Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/131

106 and exhaustive conflicts, and whose lives in the intervals were usually dissipated and full of excitement. But it must be remembered that, to start with, these men were exceptional for health, strength, and probable longevity.

These figures and facts seem to point to a possible training, based on scientific principles, by which the highest possible muscular results may be obtained without injury to health.

II.

THE EVILS OF IMPROPER TRAINING.

The "system of training" pursued by most of those who train athletes, especially boxers, is, in the main, traditional, arbitrary, and unscientific. The main evils and dangers of the "system" are over-training, reduction of nervous force for the sake of muscular power, disregard of instruction in respiration, subjecting individuals of different needs and appetites to the same rule, and training men who are from the first unfit to be trained.

The end of training is to keep up the top speed or top force for a short or a long period. To do the latter requires the full development of the body, and long, careful, and patient preparation.