Physical Culture

692 Physical culture in the system of public education....

Physical culture, body culture; in the Soviet understanding, the systematic and versatile improvement of the human body in the interests of labor and defense. The concept of physical culture, which came into use in the USSR after the October Revolution, is by its very content incomparably broader than the terms physical upbringing and physical education previously widespread in Russia, embracing along with physical exercises (Leibesübungen) also the maximum utilization of the natural forces of nature and the cultivation of hygienic habits. Physical culture in the Soviet Union is a part of general culture, placed at the service of the construction of socialism and striving for the comprehensive development and uplift of the working masses and the upbringing of healthy and joyful builders of socialism. This significance of physical culture was exhaustively defined by the party as early as 1925 in a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks): «Physical culture must be considered not only from the point of view of physical upbringing and health improvement, but also as one of the aspects of cultural, economic, and military training of the youth (rifle sports, etc.), as one of the methods of upbringing of the masses (insofar as physical culture develops the will, elaborates collective habits, persistence, coolness, and other valuable qualities). Physical culture cannot be considered exclusively from the point of view of physical exercises in the form of sports, gymnastics, outdoor games, etc. It organically includes public and personal hygiene, labor and domestic hygiene, makes wide use of the forces of nature, and cultivates a correct regime of labor and rest». The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) defined the place of physical culture «as an integral part of the general political upbringing and education and health improvement of the masses, which must be included in the general plan of activity of the respective public organizations and institutions (trade unions, the Komsomol, the Red Army, schools, public health organs)». Developing along this path, Soviet physical culture has grown into a mass proletarian organization embracing millions of masses of both sexes and the most diverse ages, from pioneers to the elderly. The main difference of Soviet physical culture lies in its class orientation and applied character. In the USSR, physical culture is an object of concern of the proletarian state. In Soviet conditions, there is not and cannot be body culture as an end in itself, which is so characteristic of the bourgeois sports movement; Soviet physical culture is devoid of that naked record-breaking spirit and professionalism which are especially typical of bourgeois physical culture, which pursues the goals of distracting the working masses from the direct tasks of the class struggle and is, alongside the church, the bourgeois press, and so on, the very same means of obscuring the class self-consciousness of the masses. The main tasks of Soviet physical culture are defined by the instructions of Comrade Stalin: «to raise a new generation of workers who are healthy, cheerful, capable of understanding the might of the Soviet country, and ready to defend it with their chests against the encroachments of enemies». To achieve this general goal, physical culture sets the following concrete tasks: a) the comprehensive physical development and health improvement of millions of toilers, mobilizing them for the struggle for a healthy way of life and the introduction of physical culture into the processes of socialist production; b) maximum assistance in training comprehensively developed shock workers and fighters for socialist production and the Red Army; c) the creation of a powerful basis for the broad development of sports and the raising of sports and technical achievements on a mass scale; d) the training of command personnel for the physical culture movement. [I. History of physical culture. Physical culture has been known since ancient times in Assyro-Babylonia, Egypt, Persia, and China. On a number of sculptural monuments obtained as a result of excavations, one can see depictions of various physical exercises (javelin throwing, archery, wrestling, etc.). Fencing was widespread among the Indians. Free and breathing exercises were already known among the Chinese. As early as 3,000 years before our era, we find in the instructions of the Bogdokhans Ch'in-nung and Hoang-ti rules for strengthening physical health and bodily exercises. Physical upbringing reached particularly high stages in ancient Greece and Rome, which left us unsurpassed examples of physical culture achievements. Here we have remarkable discobolus throwers, javelin throwers, runners (the famous marathon race). Ball games are developed (harpastum, spheromachia). The Olympic games are organized (776 B.C.), bearing the character of nationwide festivities. In the writings of Plato (429 B.C.), Galen, Flavius, and Philostratus (c. 200 B.C.), we find instructions and entire chapters dedicated to gymnastics. Gradually, cadres of professional athletes begin to take shape (in Rome, gladiators), and the cause of physical culture begins to degenerate. At the turn of the ancient world and the early Middle Ages, the cause of physical upbringing disintegrates along with the entire social formation. In 394 A.D., the Olympic games, which had existed for over 1,000 years, were banned, and in 404 A.D., gladiatorial combats were banned. In the epoch of the Middle Ages, the main form of physical exercises consisted of tournaments, in which the feudal nobility took part. With the growth of cities and the strengthening of merchant capital, physical exercises gradually spread among townspeople, and shooting and fencing brotherhoods were organized. The game of football appears in England, provoking persecution on the part of the authorities. Vittorino da Feltre in the early 15th century organizes the first gymnastic school. In 1681, the first boxing match takes place. In the 18th century, "philanthropinums" are created—special schools of physical upbringing for bourgeois youth. The first gymnastic systems arise from these schools. At the historical turn of two centuries marked by the great French Revolution, the first gymnastic systems are created, developed by GutsMuths, Vieth, Jahn, and Spiess, along with Swedish gymnastics (Ling), the Swiss system (Clias and Pestalozzi), French gymnastics (Amoros), Czech gymnastics (Tyrš), and others. In these years, a large literature on physical exercises already grows (GutsMuths, Vieth, Jahn and Eiselen, Rothstein, and others). Gymnastics began to dominate all other types of physical