Nature makes the biceps and the muscles of the forearm naturally
the weakest in woman compared with man, but it is just the bending of
the elbow that makes a good show on a horizontal bar or rope; and so we
devote too much time to the training of these muscles in our girls, with
the results which make such creditable exhibitions at the end of the
session, while we forget the muscles of the back, the right development
of which is far more valuable, but does not lend itself to display.
In this connection it is to be added last, but not least, that special
importance attaches in woman to those muscles which one may perhaps call
the muscles of motherhood. It is common experience amongst physicians to
find the appropriate muscularity defective at childbirth in women the
muscles of whose limbs may have been very highly developed. Thus Dr.
Havelock Ellis, amongst other evidence, quotes that of a physician, who
says: "In regard to this interesting and suggestive question, it does
seem a fact that women who exercise all their muscles persistently meet
with increased difficulties in parturition. It would certainly seem that
excessive development of the muscular system is unfavourable to
maternity. I hear from instructors in physical training, both in the
United States and in England, of excessively tedious and painful
confinements among their fellows--two or three cases in each instance
only, but this within the knowledge of a single individual among his
friends.
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