Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/204

192 occupation, that of clerk, is light, so that the natural development of a skater has not been interfered with by other causes, as in the case of McCulloch. The plotting of the measurements of these three great skaters, Johnson, Norsing, and Nortwedt, on Chart A, shows the remarkable similarity of their build. All are about the same height and weight, and we find in all certain characteristics. The typical speed skater has a short body, capacious, round chest, with well-developed back; his thighs are strong and very



long, as are also his legs. His feet are large and flat. His weak points are his calves, due to the long, fiat skate to which his flattened foot is so closely bound. The large muscles of his chest are not exercised, and his arms, held lying idly along his back, are unused except in an occasional spurt, when they are brought down and swung straight from the shoulder. They say that they catch less wind held that way, and that the position is restful to the tense extensors of the back. This is, no doubt, true, but the result is