exercises. Depending on various local, everyday, socio-economic, and political conditions, various combinations of gymnastic exercises were devised, which formed the basis of various systems that existed for a longer or shorter time and received varying distribution in other countries (see Gymnastics). The pre-war as well as post-war years in the development of physical culture are characterized by a large growth of bourgeois sports organizations with significant cadres of professionals, which have produced a number of undoubtedly major sports achievements. The Workers' Sport International (Lucerne) is created, which is under social-fascist leadership, is based on the preaching of class collaboration, and serves as a means of deceiving workers. The physical culture movement in tsarist Russia and in the USSR. There could be no question of any physical upbringing of workers and peasants in tsarist Russia. Physical upbringing was the lot of only insignificant groups of nobles, landowners, and capitalists. The peoples of tsarist Russia had long engaged in various games in an unorganized manner. The youth engaged in fistfights, for which tsarist Russia was so famous. The ruling circles supported barbaric survivals, and on this basis could incite one nationality against another. This, in fact, constituted the government's care for the physical upbringing of workers and peasants. But in the upbringing of officer cadets (yunkers), physical upbringing played an important role. In 1821, a fencing school was organized under the Cadet Regiment in St. Petersburg to train instructors for cadet corps. Starting in 1840, gymnastics was taught in military schools. From this time begins the introduction of "gymnastics" not only in officer schools, but also in the ranks of the active army. This gymnastics essentially amounted to the mockery of soldiers, the purpose of which was to create a dull and obedient army. The development of civilian sports came together with foreign capitalists and dates back to the 1880s and 1890s. Sports circles appeared first in St. Petersburg and then in various cities of Russia. These circles were few in number. Subsequently, following their example, Russian sports organizations were created, united by sports into leagues. Sokol gymnastic societies, supported by certain governmental circles, received great development. The doors of these societies were basically closed to workers in view of high membership dues. The tsarist government, almost up to the imperialist war, paid no attention to civilian bourgeois sports. Only in 1912, on the eve of the international Stockholm Olympics, were Russian sports organizations united by the Olympic Committee, and in 1913 the post of "Chief Inspector for the Physical Development of the Population" was created, and General Voeikov was charged with "general supervision over the organization of the physical development of the rising generation," and so on; and during the war in 1915, the "Regulations on the Mobilization of Sports" were approved, which envisaged: 1) pre-conscription training, 2) initial training of recruits, 3) maintenance of the physical development of reservists, and 4) sports activities during active service.

All these instructions practically led to nothing. The imperialist war destroyed the sports societies of tsarist Russia, and by the beginning of the October Revolution, Russia numbered several tens of thousands of athletes with very low qualitative indicators and a completely destroyed, pathetic material base (grounds, equipment, etc.). The October Revolution, having established the dictatorship of the proletariat, from its very first days waged a struggle for the creation of a new, comprehensively developed, healthy, and cheerful person. The government issued a number of decrees emancipating the working people (labor protection, an eight-hour working day, abolition of child labor, social insurance, eradication of illiteracy, maternity protection, etc.). During the period of military danger and the approaching Civil War, on April 22, 1918, a decree on the militia system was issued and Vseobuch (the Main Administration of Universal Military Training, Sports, and Pre-conscription Training) was created. The nationalization of sports and gymnastic clubs and schools was carried out, private vessels were requisitioned, etc. All these measures were aimed at meeting the demands of the toiling masses in physical culture. With the end of the Civil War, physical culture in the USSR received powerful development and scope. On June 7, 1923, by a decree of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, the regulations on the creation of the All-Russian Council of Physical Culture were approved. N. A. Semashko was approved as the first chairman of the All-Russian Council of Physical Culture of the RSFSR. The mass development of physical culture began. Physical culture was introduced as a compulsory subject in all schools and in the Red Army, and in a voluntary manner it unfolded through a powerful network of circles in the system of trade unions and the Komsomol. In 1921, the Red Sport International was created. A historical milestone was the aforementioned decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of 1925. In 1928, the First All-Union Spartakiad was held as the first review of the physical culture forces of the USSR and a demonstration of international solidarity with the USSR by proletarian athletes of the West. Physical culture in the reconstruction period. The decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks in 1929, which gave an unsatisfactory assessment of the state of the entire physical culture movement, laid the foundation for its radical restructuring along production lines, voluntariness, and subordination to the tasks of socialist construction. The decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks served as a new stimulus for the broad development of the physical culture movement. On April 3, 1930, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR issued a decree on physical culture in the Soviet Union, which evaluated this sector of work as a matter of paramount state importance. The All-Union Council of Physical Culture was created, with local organizations, as an organ of state leadership. The activities of all commissariats and departments regarding physical culture were defined. Before the October Revolution, there were 10,000 athletes; in 1928, there were 650,000; in 1934, 2,500,000 passed the standards for the Ready for Labor and Defense badge and 6,000,000 were encompassed by the testing of the standard; 20,000,000 children were encompassed by physical culture activities. These successes were directly due to the enormous attention paid by the party and the government