Breathe

PROPERLY TO LIVE BETTER

By M. ROBERT BEASLEY

WHO WANTS TO BE A

Monster?

E PRINT THESE PICTURES reluctantly, but we feel our readers have a right to know that you can overdo a good thing! Normal weight-lifting will not harm anybody and is the surest and fastest way to a good physique. Yet some barbell men become a bit over-enthusiastic. They reason that if a little training is good, then a lot would be better . . . and so they fall into the snare of stupor-sets, unnatural exercises, and hour-after-hour of weary training. They say they thus "flush" their muscles and they do . they

choke the tissues until they rupture them, as in shown in these photographs of prominent physique men who trained not wisely but too well. Note the varicose vein in the biceps, and the unsightly over-development of the whole upper body. Who wants to be a Monster?

man

This is the triceps development of a who has won numerous Mister titles. Note the clean horseshoe shape of a normally developed arm has been marred by apparent rupture of the triceps, a result of unnatural exercises repeated hour-after-hour.

THE MOST IMPORTANT function our bodies perform is

the simple system of breathing. A normal person breathes on the average of 18 times per minute, or approximately 25,000 times daily-and yet three out of every five persons breathe incorrectly!

Actually breathing is a form of eating, that supplies vital fuel to the blood. Without fuel, your brain and body could not function and your food would be useless. Your body can exist for days without food or drink, but

it must have this essential refueling every minute of your lifetime.

Your every action throughout the course of a day, whether it be mentally or physically, can be done more efficiently and with less effort-if you breathe properly. Furthermore, at the end of a day of proper breathing, you will find yourself minus the usual weight of fatigue and that "completely beat" feeling.

You breathe to be healthy; breathe to be handsome and have a nice complexion; breathe to stand well, talk well, be well physically! On this point everyone will agree, doctor, cultist and faddist.

"To breathe properly is to live properly," says the old Yogi philosophy. "Breath is the stuff of which voice is made," says the vocal expert. The first command given by the posture expert is to fill your lungs to capacity. The physical culturist will always start his program with deep breathing exercises. The honest beauty specialist admits that increased circulation brought about by good breathing will do more for your complexion than a lifetime of massages, and a ton of lotions. The psychoanalyst will admit that an inferiority complex may spring from something as simple as shallow breathing. And it is the doctor's business to keep oxygen flowing into your lungs from the time he thumps you on the back to make you take your first breath, until he administers oxygen at the end to prevent your breath from stopping. Most of us take in enough breath to sustain life, but not enough to live it fully or vigorously. We resemble an old model car chugging up hill-only hitting on half its cylinders.

Most of us have become so accustomed to using only half our lung space, that if we actually filled our lungs to full capacity we would have an oxygen jag-a lightheaded feeling. If you discount this-try it sometime.

Breathing is a bodily function we perform unconsciously for the most part, and we take for granted that since it is a natural function, we must be doing it cor-

DECEMBER, 1956

A recent photo of Dick Schaefer, taken in London where he won the amateur Mr. Universe title, and was awarded the "big" trophy shown in foreground. Schaefer normally weighs thirty pounds more than he did for these contests, but trained 6 to 8 hours a day to reduce his bulk and acquire separation, a very dangerous practice.

rectly. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

Just what is breathing? The only purpose of breathing is to get oxygen into our systems-and replace the carbon dioxide. Without oxygen we would quickly die. Every vital process in the body is dependent on oxygen for its performance. Breathing is controlled from the diaphragm, which is a large inverted domeshaped muscle, located at the floor of the chest, which stretches across the abdomen and under the rib cage. As we inhale, the dome drops downward, increasing the chest cavity for the air to rush in. As we exhale, the dome flattens upward, forcing the air out. Without the help of this important muscle you cannot make a sound. You cannot pant, sigh, cough, grunt or clear your throat. The male diaphragm is placed lower than the female, which gives his chest more room; and his active habits of life have made this muscle stronger. Women are more prone

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