Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/169

This page has been validated.
GYMNASTICS.
163

adding heavier and heavier rings, he continued to throw weights and lift weights till he became the physical superior of his insulter and at last a modern Samson, able to handle burdens in a way that transcends belief—and incidentally equally expert in the task of grappling with the burdens of existence. Bag-punching may be made a diverting intermezzo of more strenuous exercises, and it is altogether a good plan to vary the programme of gymnastic prescriptions, now and then. There, as elsewhere, a change of employment will make frequent fast days less necessary. Canadian lumbermen, in the blest absence of Blue-law spies, often devote their Sundays to hunting trips and scramble up and down deep mountain ridges, with all the energy of sportsmen who have passed the week in a city office and need their holidays for outdoor exercise. Those anti-Sabbatharian woodcutters may actually get a double dose of hard work on their leisure day, but cheerfully go to chopping again on Monday morning, while a month of uniform drudgery would probably put half of them on the sick-list.

That there are true specifics on the remedy-list of the gymnasium, as well as of the drug store, is proved by the efficacy of the movement-