to the deployment of physical culture in the land of the Soviets. II. The system of Soviet physical culture. Ready for Labor and Defense. The system of physical culture in the USSR is built based on the characteristics of socialist culture and the needs of socialist construction. That is why physical culture has as its main task preparation for labor and defense. To these ends, Soviet physical culture adopted the Ready for Labor and Defense system. In order to stimulate the independent work of the working people of the Soviet Union in physical culture, on the initiative of the Leninist Komsomol, the All-Union Council of Physical Culture of the USSR on March 11, 1931, resolved to award a special Ready for Labor and Defense badge for comprehensive physical culture training. Comprehensive physical fitness, according to the approved regulations, is determined by the fulfillment of an established complex of tests and requirements of a practical and theoretical nature. The introduction of the first-stage Ready for Labor and Defense badge set itself the task of encompassing the broad masses of working people with an independent physical culture movement, as well as radically restructuring the entire content of physical culture work in the entire system of the independent physical culture movement and school, encompassing all age groups of working people. With the introduction of the second Ready for Labor and Defense complex, which includes significantly higher requirements, the task of maximally raising the level of comprehensive preparedness of athletes is resolved, and the construction of the foundations of the Soviet physical culture system Ready for Labor and Defense for all stages of school and higher education is completed. On this principle, all physical culture work in trade unions, the army, and voluntary sports organizations is built. The complexes of the Ready for Labor and Defense badge of the first and second stages resolve the task of the comprehensive physical development of the working people of the Soviet Union and very clearly and distinctly set before each working person what a Soviet athlete should be. In order to receive the Ready for Labor and Defense badge, one must possess the skills necessary in labor and combat environments. The Ready for Labor and Defense complex reflects the entire concrete orientation of Soviet physical culture. It includes the most applied physical exercises and sports, military-physical culture knowledge, the ability to operate mechanized means of transportation, hygiene and sanitary minimums, self-control and mandatory medical supervision, while the badge holder is required to be a leading shock worker in production. The creation of the Ready for Labor and Defense complex led to an enormous development of the physical culture movement in the USSR. This complex, providing a minimum of comprehensive physical culture preparedness of the masses for labor and defense, became the property of the broad masses and created immeasurable opportunities for raising sports and technical results. Physical culture in the production process. In its decree of April 3, 1930, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR instructed the People's Commissariat of Labor together with the Supreme Council of the National Economy and the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions to include physical culture among the measures for improving health and increasing labor productivity of personnel working at enterprises. The work carried out by research institutes on introducing physical culture into production processes proved the influence of the latter in its various forms on increasing labor productivity and improving the health status of workers, and determined the most rational forms and methods of physical culture both within the production process and outside it. Based on the work carried out, the following forms and means of physical culture introduced into production processes were determined: 1) physical exercises before work (introductory); 2) physical exercises after work; 3) physical exercises during breaks. Separate types of gymnastic exercises—before work, after work, and during breaks—have the purpose: a) to increase general resistance to fatigue and increase endurance; b) to develop various muscle groups, and in connection with this, the nervous system; c) to improve respiration, blood circulation, and metabolism; d) to create a cheerful mood; e) to accustom to organization, posture, and discipline; f) to cultivate the ability to master new movements, starting from the simplest and gradually leading to more complex ones. Physical culture in the production process, being an organic part of the unified Ready for Labor and Defense system, is widely disseminated in the Soviet Union at leading enterprises. At more than 200 enterprises, physical culture work is carried out in the production process; labor productivity at individual enterprises has increased from 2% to 10%, traumatism has sharply decreased, and the state of health has improved. Physical culture and the defense of the USSR. The most important task of the physical culture movement of the Soviet country is the physical education of the fighters of the Red Army. In order to become a good fighter of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, it is necessary to be physically healthy, courageous, steadfast, resolute, and well-trained. Widely utilizing all means of physical culture, the Red Army ensures the training of physically developed fighters. To educate fighters, the Red Army uses diverse physical culture means systematically introduced into the daily life and study of the Red Army soldier. The Red Army widely disseminates its physical culture achievements to the entire physical culture movement: militarized ski and bicycle trips, swimming, military-defensive gymnastics, etc. Physical culture in the public education system. Special attention is paid by the Soviet physical culture movement to the organization of physical culture in the system of educating the new shift along the lines of the polytechnic school and all higher educational institutions. Physical culture in the system of the Soviet school is a compulsory subject and represents an organic part of the entire education system. Only in the USSR is the task set by Karl Marx being realized: "to combine productive labor with instruction and gymnastics in the upbringing of the future for all children from a certain age, and this not only as a method of increasing social production, but as the sole method of creating comprehensively developed people" (Karl Marx, Capital, vol. I). In the curricula of schools and higher education institutions, 1–2 hours per six-day week are allocated to physical culture.

