CHAPTER VI.

HOME GYMNASIUMS.

All that people need for their daily in-door exercises is a few pieces of apparatus which are fortunately so simple and inexpensive as to be within the reach of most persons. Buy two pitchfork handles at the agricultural store. Cut off enough of one of them to leave the main piece a quarter of an inch shorter than the distance between the jambs of your bedroom door, and square the ends. On each of these jambs fasten two stout hard-wood cleats, so slotted that the squared ends of the bar shall fit in snugly enough not to turn. Let the two lower cleats be directly opposite each other, and about as high as your shoulder; the other two also opposite each other, and as high above the head as you can comfortably reach.

Again, bore into the jamb, at about the height of your waist, a hole as large as the bar is thick. Now work the auger farther into each hole, till it reaches the first piece of studding, and then an inch or so into that. Find how many inches it is from the jamb to the end of the bore in the studding, and cut the second fork handle in halves. Pass one half through the hole in the jamb, and set its end into the hole in the studding. Bore a similar hole in the other jamb directly opposite, and repeat the last-named process with its nearest studding-piece, and adjust remainder of the fork handle to it. Now cut enough off each piece of the handle to leave the distance between the two about eighteen inches. You have then provided yourself with a pair of bars on which you can try one of the exercises usually practised on the parallel bars, and that one worth almost as much as all the rest. (See Fig. 3.)

On the following page is a sketch of a pair of pulley-weights recently made, designed by Dr. Sargent, which are excellent. Their merits will be seen at a glance. Instead of the weights swaying sideways and banging against the boxes, as they are liable to do in the ordinary old-fashioned pulley-weight boxes, they travel in boxes, A A, between the rods B B. A rubber bed also prevents the weight from making a noise as it strikes the floor, while another capital feature is the arrangement of boxes, in which you may graduate the weight desired by adding little plates of a pound each, instead of the unchanging weight of the old plan.

One of these boxes, with its load, can easily be used as a rowing-weight, by rigging a pulley-wheel a few inches above the floor, and directly in front of the weight box, and then making the rope long enough to also pass under this pulley. A stick of the thickness of an oar handle can then be attached to the end of the rope. If the old-fashioned pulley-weights are preferred, as they are cheaper, long boxes take the place of these iron rods, and a common iron weight travels up and down in the boxes. At some of the gymnasiums--that of the Young Men's Christian Association in New York, for example--these weights, of various sizes, snaffles, ropes, and handles, can all be had, of approved pattern and at reasonable rates.

Here, then, we have a horizontal bar fitted for most of the uses of that valuable appliance, a pair of parallel bars, or their equivalent for certain purposes, a pair of pulling-weights, and a rowing-weight. Now, with the addition of a pair of dumb-bells, weighing at first about one twenty-fifth of the user's own weight, we have a gymnasium more comprehensive than most persons would imagine. Mr. Bryant was contented for forty years with less apparatus even than this, and yet look at the benefit he derived from it![D] The bar, cleats, and parallels ought to be made and put up for not over two dollars, and four or five dollars more will cover the cost of pulling-weights and gear on the old plan, unless a heavy rowing-weight is added, which can be had at five cents a pound, which is also the price of well-shaped dumb-bells.

Here is a gymnasium, then, under cover, rent free, exactly at hand, when one is lightly clad on rising or just before retiring, which takes up but little room, can hardly get out of order, which will last a dozen years. With these few bits of apparatus every muscle of the trunk, nearly all those of the legs, and all those of the arms, can, by a few exercises so simple that they can be learned at a single trying, be brought into active play. The bar in the upper place will be useful mainly for grasping, hanging, or swinging on by the hands, or for pulling one's self up until the chin touches it. In the lower place it enables one to perform very many of the exercises usual on the horizontal bar. The short bars or handles have scarcely more than one office, but that is one of the most important of all exercises for the weak-armed and the weak-chested. This exercise is the one called "dipping." The bars are grasped with the hands, the feet being held up off the floor; then, starting with the elbows straight, gradually lowering until the elbows are bent as far as possible, then rising till they are straight again, and so continuing.

The pulley-weights admit of a great variety of uses, reaching directly every muscle of the hand, wrist, arm, shoulder, chest, abdomen, the entire back and neck; while, by placing one foot in the handle and pulling the weight with it, several of the leg muscles soon have plenty to do, as is also the case with the rowing-weight. The field of the dumb-bells is hardly less extensive.

If but one of these pieces of apparatus can be had, the pulley-weights are the most comprehensive, and so the most important, though it is astonishing how closely the dumb-bells follow; and then they have the great advantage of being portable. Combine with the exercises you can get from all this apparatus those which need none at all, such as rising on the toes, hopping, stooping low, walking, running, leaping, and no more tools are needed to develop whatever muscles one likes. What special work will employ any particular muscle will be indicated later.

If the apparatus is only to be used by a man or boy, a striking-bag can be made of seven or eight pieces of soft calf-skin, so that the whole, when full of sawdust, shall be either round like a ball or pear-shaped, and shall be about fifteen inches in horizontal diameter. This should be hung on a rope from a hook screwed into one of the beams of the ceiling. This makes a valuable acquisition to the snug little home-gymnasium. For a person having a weak chest, and who aims to broaden and deepen that important region, perhaps no better and safer contrivance can be had than the one sketched in Fig. 8, on page 248.

