Shrubb "The Little Wonder"  ›  Coach Harry

Harry Andrews…

was Alfred Shrubb’s first coach. It was Harry who ran that night with Alfie when they went to see about a fire in Horsham. It was that night that started Shrubb’s carreer in running.
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Some of the finest British athletes in the early 20th century were trained by Andrews. Among them, J. Butler, a runner and 50-mile world-record holder; Alfred Shrubb, who won the Atlanta Cup at Chelmsford; W.J. Bailey, a cycle sprint world-record holder; T.A. Fisher, the 1,000-mile cycle world-record holder; and many others. Some of the athletes who trained with Andrews are shown in Figures 2 through 5, Pages 142, 144 and 146.

A big believer in massage for athletes, he wrote: “A lifetime of training and of close association with athletics of every description—I was born on the Old Brompton Athletic Grounds—has convinced me that every one of these [other aspects of training] are of inferior importance to massage—the rubbing, pinching, and stroking of an athlete’s flesh and muscle, but of course massage of these tissues on scientific lines” (p. 19).

Several results are obtainable by massage that cannot be achieved any other way, Andrews claimed. For example, massage can “loosen the muscles and counteract any tendency to stiffness or a muscle-bound condition.” He said that each muscle group must be gone over, and each individual muscle separated, pulled, stroked, rubbed, pinched and slapped. He is shown giving massage to his athletes in Figures 6 through 8, Pages 146 and 148.

Andrews thought that embrocations (i.e., liniment and oil) were of great benefit when rubbing an athlete. He made his own concoctions with secret recipes, and preferred oil embrocations, especially in winter. Spirits, or liniment, he considered better in warm weather.

Glove Rubbing And Self-Massage
According to Andrews, massage by hand was superior to glove rubbing practiced at that time. The rubbing gloves were coarse, and some were covered with horsehair. He said that “so many athletes and trainers seem to imagine that the whole art of massage consists in a good, hard rub down, the harder the better.” He speculated that the extra friction from rubbing with a rough glove had its benefits, such as stirring up circulation and creating a warm glow, but gloves also could injure the skin.

Self-massage was also popular with athletes, and Andrews offered a few hints for self-masseurs. He instructed them to relax all muscles in the body, even though he acknowledged that this was impossible with self-massage. The method he advocated was to “rub swiftly and yet briskly in an upward direction, and always rub in a circular motion.” After a few seconds of rubbing on any particular body part, “Take hold of a portion of the flesh between your thumb and first finger and pinch, or rather, squeeze it lightly but firmly. Pick up pieces of muscle in the same manner.” He emphasized to squeeze lightly and gently, and avoid bruising.

“This flesh squeezing will assist muscular development and the formation of first class tissue by the removal of useless flesh—exhausted or superfluous flesh tissue, that is to say, which has become not only an incubus [burden], but a hindrance to the formation of good muscle itself” (p. 30).

Transmission Of Vigor
Andrews thought professional massage infinitely superior to self-massage. First of all, an athlete can relax thoroughly when being massaged, and all muscle groups can be attended to well.

He also subscribed to a common belief about some of the benefits of massage “accruing from ... the transmission of vigour from one frame to another.” He described an exhausted athlete being revitalized by massage as follows:

“The chief object of massage is to achieve this result. The rubbing, stroking, pinching, and slapping, among other effects produced, arouse this latent energy and reinvigorate the limbs, nerve centres, and muscular system generally. That is to say, they will have that effect, provided the masseur be a young, vigorous man himself, capable of transmitting some of his own energy into his charge” (p. 22).

Andrews believed in an age limit for masseurs—40 to be precise. It was a curious belief at that time that at age 40, men (and women, I presume) begin to attract rather than radiate vitality. It was a natural law. According to this dubious theory, an older masseur would actually drain energy from the athlete.

If someone had been a masseur for a lengthy period of time, Andrews presumed that he would have transmitted a major portion of his vitality to the athletes he worked on, called an “honorable and worthy sacrifice.” He was older than 40 himself when he wrote the book, and comments on his “entire unselfishness in refraining from massaging any of my charges myself since passing my fortieth year.”

Massage For Athletes
It was observed that “no boxer of any position would ever dream of dispensing with the services of a masseur.” That went for cyclists, runners, jumpers and rowers. The boxer would get special attention to arms, shoulders, “hitting muscles,” chest and abdomen. Cyclists need “very special massage about their knees and calves.” Andrews went even further: “For no matter what form of athletics a man may go in for, he should be massaged all over, from his fingertips to his toes” (p. 32).

Some of the basic principles of sports massage as practiced today were known in Andrews’ time. For example, he described what we call post-event massage as given “immediately after exercise, whether this exercise be a round of training or the actual contest or competition itself, or even a heat or stage of a competition.” He says that the athlete should be thoroughly “gone over” for about 25 to 35 minutes without any hurry or flurry. Massage would be given only after a cool-down period of a few minutes, and the risk of chill avoided by wiping down the athlete with a towel and covering him with a blanket.

What we call pre-event massage (i.e., given 20 to 30 minutes before a contest) was also described. Andrews cautions to limit the massage to five to 10 minutes to “loosen and brisk up the muscles” without having a soothing effect or inducing a slack condition. Finally, he recognizes that a good masseur and trainer will know his charges and “adapt his methods to the constitutions and temperaments of the men he has in hand.”

Training Tips
Andrews goes on to give training tips to athletes in various sports popular at the time (i.e., walking, running, cycling, boxing and swimming). Some of them sound sensible, such as walking to reduce weight, getting enough sleep and rest, and avoiding tobacco, spirits (alcohol) and bacon. Some of them are amusing, such as avoiding potatoes and new bread, and pouring champagne over an athlete’s head in a 12-hour race to revive him.

Massage and Training was published by Health & Strength, LTD in London, which specialized in athletic, health and physical culture books. It takes its place next to The Fresh Air Book, Simple Dumb-Bell Exercises, and the Uncle Bob Series of self-help books on knock-knees and bowed legs, care of hair, and hollow necks and how to cure them. We are lucky it survived all these years. It is our heritage.

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Patricia J. Benjamin, Ph.D., is coauthor of Tappan’s Handbook of Healing Massage Techniques and Understanding Sports Massage. She has been writing and teaching about the history of massage therapy since the early 1980s. She is currently academic dean of the Chicago School of Massage Therapy, and can be reached by telephone at: 773-477-9444, or via E-mail at: .