Depending on age and physical development, norms have been established for the children's badge "Be Ready for Labor and Defense," and everyone graduating from school at the age of 17–18 must be prepared to pass the norms of the 1st stage of the GTO, while those graduating from higher educational institutions must pass the norms of the 2nd stage of the GTO complex. Soviet physical culture, fighting for the upbringing of a comprehensively developed new generation, resolves the following tasks: a) promotes the comprehensive development and formation of the growing organism, strengthens and hardens the health of children; b) mobilizes children to fight for the quality of study, for knowledge, for conscious discipline, for mastering the fundamentals of sciences; c) broadly develops independent and sports-technical work (gymnastics, sports games), develops various forms of mass physical culture work, organizes the regimen of the pioneer and schoolchild, promotes the upbringing of personal and public hygiene; d) fosters activity, courage, decisiveness, perseverance, quick orientation, organization, discipline, collectivism, and other qualities necessary for members of socialist society; e) fosters basic motor skills, preparing children for labor and defense. III. Means and methods of physical culture. The means and methods of physical culture are diverse and manifold. The means of physical culture can be divided into 3 groups: 1) hygienic regimen and hygiene: skills in labor and daily life (see Individual hygiene); 2) natural forces of nature—air, sun, and water (see Hardening); and 3) physical exercises. The latter (so-called kinetic means) encompass sports, athletics, gymnastics, and games (see) and can be divided into the following groups: 1) gymnastics: athletic, artistic, hygienic, medical; 2) track and field (running, jumping, and throwing); 3) heavy athletics—defense and attack (boxing, wrestling, weightlifting); 4) sports games (football, tennis, volleyball, basketball, etc.); 5) mass and active games (children's, etc.); 6) water sports (swimming, rowing, sailing, motor boating, diving, water polo); 7) winter sports (skiing, skating, sledding, hockey); 8) cycling, motorsports (bicycle, motorcycle, automobile); 9) aviation sports (parachuting, aviation work, etc.). The kinetic means of physical culture, depending on the nature and type of physical exercises, have a varying effect on the organism. All of them are stimuli of greater or lesser strength, to which a general or local response is obtained. Reactions to this stimulus have begun to be studied in all details in recent years, and a fairly significant body of literary material has already accumulated. This scientific knowledge about the psycho-physiological influence of physical exercises is necessary for their selection and correct evaluation. This evaluation can be made from various points of view. Any physical exercise or individual type of it represents one or another value depending on the purpose the exercise is supposed to serve. A child, an adult, an old person, a man, a woman cannot use the same means, and the dosage of physical exercises must be different in different cases. The physiological evaluation and dosage of the most strongly acting means of physical culture must be exact and motivated. From a scientific point of view, it is useful to study all components of the cumulative effect of physical exercises on the organism, since not only an individual organ, but even an individual tissue reacts differently to this stimulus (experiments by Gebhardt in Lexer's surgical clinic in Munich). With prolonged action of physical exercises, many organs change their size, weight, appearance, strength, and other qualities. Physical exercises act on metabolism, on the movement of blood and other bodily fluids. Changes can go in both a positive and negative direction: this variability affects the methodology of physical culture influence. It is sometimes used as a guide when evaluating from the external side (i.e., when body forms change under the influence of exercises). The hygienic significance of many physical exercises is very great: its determination is based on physiological data. The entire motor apparatus (bones, joints, muscles, nerve centers) is subject to great variability under the influence of motor agents, and this variability is also expressed in the acquisition of new qualities (strength, speed, endurance, precision, coordination of movements). Muscles are very susceptible to the influence of physical exercises, since in the process of work their nutrition improves (blood influx increases many times over). On the other hand, the more muscles participate in work, the livelier the blood circulation, the greater the metabolism and the better the nutrition of tissues (see Training). Hygienic physical exercises (running, games, jumping, swimming, rowing, skating, skiing) affect the autonomic and endocrine systems, which is manifested in the growth and better development of organs. From this, the conclusion can be drawn that these exercises are especially necessary in childhood and adolescence, during the period of growth. It is well known the local influence of systematic exercises on individual muscle groups (muscles of the neck, back, chest, extremities, abdominal press, even the muscles of the perineum); they are used for the purpose of general physical development. Physical exercises can be prescribed with a social-pedagogical goal, when the choice must be made so as to raise discipline, weld and strengthen the collective, or arouse joyful emotions, which usually have the most favorable influence. Physical exercises can never serve as an end in themselves; the goal is the applied side of physical culture—the application of useful exercises in daily life, in life. The applied character of physical exercises should be manifested especially along the lines of preparation for labor and defense. The same exercise sometimes contains so much of value from the above-mentioned points of view that an exact classification according to a single criterion is impossible. The classification given below must be considered the most practical. Exercises are divided into the following categories and groups: Category I: exercises that are vitally necessary with great applied significance. According to their purpose, exercises of this category are divided into 4 