MIDDLE AND DISTANCE RUNNING 33 
Breaking Training—One hundred and twelve athletes quit run- 
ning abruptly, and all but one of them are in vigorous health to-day, 
apparently having experienced no ill effects, either from breaking 
training suddenly or from that overdevelopment of heart and lungs 
which is supposed to result from athletics. This seems to indicate, first, 
that unnecessary emphasis has been laid upon breaking training gradu- 
ally and, second, that abnormal development of the heart and lungs 
leading to serious affections of these organs is not to be feared. 
The entire physical organism is developed by training to a condi- 
tion of unusual efficiency in order to meet the demands made upon 
it. It is generally believed that when these demands cease suddenly 
—through abruptly breaking training—tissue degeneration follows, 
inducing physical ailments of greater or less severity. ‘There is, un- 
doubtedly, an alteration in the tissues when the organism is no longer 
called upon for vigorous activity, but the theory that this change is a 
pathological one is not sustained by the facts, in so far at least as 
distance runners are concerned, save when it is aggravated by bad 
habits, dissipation or close confinement. It has not been sustained 
in my experience with school-boy athletes, for in fifteen years I can 
recall but two cases of indisposition after the season, both temporary, 
both in football men, big and full blooded, of the type that require an 
active life. JI think it is not sustained by the experience of the vast 
majority of athletes graduated from our colleges year by year, who 
from choice or necessity engage in business activities which deny leis- 
ure for indulgence in sport, for, if so, it should by this time show 
negatively in the national health statistics, whereas, on the contrary, 
the spread of athletics in the past generation is believed to have raised 
the standard of national physical efficiency. It seems to me likely that 
the ordinary activities of life are sufficient to bridge over the transition 
period, especially as men who have been accustomed to a great deal 
of exercise, and who feel the need of it, will, as a rule, manage to 
get more or less of it into or in connection with their work. I am 
of the opinion that, save in rare instances, the development produced 
by college athletics is not abnormal—as is that of professional strong 
men, weight lifters, acrobats, etc., in whom vitality is sacrificed to 
muscular development—but that it is normal, and constitutional as 
distinguished from muscular development, for none of the college 
sports, except perhaps the hammer throw, develop great muscular 
strength. The character of the athlete’s training supports this belief. 
He trains hard for a season or two (twelve to thirty weeks), but during 
the intermittent periods and the summer his exercise is much less 
severe, and is engaged in solely for pleasure. He works during the 
training season and plays in between, the mid-seasons in this way 
providing just the type of letting down that is supposed to be neces- 
VoL. LXXVvII.—3. 
