Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/41

Rh highly specialized trainer of to-day was developed, and consequently must have trained under more or less imperfect methods. It should also be remembered that unlike football and crew men, runners are not select specimens of plrysical manhood, picked because of their strength and vigor. On the contrary, track men are fragile in comparison. Strip a group of football and crew candidates and place them side by side with a group of track men and no one could fail to be impressed by the contrast in strength and development.

Vitality.—Whether distance running drains vitality or not can not be demonstrated in terms of percentage, as one may speak of the number of bodily injuries or of functional heart derangements. A conclusion must be reached deductively, if at all, from the statistics given by the men; the character of the injuries they have received; the nature of the benefits which accrued from their running; the probable effect of these injuries and benefits on their vital organs; the state of their health at the present time, etc. Vitality must be determined by the condition of the blood, and of the organs which maintain life, the heart, lungs, stomach, kidneys, etc. If running has resulted in strengthening the heart and lungs of these athletes, in improving their digestion, in stimulating to greater efficiency the functioning of their vital organs, in endowing them with greater physical vigor, it has evidently given them greater vitality, greater resistance to disease; if, on the other hand, it has injured their hearts, weakened their lungs, injuriously affected their vital organs; if a fair percentage of them have become broken down athletes, it has impaired their physical vigor and drained vitality. Every one admits the value of running per se. It is generally recognized as the exercise par excellence which develops vital strength, strength of heart and lungs, the kind of strength that carries a man to a green old age. No one of our athletic teams regularly presents to the eye such evidence of perfect physical condition as does the track team. The practical value from a physiological point of view of all the school and college sports is in direct ratio to the amount of running involved. Racing in itself may be injurious, ten per cent, of the men believe it is, although their letters show that half of these are opposed to it, not because of definite and positive injury known to result from it, but from the vague general feeling referred to on the first page of this inquiry, namely, the belief that it is too great a strain. And this investigation shows that certain injuries do result from it, though much less serious than is generally believed. On the other hand, a large majority of the men deny that racing is necessarily injurious, affirming that injury when incurred is caused by poor condition, and that if a man is fit when he toes the mark, he is not likely to injure himself, no matter how hard he runs. But it is impossible to consider racing alone, since running is inseparably connected with it. Boys can not race without training, and will not