groups: 1st group—locomotorics: crawling, walking on flat terrain, ascending, descending, and running; applied exercises of the type also belong here: cross-country skiing and ice skating, rowing, bicycle riding; 2nd group— overcoming obstacles: swimming, jumping, climbing; 3rd group—means of defense and attack: throwing, tossing, wrestling, boxing; 4th group—elementary working movements: lifting and carrying heavy loads and living weight, pushing, striking. Category II: gymnastic exercises. These exercises have the purpose of improving physical development, providing technical training for more complex movements (see Gymnastics). Some of the basic movements of this category are included in the GTO of both the first and second stages. Gymnastics constitutes the main part of former physical education systems. Category III: sports and athletics (see). Category IV: games—active, sports (see Measures). Depending on the conditions and base, all exercises are structured in a physical culture lesson according to the following scheme (Table 1). Table 1. Name Tasks Content Time First part of the lesson Pulling-in 1. Instill habits Drill preparation (in 3–7 exercises of organized place, on the move, min. movement running) Ordinal exercises, 2. Introduction of figurative marching order, organization, (walking, running) discipline into the lesson 3. Prepare and arrange the group for conducting subsequent parts of the lesson c) (Continued) Name Tasks Content Time Second part of the lesson General pre- 1. Strengthening Symmetric, asym- 5–15 paratory of individual metric, and combi- min. exercises muscle groups of nated exercises. the system Exercises in coordi- 2. Strengthening nation of move- of joints and ments and of a rhythmic ligaments (de- character. velopment of Exercises for ner- flexibility) vous-muscular Special exer- apparatus, ability cises for re- to differentiate mus- laxation and cular tensions, to Exercises performed tension apply for conduct- with the greatest ing this or that movement amplitude, movement—the to be used for learn- needed muscle ing the technique of groups are formed individual types of 4. Cultivation of physical exercises rhythm (by analytical 5. Leveling exer- method) cises 6. Exercises to master correct breathing (so-called breathing exercises) Third part of the lesson Basic exer- Cultivation of 1. Basic types of 30–60 cises psychophysio- exercises of which min. logical qualities: the lesson consists: speed, endurance, e.g., gymnastics strength, agility, (exercises on gym- courage, perse- nastic apparatus, verance, orien- as well as exercises tation, etc., in methods of move- instilling and ment, methods of perfecting skills, overcoming ob- predominantly stacles); lifting and military-applied carrying heavy loads, (games); track and defense and attack field (walking, run- (throwing, push- ning, jumping, ing); sports games throwing, push- (exercises for mas- ing); sports tering and perfect- games (exercises ing the technique for mastering and and tactics of the perfecting the game); active games, technique and tac- etc. 2.

Types of activities close to the given section, mainly consisting of: a) those types of the Ready for Labor and Defense complex that can be included in a sectional lesson depending on the nature of the section and the season; b) military-applied types. Fourth part of the lesson: Soothing exercises. To bring the organism into a relatively calm state. Walking with deep breathing and gradual slowing down for 2-3 minutes. At the end of the classes: shower, self-massage, rubbing. The tasks indicated in the scheme, being leading for one or another part of the lesson, must simultaneously permeate the entire lesson, take place in all parts, being thus organically connected with each other and complementing one another. For example, the task of introducing discipline into the lesson (the first part of the lesson) must also be carried out in the subsequent parts of the lesson; the task of bringing the organism into a relatively calm state, standing in the 4th part of the lesson, is resolved throughout the entire lesson by alternating strong and weak exercises and establishing short rest periods between the most vigorous movements; the task of instilling military-applied skills determines the choice and methods of conducting exercises in the general preparatory (and not only the main) part of the lesson. This scheme is orientative and can be changed regarding the parts of the lesson, content, and time allotted to one or another series. Thus, for example, it is possible to exclude seriality for such sections as tennis, water sports, to shorten or even exclude the second part of the lesson depending on the preparedness of the group, the nature of the section, etc. The selection of educational material in the sections is mainly based on: 1) the requirement of comprehensive health improvement, physical development, perfection, and the construction of classes on the basis of labor and military application; 2) the specificity of the given section, which requires, in order to satisfy healthy demands, increasing and consolidating sports interest in individual sports and physical exercises, constructing classes predominantly from the main types of exercises of the given section and introducing into the sectional lesson types related to the given sport or preparing for it. IV. Physical culture in the public health system. Physical culture in the public health system acts as the greatest means of mass health improvement, instilling hygienic skills, and is an organic part of the work on the health protection of children and adolescents, combating occupational diseases and hazards, etc., and a means of reducing morbidity. The decree of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR of April 3, 1930, states that "the immense significance of physical culture in the field of social hygiene and eugenics requires its widest and most comprehensive application in the cause of Soviet public health." In connection with this, the government decreed: "to entrust the people's commissariats of health with the organization of control over all physical culture work, the formulation and scientific study of physical culture as a socio-hygienic, therapeutic, and eugenic factor in the system of various public health institutions, and the corresponding training and retraining of medical personnel and medical