Exercise : Part 2

Keeping Fit all the Way
by Walter Camp

(Page 2 of 12)

What Worry Does

Every man who has reached a high place in his community or who has become a leader of note knows that executive work has a tremendous effect upon the nerves and body. If the man becomes run-down the smallest decision gives him difficulty; it seems weighted with enormous possibilities of disaster. A problem, which under normal conditions he would turn over with equanimity to his assistant, takes on, in his nervous state, a seriousness that leads to hours of worry. And yet if he goes away on a vacation he returns to find that nine-tenths of these troublesome things have been well taken care of during his absence. Moreover, now that he has come back in a state of physical health and with nerves that are normal, he sees that these awful problems were simply exaggerated in his own mind by his overwrought physical condition.

Few people realize the effect of worry upon the digestion.

An experiment was once tried upon a cat, which was fed a dish of milk, stroked until it purred, and played with for half an hour. The animal was then killed and the stomach examined; the milk was perfectly digested. Another cat was taken and given a similar saucer of milk; then its fur was rubbed the wrong way and it was teased and annoyed as much as possible for half an hour. Upon examining the stomach of the second cat it was found that not a step in the process of digestion had taken place.

Americanitis

It is wise to study the condition that we might almost call "Americanitis." The American youth, as shown in the Olympic games, is not only a match in speed, strength, and stamina for the youth of other nations, but when it comes to the individual specialist even then the American-trained boy is his superior. We smash records regularly. We have been doing this for a decade with hardly a break. Even those who criticize our tendency to develop individuals are obliged to admit that this continual advance in athletic prowess fosters the spirit of emulation among the masses. Moreover, we are improving in the way of distributing our efforts, and more and more men in schools and colleges come out for physical training and development. We have not by any means perfected the system, but it is on the way. Supplementing this general athletic development comes now the introduction into the curriculum of military drill.

Finally compulsory military education or at least the compulsory physical part of it, throughout the country will set up the youth of the coming race in a way hitherto unthought of. It is safe to say that the next decade will see our youth, and men up to the age of forty, in far better physical condition than is the case today.

The Price of Success

The men of this country, with their forcefulness and their ambition, their stern desire to succeed quickly and to work furiously if necessary to obtain that success, are apt to forget that Nature meant man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow; and that just so far as he departs from this primal method of supporting himself and his family he must pay toll. Almost before he realizes it the American youth is a staid man of business. Only yesterday he was a boy at play, and today he finds himself known by his first name or nickname only to a few old classmates whom he sees at his college reunions. He is Judge This or Honorable That. He has had no time to realize that somewhere he has lost fifteen or twenty years in this wild rush for fortune and fame. Now in some hour of enforced reflection during a temporary illness he begins to count the cost, to think how little he has in common with that growing boy of his. But still he does no more than wish that he might have more time for play and could see his way to longer and less interrupted vacations. Perhaps on his next period of relaxation he plunges into an orgy of physical exercise - plays to the point of exhaustion - enjoys it, too, and sleeps like a log. Oh, this is the life once more!

When he returns to town he determines to take more time for exercise; he will keep up his tennis or golf. But once back at work, he must make up for lost time. He returns with an improved appetite and he indulges it. Soon his vacation benefits have worn off, together with his vacation tan. The muscles slacken again, the waist-line increases. He feels a little remorse over the way he has broken his good resolutions, but of course he cannot neglect his business. Then, after a hard week, followed by some carelessness or exposure, he thinks that he has the grip or a cold. He is lucky if he stays at home and calls in his physician. He does not pick up. Now, for the first time, he hears from the doctor words that he has caught occasionally about men far older than himself - "blood pressure." But he is under fifty! The doctor says he must go slower. Now begins a dreary round indeed! He has never learned to go slow! He is an old man at fifty. If lucky, he has made money. But what is the price? He has found precious little fun in those fifteen or twenty years since he was a boy. Of course he has had his high living, his motor, his late hours. His cigars have been good, but he has never enjoyed them so much as he did the old pipe at camp. His dinners and late suppers can't compare with the fish and bacon of the woods.

What a fool he has been!

Perhaps he has caught himself in time. If so he is in luck and Nature may partially forgive him and give him a chance to "come back." He is well scared and he means to be good. But the scare wears off, and then, too, "business" presses him on again. And finally, still well this side of sixty, perhaps, Nature taps him on the shoulder and says, "Stop!"

"But," he pleads, "I'll be good!"

"You are in the way," she replies, "and the sooner you make place for wiser men the better I should have my work done."

But it is not alone the business world that is full of these untimely breakdowns. We lose many a man in the professional ranks with ten years of his best work before him, the man of ripened intellect, with his store of reading and experience - stopped oftentimes in the very midst of that masterpiece whose volumes would be read by future generations.

Executives whose value to corporations is increasing in a compound degree suddenly receive notice that the continually bent bow is cracking; almost immediately they lose their ambition and initiative, they become prematurely aged. These are indeed expensive losses!

And all this could be saved at an expenditure of a few paltry hours a week devoted to the repair of the physical man; given that and we may safely promise that he should round out the full measure of his mental labors.

The men of this country are going the pace at a far more reckless rate than that of any other nation. Philosophers like Prof. Irving Fisher are sounding the warning. should we heed it?

About the Author

Walter Chauncey Camp (1859 - 1925) was a sports writer and football coach known as the "Father of American Football". Along with John Heisman, Amos Alonzo Stagg, Glenn Scobey Warner, and George Halas, Camp was one of the most significant people in the history of American football.