Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/203

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
THE ANATOMY OF SPEED SKATING.
191

he took up. He would make a splendid high or broad jumper, and would be a success as a gymnast.

Fig. 7 shows a typical speed skater—Olaf Nortwedt, a professional, aged twenty-four, who has been on skates almost since he could walk. He has taken no other form of exercise, and his best distances are under three miles. This photo, taken on the eve of a race, shows the fine condition of his skating muscles. Here again the body is short—the length of the leg and thigh in the one-

Fig. 6.—McCulloch

hundred-per-cent class (Chart A, 3), while the arms are not long in proportion. The feet are long and fiat, and as a rule his other bone girths and lengths are large, with small muscle girths. The rather small thigh girths are due to their great length in conjunction with very narrow hips; his chest is deep and round, although not mobile. His strength tests show weak, poorly developed arms, but the breadth of neck in him, as in Johnson and Norsing shows good development in the upper muscles of the back. His