Why? The Science of Athletics

I, I. I WHY?-THE SCIENCE OF ATHLETICS he was and kept there until the final was called on. During the rest period he was being gently massaged through his clothing so that the body temperature might be kept as nearly as possible the same as it was when he finished his trial run. Or, again, I remember that wet and windy afternoon in the April of 1932 when F. A. R. Hunter won the Public Schools 100 and 440 yards cham– pionships. I think he had a lot for which to thank his father, Evan Hunter, the British Olympic Association Secretary, that afternoon, for the veteran runner saw to it that his son had plenty of rest between heats and finals and also gave him plenty of hot, well-sweetened tea to drink. There are yet other rest coefficients that must not be forgotten. The first of these is complementary to the work problem. Dubious as this may sound, I have actually known a case where a games master collected perhaps forty boys and gave them continuous starting practice for forty minutes. Now that is not the way to train boys ; sustained effort is well enough when one is conditioning distance runners, but for athletes, like sprinters and jumpers, who rely largely upon explosive effort, each burst of activity should be counterbalanced by a brief period of rest. Activity, and especially violent activity, is bound to be followed by a prolonged period of recovery, because, during activity, oxygen is consumed, sugar is burnt and carbon dioxide is produced. In the case of the stimula– tion of an isolated muscle by electric shock we find, when stimulation is applied once in every second, the con– tractions of the muscle become slower and weaker until, after a few minutes, they cease altogether, and yet the first effect of fatigue is the slowing of the contraction · rather than the weakening of it. This illustration of the effect of stimulation upon an isolated muscle is given, of course, merely as a marked example. The human muscle stimulated in the same way shows no fatigue for some time, but, as we shall see later, the doing of