Why? The Science of Athletics

FOOD, FADS AND FACTS 33 1 This big blood reservoir is known as the Wiry Exercise "splanchnic pool", and the vaso-constrictor Should Not be nerves, referred to earlier, control the Undertaken splanchnic area. When the muscles need After a Meal more blood for violent effort they draw it from this area and the splanchnic vessels become strongly constricted. If at that time the digestive process is strongly active, owing to a heavy meal having been eaten just recently, it follows that the need of the muscles for blood to help them perform their task, and the need of the digestive organs for blood to help them per– form their duties, become strongly at variance, and con– sequently maximum effort is wellnigh impossible, and at the same time digestion is deranged. Heavy Meal ~ter Activity is Inadvisable This brings us to a subject often debated, not without acrimony, in athletic circles ; for officials do love a good banquet after a big event. One admits, quite frankly, that the athletes, too, like to dine together and thoroughly enjoy the celebration at the time. An "end-of– the-season" dinner _would no doubt be an excellent thing, but the sort of banquets I have in mind are those that follow an international match or a championship meeting and so occur normally right in the middle of the season of competition. Apart from the considerations that athletes attending . these banquets drink wines to which they are not accus– tomed and are kept out of bed long after the hour the training regimen requires for their retirement, there is the vital question of in hgw far it is advisable for an athlete to eat a big meal upon the evening of the day during which he has imposed the heavy strain of competition upon his organism. It is a normal circumstance of life for the athlete to feel especially hungry after taking part in a contest. Demands have been made upon his mental and physical abilities, Nature warns him that there is wastage to be made good, and also he has enjoyed only an abnormally