Why? The Science of Athletics

SKILL AND PHYSICAL CLEVERNESS force is released ; and we have seen in a preceding chapter that even mile runners nowadays are striving to stabilize accelerated running, by making the second half of the race the faster, with the last lap fastest of all. That may, or may not, be possible in running such a distance as a mile ; but time alone will prove whether the third lap lag can be entirely eliminated. Where the field events are concerned, nothing is more certain than that any mistake in timing, or any break in the rhythm of acceleration, is bound to be fatal in the production of maximum effort and result. Again, it is frequently found necessary to concentrate upon securing perfection in some one particular point of technique. For example, in Fig. 40, Plate g, and Fig. 42, Plate ro, a boy is seen hurdling under a bar in order that he may develop the proper amount of body dip, together with a sufficiently wide leg-spread. Fig. 43, Plate ro, shows the same boy after he had practised this particular phase of the hurdling process for best part of a year and had made the action so much a part of his nature that he was able to produce the perfect form he is showing, even in the heat and the strain of a championship race. Knowledge is Power I wonder if it is really a banality to quote the oft-used axiom "Knowledge is power" ? It happens to be so very true in the case of athletic science. First of all a man must know what it is that he is trying to achieve, if he is to attain the maximum success of which he is physi– cally and mentally capable, that is to say it he is to realize to the full his athletic potentiality. This argues that he must master the technique of his event mentally, before he attempts to master that same technique physically. To that end, he has to study athletes at work, both in training and in competition ; he needs to study slow motion films, and would be well advised to give his attention to a little book called Athletes in Action, which is published by Messrs. John F. Shaw & Co. Ltd., London, and which sets out very clearly all the points of technique, in all the