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Show CORRECT WALKING IS ONE OF THE BEST EXERCISES. By Julian Hawthorne in N. Y. American. Ameri-can. The ordinary human walk is a good example of how to do a thing, which, clone well, is one of the best things a man could do for himself. N Anatomists, indeed, explain to us that even the ordinary human walk is a complicated process, a miracle of balance, bal-ance, a fall constantly prevented: until we f?el like the famous Englishman who was lost in admiration of himself at the discovery that he had been all his life talking prose without ever suspecting sus-pecting it. The fact remains that ninety-nine out of a hundrJd persons walk wrong, and wonder, perhaps, to hear walking extolled as a good excuse. They walk every day, and never noticed any particular benefit from it. The ordinary persons walks too slowly slow-ly for one thing. Two and a half or three miles an hour is about his average. aver-age. His step, even at this gait, is two or- three inches shorter than it should be, so that he seldom straightens his knees, and his calves, in consequence, and those big muscles at the back of his upper legs get no work. His feet come down listlessly; he shambles. Meanwhile his trunk lolls down between be-tween his hip bones, and his chest and shoulders are slack. His head is projected pro-jected forward. He swings? one arm, because he can't help it: but, on the other hand, he is probably carrying "a cigar or a cigarette, so that arm is kept at his side with the elbow bent. He cannot be said to draw his breath; he simply let what must come into his lungs do so automatically, and through his half-open mouth. So far as possible he transports himself hither and thither as if he were still slouching in his chair; and the "exercise" is of about as much use, to him. Our Quadrumanous Ancestor An-cestor of Arboreal Habits could walk as well as that. You must not, when you walk, shamble sham-ble like an ape; neither must you strut like a rooster. You must walk. like a king the king of creation. Here is something worth doing: do it as if you comprehended Its dignity, grace and purpose. Hold your head in such a way that you always feel the back of your neck lightly pressing against your collar, and keep your chin in and your lips shut. Don't try to draw your s-houlders back; that will only bring your head forward aigain; but lift up and square out your chest, and draw in that abdomen; you will find that your j back is now flat, and that your arms swing rythmically and vigorously as you step out. And let your step be free and bold, as if your foot were on your I native heath, and you were proud of it. Inhale the air as if you liked it, deep down, till your ribs swell put, and keep taking it in While you make, at least three steps; with practice you can make six or seven, or more. Let it come out again naturally, in a gust. As you go forward your shoulders will sw ing spontaneously spon-taneously from side to side; do not exaggerate ex-aggerate this swing, but don't suppress it either. Remember that the main object of walking is to get ahead, but observe also that your right or left leg is thrown forward, the corresponding shoulder tends to make a lunge in the same direction, while the other shoulder recedes. The whole body accommodates itself naturally and flexibly to the movements of the legs. The drawing up of the chest extends the waist, which acts as a pivot on which the alternating swing of the shoulders works. Now, let us attend to your legs. Throw your leg straight forward to a di.sta.nce proportioned to it length, and to the speed of your pace. ! Do not send it forward loosely, and not stiffly, either. Let your heels strike the ground smartly and firmly, and your body will instantly pass over it and beyond it to the ball of the foot, the knee straightening straighten-ing as it does so. Be not in too much haste to get that foot off the ground, and let it come away with a slight push or spring, and at. this moment you must be conscious of the contraction, or hardening, of the front and back muscles of the upper leg. and then of the calf, which imparts the onward shove to the next step. The import- ance of this tensing of the leg cannot j be exaggerated. It marks the difference between the walk and .the shamble, be- tween exercise and shirking. The, gluteal muscle should participate in this contraction, and if you don't know what the gluteal muscle is, look it up in the dictionary: there is nothing obscure ob-scure and mysterious about it. Ter- , form all these movements with a cer- j tain elasticity and harmony, as if you and your limbs belonged together, and j were not a fortutious aggregration of unrelated parts. j This is walking. Fast walking is allied al-lied to it, but is not quite the same thing. I will sneak of it another time. But this is just everyday walking, at the rate of four miles an hour, or a trifle less. You must train yourself to be a judge of pace to know just what rate you are walking. Never let yourself your-self get so slow- as three and a half miles an hour, but if you must, for any reason, walk slowly, you can get exercise exer-cise out of it by contracting the leg muscles vigoriously. As soon as you have begun to get an idea of what real walking is, you will find out for yourself your-self how to do this. I see thousands of persons upon the streets every clay, who might be greatly improving their physique and Health; if they would but use the time they take in dragging or shuffling themselves from place to place in real walking. Shuffling, hobbling, dawdling, dragging, are much more wearisome than walking walk-ing is. when you have found out how-to how-to walk. It will do you little or no. good to go shambling and slouching down Broadway, instead of taking the car: but if you will walk down, keeping keep-ing your body light and rlert. conscious of the play of your muscles, breathing breath-ing as if you were alive, and filling out your chest stoutly, it will do you more good then you would belive. If I were to get myself "in condition," as the trainers say, and were restricted to some one form of exercise to accomplish ac-complish it, I would select walking; for all real walking is good both for the surface muscles of the body and for the "interials," as some ingenious person called them. And fast walking six miles an hour and upward is one of the hardest exercises in the whole category. cate-gory. But you could count upon the fingers of your two hands, almost, the mercin New ' York today " who have walked six miles, fair heel and toe, in sixty minutes. Our athletes are both too lazy and too impatient for fast walking, just as they are for long distance dis-tance running. But laziness and impatience im-patience are fatal obstacles to the best physical development. A man who has made himself a good walker has received re-ceived the best possible training preliminary pre-liminary to undertaking any branch of athletics he may have a mind to. I have received many letters from persons making comments, or wanting information. Most of the information will be furnished in the articles as we go along. Some letters will be answered individually, and now and then a letter that seems worth it will be printed. I shall be glad to hear from any one who has something sensible to ask or to say. , |
