Why? The Science of Athletics

68 WHY?-THE SCIENCE OF ATHLETICS less proportion in different phases, and it is known that the heart achieves its biggest innings of growth in the period of general development. Hence it follows that the heart of a boy of fifteen is smaller in proportion to the size of his body than will be the case when he has reached 20 years. This is a sufficient answer to those who advo– cate exhausting cross-country runs for young schoolboys." It might usefully be added, "And for those who are still in favour of the Victor Ludorum competition at schools." Michael Murphy, the great Irish-American U.S.A. Olympic Coach, declared that of all the athletes he bad known and trained he had not been · able to trace the death of one of them to the so-called "athlete's heart"; and I would add that of all the hundreds of young men and boys who have passed through my own hands I have never known any one of them to develop heart strain through sensible training, combined with a reasonable allowance of participation in competition. Murphy always held that constant exercise · enlarges the heart gradually in proportion to the development of the other organs of the body, and stated specifically, "The larger and stronger the heart the slower will be its beats . . In other words, a heart with a pulse-beat of 6o to the minute will do the same amount of work as another heart with a pulse-beat of 72. But why should one be concerned if his heart, beating 6o times to the minute, sends the same amount of blood through his arteries as his comrade's heart, beating 72 to the minute ?" So far, I have given in some detail the views of various authorities. Now let us examine the results of some specific experiments that were carried out in America. The investigators were a doctor who was a well– known heart and lung specialist and an equally famous athletic coach, who h.ad as their purpose the determina– tion of the immediate effects of vigorous athletic exercise upon trained and untrained subjects. The first subject was a · trained champion walker. A diagram of the