668 VITALITY AND EFFICIENCY WITH RESTRICTED DIET. 



(3) Subnormal gymnasium and athletic performance, as shown by 

 inability to continue the rapid calisthenics or to do the heavy apparatus 

 work for the prescribed time and with the usual subjective satisfaction, 

 and generally to produce effectively sudden bursts of energy. 



These feelings or experiences were not homogeneously distributed 

 throughout the whole period of 4 months, during which the reduced- 

 diet experiment lasted. The adverse criticisms apply for the most 

 part to the periods of low diet intake, i. e., during the periods of transi- 

 tion. During the 2 or 3 weeks prior to the Christmas vacation, a 

 period we have selected as one of our maintenance periods, and again 

 during a similar maintenance period near the end of the experiment, 

 unfavorable conmients were rare. The men said that they could get 

 on indefinitely at that level and that their working ability was sensibly 

 normal. 



PHYSICAL CONDITION AND ENDURANCE TESTS. 



A permanent record of the physical condition of Squad A was made 

 on February 1 by a series of motion pictures. After a few weeks 

 or months the personal impression of the appearance or action of a 

 group of men becomes very indefinite, but a motion picture gives a 

 permanent record of the exact occurrences and condition at the time 

 of taking the picture. In all the pictures it was arranged that one of 

 us should indicate the speed of action by swinging an Indian club to 

 the beat of a metronome timed in seconds. Thus on the projection 

 of the pictures one could see instantly whether the movement was 

 abnormally rapid or abnormally slow. By timing the reproduction 

 to correspond to the movement of the Indian club, the actual time 

 of the movements of the subjects could be determined. This method 

 of recording the rhythm of movement has been very successful, 

 although special projection conditions are necessary. These motion 

 pictures showed the men (1) in four typical gymnastic exercises, (2) 

 ''chinning the bar," and (3) diving from a springboard. After the men 

 had dressed and eaten dinner, they returned to the gymnasium for an 

 arm-holding contest to determine their physical endurance. 



For the motion pictures in the morning, the men put on black 

 swimming jockey straps and assembled in the gymnasium under the 

 leadership of Mr. Greyson C. Gardner (Gar), who had been teaching 

 gymnastics in the Springfield high school during the winter. The 

 four typical gymnastic exercises involved considerable muscular 

 activity. Possibly the most fatiguing and the longest continued was 

 that designated in gymnasium parla,nce as ''arm flexions with stride 

 jumps." The men went through this exercise at a very rapid tempo, 

 accomplishing 17 jumps in 18 seconds. Two sections of film were made 

 for these four exercises, the second section showing an exact duplicate 

 of the series of exercises performed for the first section of film. After 

 the test for "chinning the bar," which will be discussed in detail later, 



