Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/160

Rh In other words, exercise with the arms, legs, or trunk, relieves the congested brain as surely, and, of course, far more healthfully than bleeding.

To return to the need and superiority of the light over the heavy dumb-bell: exercise with the latter is necessarily brief. The single heavy dumb-bell can be lifted from four to twenty times, say, according to its weight. The whole body is violently strained for the brief effort. Quite often, if the lifting be not carefully graduated in weight, the in-rushing blood bursts some of the finer net-work of the vessels, or the delicate covering of the muscles is rudely torn, and the would-be athlete is an invalid for life.

The one-pound or two-pound dumb-bell strains nothing: it only adds to the swing of the hands. The exercise can be varied so as to develop upper and lower limbs and trunk. It is particularly adapted to those who are not trained athletes. Say, the arms are thin and weak and soft, and you want to increase their size, strength, and firmness. There are only a few regular motions for this, and they can be learned in a minute. The hands, grasping the dumb-bells, are hanging by the sides: begin by raising them, bending the elbow and touching the front of the shoulder with the ball of the thumb; down again, and up again: that is all. You