workers." The main measures of the work of health organs in the field of physical culture are the following: a) medical control over the state of health and physical development of those engaged in physical culture; b) medical control over the setup of physical culture in the entire public education system; c) sanitary supervision over places of physical culture classes (squares, halls, stadiums, etc.) and the construction of physical culture facilities; d) organization of first aid provision at the places of physical culture classes and the fight against sports injuries; e) sanitary and hygienic education of physical culturists; f) therapeutic physical culture as a most active means of treating patients. Medical control over physical culture in the USSR, included in the general system of Soviet health care, is an all-state measure, and by this it differs from the guidelines existing in bourgeois countries, where medical control over physical culture is merely a private matter of individual persons and organizations. The state character of medical control in the USSR determines its mass character, gratuitousness, and compulsory nature for all physical culturists. These points determine the preventive significance of medical control, which prevents the possibility of certain deviations and diseases associated with the immoderate and uncontrolled use of potent means of physical culture. The question of the necessity of medical control during physical exercise began to be developed both in our country and in bourgeois countries after the end of the World War. Up to this time, if control was carried out, it was only over the physical development of the younger generation. This control was carried out exclusively in wealthy, well-equipped schools, cadet corps, and women's institutes, where children of privileged classes were raised. Physical development was judged only by anthropometric data; the methodology of their collection was still unities and insufficiently developed. The absence of proper physical education, sedentary work in schools, and the almost complete absence of physical exercises aggravated the prognosis. The October Revolution forced a review of all theoretical and practical material and put forward new questions on the dependence of physical development and general development on socio-economic and living conditions, expanded the limits of medical control and accounting of all work on physical culture. In USSR medical control from the very beginning of its existence bears a scientific character and meets the vital, applied needs of physical culture. Anthropometric measurements as a method of checking the influence of physical exercises on health and development no longer satisfied; it was necessary to check the influence of physical culture by functional studies of the heart, lungs, and other organs and to establish general reactions to these stimuli. The routine task of scientific research work in the field of medical control was: the development of unified methods and their expansion, the establishment of a minimum of complexes in various cases, and the development of standards. The content of the complex and the number of components had to change depending on the target setting and working conditions. The complex of these medical-control studies is compiled so as to embrace man as a whole as fully as possible, taking into account the surrounding conditions and the social environment in which man lives and works. Medical control makes wide use of clinical research methods, especially those that reveal the functional abilities of the organism. Those physical culturists who choose physical culture as their specialty, for example, upon entering physical culture higher educational institutions and technical schools and when choosing one or another sports specialty, are subjected to the most complete study. Here, a detailed study of the state of the cardiovascular system using fluoroscopy, electrocardiography, determination of the volume of ejected blood, etc., acquires special significance. Usual objective methods of investigation: auscultation, percussion, studies of pulse and respiration, X-ray are insufficient here; it is necessary to check the heart often during work to find out its individual reaction. Such tests, for example during training, are very desirable and necessary in all serious cases; one of the best forms of testing must be recognized as functional heart diagnostics, which is performed by various known methods. Practical physical culture doctors, dealing with healthy individuals, prefer those methods that give the heart a heavy load (for example, tests according to the method developed by the State Central Institute of Physical Culture in Moscow - jumps). Much dispute is caused by the somewhat enlarged heart dimensions often found in physical culturists. Deich and Kauf, well-known specialists in the study of athletes' hearts in Vienna, found that a certain increase in heart size (hypertrophy) is characteristic to an unequal degree of different sports specialists. Skiing, for example, gives the greatest deviations in this direction, and track and field gives the least. At the present time, however, such data frighten no one, since a slightly hypertrophied heart can be, as statistics show, quite full-fledged in the event that physiological hypertrophy is revealed in hard work. Such hearts, adapted to work, sometimes reveal somewhat strange phenomena at first glance, for example, a strongly reduced pulse rate (persistent bradycardia), indicating vagotonia. Bradycardia of this sort is accompanied by an increase in the strength of individual contractions, i.e., the amount of ejected blood; this reaction should be considered quite expedient biologically. Even hearts with an obvious valvular deficiency react to the habitual motor-order irritation quite expediently: cases of victories won in competitions by athletes with such defective hearts are not uncommon. For physical culture doctors, studies of blood pressure with simultaneous study of pulse and respiration (by the Riva-Rocci and Kravkov method) are extremely indicative. Pulse pressure (the difference between maximum and minimum pressure), indicating the tension of the vascular wall, the tone of peripheral arteries, interests the physical culturists in many respects and above all because good tone of peripheral arteries helps the heart to work.

