Athletes Need Sleep.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 29 April 1910, Page 4

Athletes Need Sleep.

GOOD SIiU.MBEH EXSL'Kbo SUCCESS. L'leivt.v of sleep plays a big part in the training of most ol' the successful athletes of to-day. While a lew of the great performers we see competing in the different events get along with a short allowance of slumber, it is clearly noticeable that the ones who insist on passing a goodly part of.their time in the feathers are in the large majority.

Sleep has more to do with the showing the men make than anything else. There is no rule governing what the men shall eat, each man using his own judgment, but with sleep—every trainer insists on his men getting a full portion of that.

Jumpers especially benefit by long sessions of slumber. It is a scientific fact that a man lengthens, or grows, by staving in lied. A boy living in bed with typhoid fever has been known to add six inches to his height in a few weeks. Jumpers find the cartilages in the knees and the cushions of the heels expand and become more springy if given a long rest. They take advantage of every opportunity to take the weight off their fewt.

Ray Ewrv and Prinstein, the greatest jumpers we ever had, both formed the habit of putting their feet at au elevation whenever the chance offered. Both are men who insisted on having abundance of sleep. The night before Prinstein was to jump in the championship at Athens, be went, to lied at six o'clock, for several hours he kept moving his legs beneath the quilts with the object of keeping them limber without putting his weight upon the cartilage pads in his knees.

When Mike Sweeney established a new world's record for the high jump it was said that he had been in bed for three days, just taking things easy. Dan Abeam is another who believes in always getting .all the sleep possible, while 'Martin Sheridan, who is also a crack at the hop, step and jump, did 47ft after being forced by Trainer Lawson Robertson to take a 12-hour nap. Sheridan and Sheppard both get along without more than 41 few hours of sleep. Sometimes Sheridan goes for days with only a couple of hours' rest at night, making up for lost time by putting fife teen to twenty hours straight. It is a wonderful thing the way the greatest athletes in the world get along with such utter irregularity of sleeping hours.

John Flanagan goes to bed early, and fails to arise before noon 011 the day of -a trial of his world's hammer-throwing records. Ralph Rose, the Californium shot-putter, lived so long in the balmy climate of the Napa, foothills that he formed the lvahit of long siestas during his kid days.

Arthur Duffey and Harry Hillman both believe strongly in sleep. Before every rare it was the regular thing for Duffey to take a tenminutes' nap. Hillman, 011 tho other hand, would rest up during the afternoons before competing in the armories at .night.— Chicago "Tribune."