4 Thaddeus L. Bolton and Elconora T. Miller 



muscles and tendons change their relative positions, and in that 

 way the adhesions are broken. Continual exercise is necessary 

 to prevent them reforming. The rupturing of the adherent tis- 

 sues produces local inflammations which are felt as soreness of 

 the members. A. very small amount of exercise will prevent the 

 formation of adhesions. Other conditions follow a want of suffi- 

 cient exercise. These are the growth and deposit of fat in and 

 around the muscles and the development of a flabbiness of the 

 muscular tissues themselves. These can be checked only by vig- 

 orous and systematic exercises regularly followed up. In games 

 and gymnastic exercises such as basket-ball, jumping, ladder- 

 climbing, etc., the painful sensations persist for some days, and 

 the exercise must be kept up vigorously until the muscles and 

 tendons become hardened, that is, until the inflammation from the 

 rupturing of adhesions and blood vessels in the sheaths are healed 

 and callouses are developed where the rubbing is severe and 

 persistent. The training of prize fighters and athletes is first 

 of all, then, a process of hardening and toughening during which 

 all the muscles and other tissues of the body share in the devel- 

 opment which renders them less liable to injury. This is a 

 physiological and not a psychological process. The disappear- 

 ance of this muscle soreness is not to be attributed to our becom- 

 ing used to the discomfort and hence not noticing it, but to the 

 fact that the conditions that gave rise to the painful sensations 

 cease to exist. 



Secondly, practice results in acquisition of more or less skill 

 and agility in the performance of a movement ; that is, one has 

 a better knowledge of the movement and is capable of more ready 

 execution. From the physiological point of view skill is growth 

 in the perfection of muscle coordination, and it means not only 

 proper coordination, but certainty with which the coordination 

 can be repeated successively and without variation. A greater 

 or less degree of awkwardness characterizes movements made 

 before practice, that is, there is superfluous and misdirected activ- 

 ity. Before practice we do not know how to apply the power at 

 the point where it will be most effective.; during practice there 

 comes about a reduction or suppression of superfluous and extra- 



82 



