Why? The Science of Athletics

360 WHY?-THE SCIENCE OF ATHLETICS has ever cleared I 3 ft. If you clear I 3 ft. I will give you a mince pie." The coach knew Carr's fondness for pies and thought possibly that by getting his mind directed away from the extra amount of effort that would be required to cleaJ; the height he would lighten him mentally ; and it did, for young Sabin vaulted I 3 ft. 2 ins. as pretty as a picture. The conclusion to be drawn from that story is that if you can divert an athlete's mind from the anxieties of his attempt you will succeed in achieving better results. In actual training work, I often find that it lessens the strain of learning a particular skill if you break up the routine by giving a boy complementary allied work. For example, when your long jumper has had his work-out on style, but you want him to do some more training for spring, it may pay you to let him see how much distance he can cover in a standing jump, a standing backwards jump (for balance and arm management), or three hops on the take-off leg for spring ; or, with a javelin or discus thrower, how much ground he can make in six throws, three with the right hand and three with the left. All practices of this sort vary the monotony and maintain interest, while still achieving your object in training. Added to that, work for the throwing man, using first one hand and then the other, is very good. Or again, Armas Valste was telling ·me that at a Finnish School for Throwing-men, they got amazing improvement, as well as breaking the monotony and diverting interest, by setting the throwers to run relay races in four teams comprising shot putters, hammer, discus, and javelin throwers. T hen Bernie Wefers, former world's Sprint Champion and present coach to the New York Athletic Club, has a good yarn in connection with a team that went out to Chicago in r8g8, when Tommy Burke was mighty anxious to have his picture snapped with a camera he had pur– chased and which he entrusted to Bernie, to whom he said : "Don't you take my picture until I say to".