Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/157

132 And so with other contests: running is not only second best, but is absolutely necessary in each, for running excels all exercises for developing "the wind." This is simply because the muscular action of the runner enables him to hold and increase his wind more easily than is possible under the varied and violent arm and chest motions of the boxer, the oarsman, or the swimmer.

A boxer, in training for a contest, ought not to confine his sparring to one or two men. He ought to spar with new and able men, and with as many as possible. It is a radical and common error to confine the exercise to one opponent, no matter how good he may be. After a dozen bouts together, two men know every stop on each other's gamut—even the variations are not surprises. New men, new ways. The boxer or the swordsman who uses himself only to a single opponent, is very apt to lack confidence with a stranger. On the other hand, he who is used to many antagonists welcomes a new man with a powerful sense of knowledge and confidence.

Another exercise in sparring, next best to the opposition of a living boxer, is a hanging bag—not a sand-bag or a flour-bag, as of old—but an air-bag.

The heavy sand-bag (thirty or forty pounds