Why? The Science of Athletics

HEALTH ASPECTS AND HEALTH TRAINING 29 rest and recuperation would be restored in due course, provided the period of sleep was of the same duration, but it might take as much as a fortnight to adjust the balance. This, I think, can be amplified in another way, for it often happens that a man going into training and deciding to turn in at ro to 10.30 p.m. regularly, but who has been accustomed to keeping late hours, finds himself afflicted with early night insomnia when he first alters the regimen of his life. In every case, the man who has been accus– tomed to sitting up late should commence the practice of going to bed early some three to four weeks prior to the actual commencement of his athletic training. If he gets used to going to bed early he will not have to lie awake later on, counting the hours until sleep comes. Insomnia is infinitely more exasperating, and has greater adverse effect upon the nervous system, when a person is .in training than when he is not. Athletes in training, therefore, should make "regu– larity" their watchword. There is often a great temp– tation to sit up yarning with other <;~.thletes, to go to a cinema, or perhaps to a dance, but the temptation to do any of these things should be rigorously suppressed. Interruption of the training regime is harmful, and an athlete dancing until 3 o'clock in the morning will find inevitably that it will take him best part of a fortnight afterwards to get back into his proper athletic form. Sleep, of course, must be entirely restful, and here many problems arise. After sleeping out of doors myself, both winter and summer, for the last seven years, I am firmly convinced that by this method the most restful and the most beneficial sleep is secured. On the other hand, some people, obviously, cannot stand the rigours of the winter's cold, and others cannot go on sleeping after day has dawned, simply because the· light awakens them. But if a man must sleep indoors he should at least see tl::),at his room is quiet, well ventilated, clean and airy. The performances of more than one athlete, chosen