Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VIII.djvu/368

 354 GYMNASTICS are straight, the shoulders are in a line with the feet, and when the lift is made the whole body is straightened. With a heavy weight, an instantaneous lift even of an inch is sufficient. The first effort is usually aided by a strong spring, which is compressed by the weight ; but the lift must be made to clear the spring com- pletely. Between 1,300 and 1,400 Ibs. have been thus lifted. A heavy lift of this kind brings nearly every muscle of the body into action, but it strains particularly the grip, the muscles of the neck and the top of the shoulders, the thighs, and the small of the back. Heavy lifts are liable to produce severe strains, unless the lifting position be perfect. Lifters should pro- ceed gradually from light to heavy weights, and should not attempt heavy lifts except under competent instruction. The so-called lift cures are undoubtedly useful, as they condense a great amount of muscular exercise into a very short time. Lifting is sometimes done with a bar between the legs, grasped with both hands; but this position is not so favorable as that with handles by the sides. In lifting with harness, the great strain is taken from the hands and transferred to the shoulders; 3,000 Ibs. have been lifted in this way. Expert lifters usually lift every day a weight that they can raise with comparative ease, and make a maximum lift only once in two or three weeks. Besides the above, which comprise most of the exercises of the modern gymnasium, a number of oth- ers are sometimes practised, as evolutions on the wooden horse, exercises with wands, &c. Callisthenics (Gr. /cd/Uof, beauty, and adivo^ strength) constitute a system of exercises re- quiring less violence of muscular action than the ordinary gymnastics. This system is con- sidered to be better adapted to the more delicate organization of females, and is generally con- fined hi its application to that sex. Its purpose is to give equal development to all the muscles, and thus produce that harmony of action on which depends not only health, but regularity of proportion and grace of movement. Callis- thenics may be practised mediately or immedi- ately, with or without apparatus. All the ap- paratus required, when used, is a strong chair, a short roller fixed in sockets near the top of an open doorway, a light wooden staff, about 4 ft. in length and half an inch in diameter, a pair of light dumb-bells, a hair mattress, a pair of square weights, and two parallel bars. The exercises with these are simple, and can be readily learned in a lesson or two from a teacher, or from any of the numerous manuals published on the subject. In the chair exer- cise, the pupil plants the feet at a certain dis- tance from the chair, and then leans forward on tiptoe, and rests the hands upon the back of the chair. The exercise consists in moving the body slowly backward and forward be- tween the two fixed points of the toes on the floor and the hands on the back of the chair. This simple manoeuvre is admirably adapted for the expansion of the chest and the develop- ment of all the muscles of the body. In the roller exercise, the pupil is suspended by the hands a few inches above the floor, and swings in this position, or moves the grasp alternately from side to side. A great number of grace- ful and strengthening movements may be made with the staff. One of the best is to hold it in both hands, and pass it successively over the head to the right and left, bringing it down each time below the middle of the person, hi front or behind. The dumb-bells, being grasped by the hands, are to be moved forward and backward horizontally from the chest, or, with the arms below the hips, to be moved circu- larly about the body, until they meet before and behind. The exercise on the mattress i consists merely in raising the person from a horizontal to a sitting posture, with the arms and legs extended and not used to aid in the movement. The square weights may be used hi most cases like the dumb-bells. They have, however, the peculiar advantage of a form which allows of their being placed upon the head. This is one of the best possible means of giving uprightness to the figure, as in thus balancing a weight the spine is necessarily brought by the muscles of the back into a straight position. The negro women of the south, who are in the habit of carrying heavy burdens on their head, are remarkable for erectness of the body. The parallel bars are two poles fastened by their ends to the floor and the ceiling, at a proper distance apart, and of a thickness to be readily grasped by the hands of the pupil, which being done, the body is moved backward and forward be- tween them. Every necessary exercise, how- ever, can be practised without the use of ap- paratus of any kind, and the system of callis- thenics founded on this basis is probably best for general adoption, as it is less liable to abuse from the intemperate zeal of the pupil, and more calculated to preserve the beautiful, which few women will be persuaded to ex- change for any acquisition of strength. When apparatus is used, the effort is more violent, and the muscles may become so prominently developed as to cause the absorption of the soft cellular tissue which cushions the human frame, and which, by its abundance in the fe- male, gives roundness and fulness to the form. The constant handling of the hard material of the apparatus, also, is apt to produce a dispro- portionate enlargement of the hand and harden its texture. The callisthenic exercises without apparatus consist in regular and systematic movements of the entire body. The head and the trunk are moved up and down, forward and backward, to the right and left ; the arms and legs, and hands and feet, are also exer- cised so that every voluntary muscle is brought into action. The object being to give an equal muscular development to the whole frame, the exercises are so arranged that all parts of the body are successively brought into action. None of the movements are complicated, and