The fact of having a few bits of apparatus close at hand, when one is lightly clad, will tend to tempt any one to get at them a little while morning and evening. If a parent wants children to use them, instead of placing the apparatus in his own room, the nursery, or an empty room where all can have ready access, would be better. Of course, in such case there should be additional weights, and dumb-bells suited to the age and strength of those who are to use them.[E] Indeed, by providing children at home with articles which they like to use, and the use of which brings much direct good, the nursery has a new value--greater, perhaps, when made the most of, than it ever had before. All the exercises needed to make children strong can be readily learned, as all of them are exceedingly simple. In another place these exercises will be indicated. The parent can then select those exercises he sees the child needs, and teach them in a few minutes, so arranging it as to get the children to exercise a certain time every day. As has been shown, the cost of all these appliances will not be nearly as much as a moderate doctor's bill, and quite as little as the patent gymnastic articles, which are so often praised, mostly by people who know little or nothing of other forms of exercise than those fitted to their own apparatus. A large beam, for instance, has been devised, with handles fastened by a contrivance above it, which is meant to restore the spine (when out of place) to its proper position. But there is scarcely anything it can accomplish which cannot readily be done on some one of these simple, old-fashioned, and far less cumbrous pieces of apparatus.

Again, in the large cities there are establishments where the chief and almost the sole exercise is with the lifting-machine. A person, standing nearly erect, is made to lift heavy weights often of several hundred, and even a thousand or more pounds. The writer, when a lad of seventeen, worked a few minutes nearly every day for six months on a machine of this kind; and while it seemed a fine thing to lift six hundred pounds at first, and over a thousand toward the end, there came an unquestioned stiffening of the back, as though the vertebrae were packed so closely together as to prevent their free action. There came also a very noticeable and abnormal development of three sets of muscles: those of the inner side of the forearm, the lower and inner end of the front thigh just above the knee, and those highest up on the back, branching outward from the base of the neck. With considerable other vigorous exercise taken at the same time, this heavy lifting still produced the most marked effect, so that the development caused by it was soon large, out of all proportion compared with that resulting from the other work.

Now, if it is the fact that they who practice on the "health lift" ordinarily take little or no other vigorous exercise, why is not this same partial development going to result? And if this is the case, is it not rather a questionable exercise, especially for those to whom it is so highly recommended--the sedentary--and even worse for those who stand at desks all day? We have seen it make one very stiff and ungainly in his movements, and it is natural that it should; for he who does work of the grade suited to a truck-horse is far more likely to acquire the heavy and ponderous ways of that worthy animal than he who spreads his exercise over all, or nearly all, his muscles, instead of confining it to a few, and who makes many vigorous and less hazardous efforts instead of a single mighty one. All the muscles of the arm, for instance, which are used in striking out, putting up a dumb-bell, or any sort of pushing, are wholly idle in this severe pulling--more so, even, than they are in the oarsman when rowing. Hence, unless they get even work, there will be loss of symmetry, one-sided development, and only partial strength.

Another popular piece of apparatus is the "parlor gymnasium;" and, though needlessly expensive, it is a surprisingly useful affair, if once one knows how to use it to the best effect. But it has some disadvantages which, while not conceded by its inventor, it is yet well enough to know. In its more elaborate and complete form it is called the "Parlor Rowing Apparatus," and is also described as "the most complete rowing apparatus in the world." In reality it is very poorly adapted to the oarsman's wants, and tends to get him into habits he should, if he wishes to be a good oar, be careful to refrain from. It is a matter of supreme importance in rowing to get a strong grip at the beginning of the stroke, and to put the weight on heavily then; while it is a glaring fault to do anything like jerking toward the end of the stroke. But with this parlor rowing-machine, instead of lifting a solid weight, as in the ordinary rowing-weight, a rubber strap, or, rather, two rubber straps, are simply stretched while the stroke is pulled, and then slackened to begin the next. The trouble is that the straps have to be pulled nearly half the length of the stroke before it begins to grow hard to pull, so that throwing one's weight on heavily at the beginning causes the rower to feel somewhat as he would if, in taking a stroke in a boat, his oar-blade had missed the water entirely, or as a boxer who unexpectedly beats the air. The better the beginning of a stroke is caught in the water, the more the fulcrum of water itself solidifies, and by so much more can the rower throw his weight on then, and at just the right time. The effect with the rubber straps is the very reverse; for, in throwing the weight on at the beginning, the straps do not offer enough resistance to have the desired effect, while they offer too much at the finish of the stroke. This same defect stands out plainly in some of the pushing exercises done with it, as well as in using it as a lifting-machine, making it necessary, for the latter purpose, not to catch hold of the handles at all, but, as we have seen the inventor himself do, somewhere toward the middle of the straps, else the knees would get entirely straightened before the tension became great, which would force the bulk of the work to be done with the hands. Great care must be taken, also, to have the bolts at the farther ends of these straps fastened very firmly into the wood-work, or wherever they are attached; for if, under a heavy pull, one of these bolts should work out, it would be in great danger of striking the performer in the eye or elsewhere with terrific force.

Still, with these few defects, this parlor rowing apparatus is an excellent contrivance, and, used intelligently and assiduously, ought to bring almost any development a person might reasonably hope for, though its range is hardly as wide as that of these few bits of house apparatus before named, when taken together. There is nothing novel about the latter, excepting Dr. Sargent's apparatus for the chest. All have been known for a generation or more. But the many uses of them are but little known, and their introduction into our homes and schools has hardly yet begun. Yet, so wide is the range of exercise one can have with them, and of exercise of the very sort so many people need; and so simple is the method of working them, so free, too, from danger or anything which induces one to overwork, and so inexpensive are they and easy to make, that they ought to be as common in our homes as are warm carpets and bright firesides. Every member of the family, both old and young, should use them daily, enough to keep both the home-gymnasium and its users in good working order.

FOOTNOTES:

[D] See page 169.

[E] See page 266.