Blood tests (hemograms, white blood cell pictures, myogenic blood shifts reflected by the leukocyte formula) have become a standard practice of medical control. These facts serve as a guide in determining the influence of physical exercises on the organism and, in particular, in determining the degree of training of those preparing to compete in sports. Examinations of the respiratory apparatus in physical culture practice are of great importance already for the simple reason that physical exercises are capable of increasing the strength of the respiratory muscles and thereby enhancing respiratory capacity. The increase in chest circumference and the amplitude of respiration, and the increase in lung capacity are good indicators of health; they can be used as indicators of the correct methodology of physical culture work. Investigations of gas exchange, general metabolism, and special studies of the autonomic and endocrine systems are very necessary in physical culture, but these investigations are almost never used in routine medical control practice due to their complexity. Individual research works on these topics, which are still very few in number, point to a significant influence of physical exercises on this sphere. Medical control has found extensive application in the physical culture of women, which is distinguished by many features. Experience has shown that physical exercises for men and women cannot be measured with the same yardstick: the physiological load and the choice of physical exercises are determined by differences in the biological characteristics of both sexes; this circumstance was taken into account when developing normative indicators in the All-Union 'Ready for Labor and Defense' (GTO) system, and medical control during physical culture classes with women helped establish these norms. With the help of medical control, it was possible to establish indications and contraindications for physical culture classes during menstruation, pregnancy, in the postpartum period, and during the climacteric period. The age of an adult also matters when choosing physical exercises. After 40 years of age (approximately), even trained people very frequently begin to feel that their reaction to physical exercises is different. This question has not yet been subjected to scientific study; it is of great practical importance, and mass medical control over this age group would be of great practical significance. When deciding on admission to classes in one or another type of sport, the anamnesis concerning previous physical culture training, sporting experience, and participation in competitions is of very substantial importance. Thus, the presence of physical culture skills and the habit of the organism's adaptation to a particular physical culture work greatly expand the indications for admission even to strongly acting types of physical culture. When corresponding opportunities are available, it is necessary to supplement all the aforementioned information by checking the psychomotricity of the physical culture participant and the degree of their motor development, which is of particular importance when observing the course of development of a growing organism. In medical-control examinations whose task is admission to mass forms of physical culture, such as: GTO of the first stage, physical culture classes in rest homes, and the like, the scope of the examination is reduced; in individual cases, one has to be limited only to a medical examination supplemented by dynamic functional tests, such as, for example, the State Central Institute of Physical Culture (GTSIFK) test with jumping and others. Medical control is not limited to examination for resolving the question of indications and contraindications; its tasks include control and observation over the implementation and execution of physical culture work locally. The physician working in physical culture exercises sanitary supervision over the places where physical culture classes take place: gymnasiums, grounds, stadiums, swimming pools, skating rinks, and the like. They must be able to evaluate and analyze the conducted classes, determine how correctly they are constructed, and whether they correspond to the age, sex, level of preparedness, and state of health of the participants. In exercising this control, the physician uses a special methodology consisting of organized observations of the participants' reactions, determining the density of the lesson through its time-study, and finally conducting dynamic studies during the classes themselves. The complex includes studies of a psychophysiological nature. The signs that change most under the influence of muscular activity are the following: pulse and respiration rate, blood pressure, urine and blood data. Of the anthropometric measurements before and after the load, only weight, spirometry, and dynamometry are determined. If it is possible to set up more in-depth studies, paramount importance will be given to all those indicators that characterize the state of metabolic functions, which change very strongly under the influence of muscular activity—the biochemistry of urine and blood, and the like. In connection with the wide development of sports work, the prevention of sports injuries acquires great importance in the work of the physician. Organizationally, medical control work over physical culture is carried out by: a) offices of medical control over physical culture at child preventive ambulatories (DPA) or health protection of children and adolescents (OZDiP) points for servicing children's and adolescent population groups; b) offices at higher educational institutions and technicums for servicing students, and c) offices at production collectives, physical culture stadiums, physical culture houses, and therapeutic and prophylactic institutions for servicing the independent movement of adults. Offices are already divided into basic and peripheral ones. The former are engaged in in-depth servicing of physical culture participants using dispensary data, in-depth consultation, etc., while the peripheral ones conduct work on primary and routine control, self-control, and especially consultation on issues of physical culture. Hygiene of the physical