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Take the clubs one in each hand. Standing with the legs slightly apart, sway the clubs upwards towards the right, so that starting from being both near the ground in front of you they are swung till your arms are both directed some 45 degrees above the horizon, the clubs touching each other and both pointing the same way as the well stretched arms which bear them. The body of course must yield to the sway of the clubs, and leans well over towards the right. Then sweep down the clubs in front of you (by which time the body has come upright) and over upwards towards the left, in the same position that they had before had on the right. Then back to the right, then to the left, the body swaying well over each time towards right and left as the clubs are alternately swung upwards on one side and the other. Note that at the end of each swing the face should be directed full towards the side to which the clubs have been swayed. Continue the exercise as long as you find it pleasant. The swaying motion is agreeable enough till you are getting tired, and the exercise is as pleasant as profitable,-unless you are awkward enough to catch your toes with either club, in which case you may desire a pause for rubbing and reflection, the reverie leading to the resolution to avoid that error in future.

Putting up tolerably heavy dumb-bells, that is thrusting them straight upwards from the shoulder, is another exercise admirably adapted to strengthen the side muscles of the waist. It is best to push

them up alternately, and as each approaches its highest point to sway the body over towards the other side so that the upraised hand comes vertically over the other which should then be close to the chest. The upraised hand may then be lowered till it almost reaches the contrary shoulder. It is then brought to the chest on its own side, and the other hand is raised. And so on alternately. The steady swaying of the body from side to side in this exercise is at once pleasant and beneficial.

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CHAPTER VI.

MUSCLES OF THE ARMS.

T is commonly supposed that the exercises of which most Englishmen are fond, and especially rowing, develop the muscles of the arms and shoulders in greater degree than they develop the muscles of the body. This, however, is a mistake. As a rule, Englishmen are better in loins and legs than in shoulders and arms. Rowing in particular affords very insufficient exercise for the arms. Of course,

many rowing men assert that rowing exercises every muscle of the body, an assertion which needs no contradiction, for the very best forms of exercise cannot do more than give employment to a portion of the body. Rowing in heavy boats gives exercise to the shoulders and arms, no doubt; but even in these the work falls more on the back, loins, and legs than on the arms, while in the lighter kinds of boats, and especially in racing boats, the fore arm and upper triceps alone get any work worth considering, the biceps and the rest of the upper arm getting scarcely any work at all. The biceps will gain more from a week's steady work with the dumb-bells and the clubs than from a year of rowing; nay, so far as the

shapeliness of the arm is concerned, rowing positively injures the biceps, by making it look relatively smaller than it had been before. Cricket and lawn-tennis give more exercise to the arms; but, if too exclusively used, they destroy all symmetry. I never yet saw a cricketer of the very enthusiastic sort with wellshaped arms.

Let us now consider the arm in detail, from the shoulder to the hand.

THE SHOULDERS AND UPPER ARM.

For strengthening the shoulder muscles exercise with the clubs is invaluable. So are some of the pulling exercises already considered. But no apparatus of any sort is really necessary.

Standing upright, the arms hanging down, carry the arms from the sides forwards and upwards and then backwards as they pass down to a horizontal position, turning the palms of the hands upwards. Continuing the motion, let the arms be lowered to the sides till the hands strike the backs of the thighs. Repeat the process twenty or thirty times. You will soon feel that the muscles around the shoulder are doing good work and getting well limbered up. With dumb-bells the work is heavier, but if the dumb-bells are too heavy, the work is less effective in making the shoulder muscles quick and active. With clubs the centrifugal tendency is somewhat too marked, until the shoulder muscles have been

strengthened by exercise without them; but later, this exercise with the clubs will be found excellent, and the slow lowering of the clubs from the horizontal position on each side, and rather backward, is particularly beneficial. In fact, in nearly all exercises with the clubs, slow movements of lowering and raising, while the clubs are held far out, are capital for strengthening and steadying the muscles of the upper arms and shoulders.

Next, standing upright, with the arms raised vertically, lower them steadily forwards till they are at the sides, forcibly continuing the motion till they have been carried as far back as they will go, keeping the body upright. Repeat this a score or so of times, each time holding the arms as far back as they can be carried, while you count ten slowly. You will find the muscles of the upper back near the shoulder considerably exercised even without lifting dumb-bells backwards in this way. But as you get accustomed to the work and it grows lighter, use dumb-bells, or any other convenient weights. To limber up the same muscles carry light clubs from over the head forwards, downwards, and so backwards, as far as they will go, keeping the body all the time rigidly upright.

Flinging the hammer, or any other weight which can conveniently be flung hammer-fashion, is capital work for the muscles of the upper back, and the inner portion of the triceps, while the weight is being swung backwards; in delivering the weight by

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