field. He said ten. I doubted if he could do six one after the other, but I explained that, if he could do ten and then set out to develop a higher oxygen uptake level, he could probably do twenty. He could never understand that but Tremain proved it. Tremain also had a wonderful effect on the Hawke’s Bay team of that time. They used a friend of mine, who was also a physical education teacher, to refine the Tremain programme for the whole team and quite soon won the Ranfurly Shield, New Zealand’s premier rugby trophy. They were not a team of internationals but a collection of run-of-the-mill footballers who, collectively superfit, could play their best football all the time when other teams were falling apart with fatigue.
Most people never realise what their potential is or understand the simple truth that it is based on their ability to assimilate, transport and use oxyen. If we can appreciate that and then improve that ability, we lay a better foundation on which to build the technical skills and reach a tireless physical and mental state in which we can employ those skills and techniques much better and for much longer.
If, for instance, you are a skillful soccer player but too tired to get to the loose ball, you cannot make use of these skills efficiently.
The first group of joggers we had in this country, more than fifty years ago, were mainly obese businessmen. Many had had coronary attacks. Their recreation was usually golf. The interesting outcome with most of them, after they had been jogging for some months, was that, not only were they feeling physically and mentally better, they were beginning to reduce their golf handicaps. It was an unexpected bonus for them but it was perfectly logical – their concentration and co-ordination over the closing holes of a round were much better than they had ever been. They were no longer finishing in a state of tiredness.
Blood toning and diet play a part in the ultimate conditioning. When I was in Finland, exercise physiologists were keeping a close eye on their top marathon runner and testing him regularly because he had an abnormally low blood count and they thought he might have some blood disease. They gave him B12 and iron and liver injections to try to improve his condition. They never succeeded but the guy went on beating everyone. This had them confused but the fact was that, because he did all this long running as a marathoner, the improvement in his cardiorespiratory efficiency was so great that he could pump huge quantities of blood between his heart and his lungs and gather in a lot of the oxygen that other people just breathe out. Even though his blood wasn’t what everyone thought it should be, he transported and used all that oxygen with complete efficiency.
I was involved in an unusual experiment in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on one of my trips to the United States. A number of schizophrenic patients of the University of Wisconsin Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic, most of them suffering from depression, were started on a jogging programme and, at the end of ten weeks, seventy-five per cent of them had recovered from their depression.
The goal of their therapy was simple: They were taught stretching before and after running and then filled 30 to 45 minutes with comfortable movement – not to cover a particular distance at a set pace, just to jog. The researchers, two associate professors of psychiatry at the university, John Greist and Marjorie Klein, a running therapist, Roger Eischens, and a Madison doctor, John Faris, were all joggers who had noted that their own momentary blues virtually always disappeared while they were running.
One of their conclusions: “If there is any secret to the success our patients have had in treating their depression with running, it is that they have tried to run each day in such a way that they would want to run again the next day.“
As an exposition of training, not straining, it’s an excellent vision.
We had already seen similar results in New Zealand because many of the people who joined the jogging movement were inclined to be neurotic. They were self-centred, disinclined to be outgoing and largely treated their neuroses with nicotine and liquor. This all changed once we got them interested in the routines of simple jogging. The smoking and drinking, the outward effects of their neuroses, were either drastically reduced or stopped altogether. They became more confident and self-reliant, they began to enjoy meeting new people and throwing off their inhibitions.
CHAPTER 5
HOW TO START RUNNING
Right, you‘ve decided you want to get into an activity or sport that will give you what you need most to get more out of life – not bulging muscles or super strength but a state of fitness of the Lopez kind. First, have a medical check. Tell your doctor what you want to do so that he will give you the kind of examination that will show whether you should or you shouldn’t run. As we have said earlier, even young people have died in fun runs from unsuspected and undetected causes. Young children can have health problems – cases are recorded of children dying in sprint races because no one knew they suffered from heart defects.
Don’t take the risk of adding to the number. Very few doctors these days don’t recognise the value of restrained exercise or don’t understand its benefits. Having got the green light, consider whether you really want to run. Some people just don’t. Consider the options and find something you’ll be happy with because enjoyment is one of the critical requirements of this project.
If you’re a big person, possibly overweight, consider that when you begin running, you’ll be slow, and all that weight means you’ll be hitting the ground hard. The faster you run, the lighter you hit. The sprinter, for example, doesn’t run heel and toe. His centre of gravity is carried forward so fast he is landing on the balls of his feet. His heel will make only light contact with the track before he springs off his toe into his next stride.
The jogger comes down nearly flat-footed on the outside of the heel, rolls through on to the ball of the foot and then, ideally, pushes off again with the toes. So the correct shoes are a vital piece of equipment to handle that pounding. We discuss that subject in more detail in a later chapter because you’ve got to fit your feet into something that will take the jarring and thumping properly or, eventually, your joints are going to suffer.
Cycling is a good exercise for cardiac development and general fitness if runing isn’t your style. You can row and get excellent results because it employs a legs-arms, arms-legs action. Swimming is beneficial but it does lose some effect because your body weight is being supported against gravity in the water. Whatever activity you choose, the main requirement is that you keep the exercise of that activity within strict limitations. Most people, unfortunately, are competitive by nature, particularly if they have a friend or neighbour down the road who can run or cycle or row faster. They can be lured into pushing themselves to inefficient and even dangerous efforts as a matter of pride or challenge.
Look at cardiac development as a progression which lasts for several years, even the rest of your life. We are going to develop further and further as we go, as long as we don’t thrash ourselves competitively from the outset. Your objective must be to make yourself a fitter person, not to beat the chap down the road.
Seek out the advice of the best people you can in the activity you’re taking up. Don’t be afraid to go to the champions; they like to help people. Ask people who are successful coaches or have been in the sport for a long time. They have vast reservoirs of knowledge, which they may not realise, but tap them and you’ll make your own progress that much easier because you’ll know the right things to do and the wrong things to avoid.
A good coach, for instance, doesn’t have injured athletes. He knows how to protect them from hurting themselves, and that’s a subject for much deeper exploration and explanation in other chapters.
The stranger to jogging or running will follow his medical check by running easily out for, say, five minutes and then turning for home. If he makes it back in the same time, he’s already learnt to move aerobically. If he struggles,
