one, but instructive as showing what is the work for which the calf muscles are intended. The exercise is also good for the knees. (I may remark in passing that many of the exercises I have suggested for the thighs and body, and many of those which I am about to suggest for the leg below the knee, are good for making the knees supple, lissome, and strong, so that I do not think it necessary to describe special exercises for this purpose.) Walk a hundred steps (in your bedroom or sitting-room, if you like) on the toes, letting the body sink well at each step as the heel draws near the ground, and be springily raised as the heel rises. There is no exercise in this, you probably think, as you take the first ten or twelve steps; but by the time you have taken a hundred steps you will find your knees beginning to be rather tired (if you have kept up properly the alternate rise and fall of the body). The calves have not apparently been very much tried. Yet as you rest after the exercise, a certain something suggests that the calves have been "got at."

It is the rising and sinking of the heels which has given the calves work. Therefore, attend now especially to this particular movement. Standing with the head well up, chest out, and shoulders thrown back, the knees set as if you were about to begin the toe-touching exercise already described, and the feet pretty close together but not touching, and the toes turned out, steadily rise on the toes, after the ballet-dancer's fashion, as high as you can. Then

slowly lower your heels till they touch the ground, keeping the knees all the time well back. Steadily rise again till you are standing on tip-toe. Sink again. As you next rise, slacken your knees a bit and lower the body till you can feel the calf-muscles, and note how they tauten as the body is being raised. Resume the straight-knee condition, and steadily rise and sink from the toes as before. Repeat as long as convenient-forty to fifty times the first day, but later you may take several hundreds.

No exercise more directly affects the calves than this. "A gentleman of our acquaintance," says Blaikie, "of magnificent muscular and vital developments, was not satisfied with the girth of his calves, which was 144 inches. At our suggestion, he began practising this simple raising and lowering of the heels. In less than four months he had increased the girth of each calf one whole inch. When asked how many strokes a day he averaged, he said, ' from fifteen hundred to two thousand,' varied some days by his holding in each hand during the process a 12-lb. dumb-bell, and then only doing one thousand or thereabouts. The time he found most convenient was in the morning on rising and just before retiring at night. Instead of the work taking much time, seventy a minute was found a good ordinary rate, so that fifteen minutes at each end of the day was all he needed. But this was a great and very rapid increase, especially for a man of thirty-five; far more than most persons would naturally be contented with,

yet suggestive of the stuff and perseverance of the man who accomplished it."

However, the exercise is rather a slow one, though effective enough. Many others are available which, if they do not act so directly on the calf, are better for the general development of the leg.

Quick walking, with hard pressure of toes and soles against the ground, will be found very capital work for the feet and calves. Walking up hill in the same way is even better. Blaikie strongly recommends running on the fore part of the feet. But as running, on this part of the feet only is not good running and it is a pity to spoil the style, I would simply recommend the careful avoidance of flat-footed running. It is neither well to run with too much foot action nor with too little, as when running flatfoot. By aiming at a style between the two, you get the most effective form, and at the same time develop well the muscles of the calf and of the upper thigh. Note that in the actual drive back with the lower limb, by which forward propulsion is accomplished, the heel should come first to the ground (whatever runners may say, and doubtless believe, about the heel not touching the ground at all), then the midsole, and finally the ball of the foot and the toes, the last forward coming from the front of the foot. In this part of the leg stroke the knee should be well back. If special attention is directed to this part of each stride, the calves will get an extra allowance of work, while the running style will be perceptibly

improved. But if you care to get a quick style, avoid over-springiness. The spring of the gait should only suffice to reduce the vertical impact to a minimum, taking off the jar which is perceptible in flat-footed running; but any springiness by which an unnecessary rise and fall of the body are produced is a fault of style, and involves more or less waste of strength, or loss of velocity, or both.

Blaikie further recommends hopping, which is, no doubt, the most effective of all exercises for enlarging and hardening the calf. But skill in hopping is not worth very much in ordinary life. The accomplishment is one which most persons would prefer to avail themselves of in private; and even in a bedroom persistent hopping might be regarded as a rather objectionable practice. The only advantage of hopping is, that it tells very quickly and tires very

soon.

Jumping is far more satisfactory, being in the first place much more useful, tending to strengthen and improve more limbs and muscles than hopping, and having a saner aspect in public. You can often get the chance of taking a good run across a heath or common presenting abundant opportunities for light leaping.

The ankles and feet, to the toe-tips, will be sufficiently worked by the exercises given for the legs generally, and, indeed, by many of those recommended for the upper half of the trunk.

TH

CHAPTER VIII.

HOW TO REDUCE FAT.

HOSE who are not troubled with undue adipose deposits need not imagine that therefore what is said here about reducing fat can have no interest for them. Most of the plans to which I refer are such as are good for those who wish simply to be strong in body. These methods depend on the avoidance of whatever overtaxes or weakens the system; and though the strong may be able to dispose of an extra amount of food, or to resist influences which injuriously affect the weaker, they will be none the worse for following those rules by which the energies of the body are increased, or developed, or saved from being unduly taxed. Yet of course some parts of a system for reducing fat need not be followed by those who have no tendency, or little, to become obese.

It would be difficult to say whether corpulence is to be regarded as a greater nuisance in its direct or in its indirect effects-whether it is worse to be loaded constantly with the weight of five or six suits of clothes, to have the circulation impeded, the liver obstructed, and the lungs oppressed, or to be