and discoi are awkward things to handle at first. Constant handling of implements such as hammers, javelins, discoi, shots and vaulting– poles, to familiarize oneself in the bare rudiments of their "feel" and use, is a first essential. Much the same argu– ment may be applied to the actual processes of any evolution in athletics. Processes of Evolutions in Athletics It is not reasonable to expect that the muscles will combine automatically, at the first time of asking, for the production of some complicated physical skill which they have not previously been called upon to attempt. Where the mastering of some new feat is desired the muscles have got to be taught their job. Some muscles are naturally stronger than others, some, again, work more quiGkly, but it may be that we desire to give greater prominence to the action of the weaker muscles