Old Age, Gender and Physical Activity "Strength is Health”: George Barker Windship Health Through Sport How to Train the Body for Health and Poise Medicine, Science and Sport The Bicycle and Tricycle as Aids to Health and Recreation Passive Smoking What is Strength? Health Insurance Decisions What Makes Man a Sprinter? What to Fish for in February? Sport and its Economic and Social Importance Use of Weights for Health Does Ageing Drive Health Expenditures Medicare: Policy Issues Indoor Training for Outdoor Sport Starting and Starters Insured versus Not Insured Babylonian Astrology The Wrath of Heaven The Displaced Zodiac and the Beginnings of Astronomy The Duty of the Son of Heaven: Orientation Time Was Once Relative	Starting and Starters “Starting” in track athletics is the knack of getting away quickly after the report of the pistol. A quick starter will leapout the instant the pistol sounds, and reach his maximum speed in a very few strides. A slow starter is less ready in obeying the pistol, and takes longer to get up speed. The importance of a quick start is well recognized among track athletes, and many instances could be given where a start has won a race. Of the various qualities that go to make the successful starter, one of the most important is a ready mind, though I have seldom seen this commented on. The time required to obey signals varies in individuals. Differences of four one-hundredths of a second between individuals are not rare; and this, in a ten-second dash, is equal to fourteen inches. The first care of a starter, therefore, should be that his mind works with the utmost speed. The experiments referred to show that the muscles react most quickly to impressions of sound, less quickly to those of touch, and least quickly to those of sight. The old device of dropping a handkerchief before a starter is, accordingly, the worst possible, and the present pistol-shot the best. It appears also that the reaction time varies with the loudness of the report. Where a pistol is not to be used, the noise should still be sharp and loud. Clap two chest-weight irons together, or if the word “Go!” is used, it should be as short and sharp as possible. If the athlete is training. by himself, various devices may be resorted to.  The force of a single push is not enough to throw the starter forward a full stride, and the result is that the right foot is “dabbed” a yard beyond the scratch. The arms, meanwhile, do not change their positions. The result is that at the end of the dash, when the athlete is fairly in motion, the arms and legs are no longer in the Sheffield position, but are exactly as in the theoretical start. After the dash the right leg is in position for its strongest spring; so that by the fourth or fifth stride a firstrate starter is reaching his top speed. At the words “Get set!” the arms are raised, the knees slightly bent, and, what does not appear to the spectator, the starter braces his legs apart, the front one pushing forward, the rear one backward; then the body swings slowly forward until the shoulders are as far forward as it is possible to throw them, without spoiling the bracing of one foot against the other. The posture in the students’ start is entirely different from either of these. Here, in order to gain a stronger bracing for the feet, and greater steadiness on the marks, the athlete foregoes the upright position. This distance will vary for the first foot from six to eight inches, and for the rear foot from fourteen to twenty-two, according to the suppleness of the athlete’s thews and the proportional length of legs and back. The idea is to have all fours upon the ground and to be  braced strongly for the spring; but the higher the body the better, for it will take less strength, and especially less time, to shoot it into the proper position for running. At the word “Set!” the athlete braces strongly against his spikes and swings slowly forward until he feels the center of gravity nearly above the scratch, but not so far as to destroy the brace against the spikes— just as in the standing start. The first stride throws the body forward at an angle of forty-five degrees, or something less than that, and by the second or third stride the athlete is in the normal position for running. Of the relative merits of the standing and the crouching starts a great deal might be said. The opinion of all firstrate starters is that the students’ start is the best for every-day use. It would be safe to say, moreover, that almost none were “left on their marks”— that is, were unready to start when the pistol cracked. The result of such a showing is that the students’ start is almost universally used among the colleges, and is rapidly gaining ground among club athletes. The popularity of short races in indoor meetings has given rise lately to a new class of athletes, known as “starters,” several of whom have been so prominent as to deserve special mention. The most interesting fact about them is that, though they are never in the front at the finish of sprint races proper, they can start like a cannon-ball, literally outclassing, in all distances up to fifty yards. It is probable that this fact points to some essential difference between the physical qualities requisite in starting and in sprinting, which ought to appear in a discussion of the prominent starters.