Foot-ball and the physique of its devotees, from the point of view of physical training / by Henry G. Beyer.

  • Beyer, Henry Gustav, 1850-1918.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Foot-ball and the physique of its devotees, from the point of view of physical training / by Henry G. Beyer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    joints, will make accurate tests impossible; and hence the larger number of them—some of the best among them—could not be examined a second time immediately after the close of the season, and had to be thrown out of our observations to make the remaining ones as nearly-accurate as is possible under the circumstances. Here is another reason why it is so difficult to obtain large numbers of observations in this field, and which also may largely account for the fact that no observations of this nature made at some of the other colleges of the United States have, at least up to the present, come to my notice. Attention has already been called to the “ vital index ” (Enebuske) as having a certain significance in relation to the results obtained by physical training. The vital index is obtained by dividing the lung- capacity of a person as ascertained by means of the spirometer, and expressed in litres, by his weight in kilos. Demeny, in France, from his studies on children, found that in those of the same age the lung- capacity was proportioned to their weight, and that if a curve were con- structed of lung-capacity and weight in relation to age, the two curves come out parallel. Demeny found, furthermore, that this ratio was much higher in per- sons having undergone systematic physical training than in those who had not. These studies of Demeny have been repeated in a measure by Enebuske, and their correctness in his hands appears to have received additional support. Demeny, quoted by Enebuske,1 makes this state- ment regarding the index: “ By taking young gymnasts and arranging them according to the decreasing value of their ratio of lung-capacity and weight, we have been able to ascertain that thereby we have made a classification that corresponds sensibly to their degree of resistance.” From our own limited experience with this index we believe it will be found correct for the large majority of cases. Before leaving the subject of total strength, I must add what appears to me to be a point of considerable interest. It might quite naturally occur to the reader that this so rapidly acquired strength was but a tem- porary affair, and would vanish again as quickly as it was acquired. As I was myself under this impression, I searched my records, and found that I was somewhat mistaken. In the seventeen players of last fall (1892) the maximum loss six months after the close of the season was only 5 kilos, or less than 1 per cent. Thus, no matter what we may find with regard to the staying qualities of the strength acquired through other sports, foot-ball strength, according to these observations, seems to stay pretty well. Summary.—In summing up the facts ascertained in the above obser- vations, we obtain as a result of two months’ foot-ball training on the 1 Observations on the Results ot Pedagog-Gymnastlcs of the Ling System, made at the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, Boston, 1893.