Every man or woman who desires to be strong and healthy, to cultivate grace and beauty and to preserve these desirable conditions for one hundred years or longer, must not neglect to exercise naturally all the muscles of the body every day. It is by the constant activity of the body that growth and renewal are maintained. Inaction means stagnation, disease, premature age and death.

It is also true that an excess of activity in any one direction is harmful; hence the necessity of well balanced exercise, distributed equally over all parts of the muscular system. Many people think that because they do a certain class of hard work continually, that they do not need additional exercise. This is one reason why they do need it. The work they follow only develops a certain set of muscles, while the others remain inactive. The result is an unequal inharmonious development and relationship of one muscle with the other, thus causing the physical form to become distorted, homely and even ugly. You see men with well developed arms but poorly developed legs, or with some of the muscles of the face and neck developed and others weak and wasted, leaving hollows where they should be rounded and plump. This is not natural. It shows overdevelopment of certain muscles and under-development of others. All can be beautiful to look at, if they only develop the human figure normally and equally in all its parts.

No man with part of his body dead from the lack of use can expect to live to an old age and enjoy health and beauty. Such a man is only partially alive at any time. He does not know the pleasure of complete life. Don't delude yourself into thinking that your work, no matter what it may be, gives you enough exercise. It may give you enough or even too much of a certain kind; it may overtax certain muscles, but it does not give you the all-round development you need. You may say that when you are through with your day's work you are too tired to exercise. This is where you show a lack of knowledge of the use of correct exercise. It may be true that a certain set of muscles are exhausted and need rest to recuperate; but remember you have many other muscles that have received little or no exercise all day. By giving them a little natural exercise, you not only benefit them, but you relax and thus rest the tired ones. No matter how tired you may feel, if you will go through the easy natural exercises I shall give in this lesson, you will find when you have finished them that you have been greatly rested. In fact, you will feel more life and vigor tingling in your veins than you have felt at any other time during the day.

Some people have reached the century milepost without having followed a systematic course of physical exercise, but, in such cases, their lives required of them work of an all-round character, and, therefore, they naturally exercised the entire body. Your object being to live a century or more with absolute certainty, you cannot afford to take unnecessary chances by neglecting so valuable an agent to your mental and physical development as exercise.

By proper exercise in conjunction with correct breathing, you will not only develop the muscular system but will cultivate strength in the internal organs. And this is of the utmost importance, for upon these organs you depend for the transformation of food, air, etc., into energy and life.

Do not make the mistake of concluding that the person who can display the greatest muscular development is the most perfectly developed. It is proven every day that apparently powerful men, who have acquired superb exterior development are comparative weaklings internally. When their vital forces are interfered with they die quickly and usually die before reaching advanced years. One of the reasons for this is because, in practicing physical culture, they neglected mental and lung culture and other hygienic laws of great importance. To attain the desired results, there must be a corresponding balance between the strength and capacity of the lungs and the outer muscles. Therefore, while practicing for physical strength and renewal, you must also work for an equal development of the lungs.

The failure on the part of many to bring about satisfactory results is because they concentrate too much of their attention and mental force on the mere outward display of muscles, instead of on the internal and external vital parts. Experiment has proven that muscles are developed more rapidly when the person takes his exercises before a mirror where he can concentrate and watch the gradual growth and enlargement. This proves the power of mind over matter, but if the mind is focused on the mere cultivation of muscular development the internal organs must suffer through neglect. What every one needs is strong vital organs that will do their work and last indefinitely. Therefore, in all exercise, the mind should be directed toward the cultivation of internal strength as well as outward beauty. The internal organs are the foundation of life; then let us make ours strong and enduring. Where we send our thoughts we send our force.

True exercise requires no artificial device, no pulleys or dumbbells. Such things make work of what should be play. When men and women learn the perfect art of play - an art which children, acquire naturally - their daily work will give them all the exercise they require. Until this lost art, which the ancient Greeks so well understood, is regained a substitute in the form of a systematic course of natural physiological exercise is a necessity.

In this lesson I will give some simple and natural exercises which are especially adapted to the cultivation of health, beauty and longevity. No apparatus of any kind need be used. If you will practice these exercises together with breathing and concentration, and will pay reasonable attention to the laws of hygiene, you will cultivate strength and beauty of form, strong internal organs and all the requirements for living at least one hundred years. These exercises are adapted for the man or woman who desires to regain lost health, youth and beauty, as well as for those who are still in possession of these treasures and wish to retain them. You may say that you are too old to take exercise, but you are not. The fact that you show age is the best evidence that you need exercise to tear down the old, stiff tissues that they may be replaced by new and plastic cells. You need these new cells or you would not show age. You need the elasticity of the muscles that you may perform the regular duties and activities of life and derive pleasure from them. Carry, this thought ever before you: "Inactivity means stagnation and stagnation is death." If you continue to court death after this knowledge has come to you, you alone are responsible. To permit your body to die is nothing less than committing suicide or self-murder.