A QUESTION OF TRAINING.
It is not a 'bad sign that many people who are not them- selyes active athletes are showing a lively interest in the training of the Oxford and Cambridge men now on the eve of proving their mettle on the Thames. The interest indicates that, like the Swedes, we all in some degree train. Scores of critics attributed Oxford's defeat last year to deficiency of practice in endurance. My own belief is that University runners (quorum pars party' fui) train better than the crews, perhaps because they train more individually. Most members of most boat crews reach a stage of acute nervousness before the race. A good many are forced under encouragement to net or knit or do basket work or practice some such dull mechanic exercise in order to overcome what is called in semi-technical language, " the needle." This excess of " nerviness " is probably due to a wrong system of training. I believe the old system of washing down breakfast beef- steaks with 'tannin in dilution no longer prevails, and that the ills it engendered for generations are less in evidence. But parts of the old fallacies persist. Of course a crew, being a crew, must train in company. If they are " well together " they are a good crew, and by no other road is excellence to be reached. But much sitting is not good for the human economy (witness Aristophanes' delightful reference to " that which fought at Salamis ") ; and what is too much neglected is the exercise, both active and passive (that is, in the way of massage) taken outside the boat. In general the best training for any form of athletics is walking, which some of the doctors tell us " pumps lymph about the body " as no other form of exercise.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
Previous page
