Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/136

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III.

MUSCULAR POWER SECONDARY TO RESPIRATORY POWER.

"Muscular power," says a leading English authority on training (Maclaren), "plays quite a secondary part in rowing; respiratory power makes the first claim, and makes it more exactingly than in any other mode of physical exertion in which men can be engaged."

I do not think that rowing makes a greater claim on "the wind" than any other exercise. I am convinced that a heavier demand on the lungs is made by both fast swimming and boxing—undoubtedly by the latter. Probably nine pugilistic contests out of a dozen are decided by superior "wind," and this is true of almost all fast-swimming matches.

In another place in this article reference is made to the need of deep-breathing for the attainment of general health. But it is not deep-breathing alone that the struggling athlete needs. He must, by practice, attain the art of holding his breath and adding thereto. Even in deep-breathing the lungs are never emptied of resident air. Fresh air must be stored for a time in the lungs