culture participant. The personal hygiene of the physical culture participant includes the following: 1) organization of labor and rest, 2) self-control over the influence of the regimen and physical culture classes, 3) observance of the sanitary minimum in personal life, 4) observance of special hygienic rules regarding clothing and footwear, housing, nutrition, and abstinence from excesses in wine and love (in Baccho et in Venere), tobacco smoking, and the like. The main hygienic measure is self-control; however, in order to extract benefit from it in a social or scientific sense, the data of this self-control, recorded in special kinds of diaries, must be made convenient for comparison. Physical culture diaries with developed questions would be especially useful. Some organizations already use such diaries. Self-control as a method of organized observation, supported by objective data from various measurements, has been introduced into the GTO system. The questionnaire for those passing the standards reveals a certain minimum of hygienic knowledge. Inadequately thought-out and incorrectly understood hygienic habits become a habit and in this case essentially represent not infrequently the purest prejudices. Individual hygiene knows many such examples, and one has to wage a stubborn struggle against them. An example is the vulgar heliototherapy of completely healthy people who unnecessarily burn themselves in the sun under the pretext of acquiring 'hardening.' Health education on these issues is of great importance. First of all, those preparing for tests for the GTO badge must be acquainted with these rules. During the tests, these knowledge and skills must also be checked. Self-control should only supplement medical control, but under no circumstances replace it. It must be carried out under the guidance of a physician and best of all according to a defined developed regulation. Physical culture as a therapeutic factor—therapeutic physical culture. Treatment by movement was known in deep antiquity: 2–3 thousand years ago, physical exercises were already used as a therapeutic agent in China, and then in Ancient Greece and Rome. Hippocrates, Herodicus, Asclepiades, Galen—famous physicians of the ancient world—described in detail the action of this therapeutic factor on the organism of a sick person, using it alongside hydrotherapy, sun and air treatment. In subsequent historical epochs, the experience of ancient physicians was not used. Methodical treatment by movement began to be applied in the 17th and 18th centuries in the form of medical gymnastics, which, however, had rather narrow tasks, as did passive gymnastics on special apparatuses (Zander and others). The method of using apparatuses of passive gymnastics (mechanotherapy) has application in orthopedics mainly in the treatment of joint stiffness, in ankylosis and contractures. Modern medicine, as experience accumulates, attaches more and more importance every year to organized and dosed movements as a therapeutic factor, believing that the principle of treatment by rest, which dominated for a long time, has by far not justified itself and in many cases is harmful. The principle of treatment by irritation (Reiztherapie), treatment by exercise (Uebungstherapie) has entered medicine as a basic one, but its application is still limited. At present, therapeutic physical culture is ascribed a much broader meaning; it is used for preventive and purely medical purposes both in relation to weakened people and sick people with pronounced forms, mainly, of chronic diseases. The wide spread of physical culture has convinced physicians of its enormous activating influence on the entire organism as a whole, toning all its organs thanks to an increase in metabolism and an increase in the excitability of the central nervous system.

The revitalizing effect of such physical culture means as outdoor games, winter and summer sports, excursions, tourism, athletic games, and athletics has become known to physicians and many patients, and the term therapeutic physical culture has become common and understandable. The forms of applying physical culture for health-improving and therapeutic purposes have become diverse and are conducted along two lines: general influence and local action on a diseased organ. A large number of experimental works conducted in clinics and hospitals have proved that therapeutic physical culture, by activating the organism, shortens treatment periods, because under the influence of physical exercises the course of the disease is more favorable and the recovery period is shorter; this sometimes resolves the issue of earlier restoration of working capacity and of reducing the number of days of bed treatment and stay in a hospital. In recent years, the use of therapeutic physical culture has expanded significantly and is accompanied by great success. It has been tested in many diseases; the forms of its application vary depending on the general condition of the patient, the nature of the disease, age, profession, whether the patient engaged in physical culture before the disease, and so forth. Along with this, indications and contraindications for its application are being specified, individual dosage is performed, and physical culture prescriptions are given. By dividing patients into appropriate groups, in many cases it is possible to use physical exercises common to an entire group, which improves the mood of the patients. Physical exercises are contraindicated in few cases: in hemorrhages, infectious diseases, at elevated temperature, in purulent processes, in severe weakness, and in uncompensated heart defects. Many physical exercises are used even during bed treatment. For example, head turns, arm and leg movements, and breathing gymnastics are permitted. When the patient is allowed to get up, short-term exercises in the form of setting-up exercises, physical culture breaks, and morning gymnastics are possible at first. Then they move on to a physical culture lesson according to a special program, outdoor games on playgrounds, organized walking tours, and cross-country skiing. It has been noted that physical culture in hospitals always introduces a greater or lesser emotional element, toward which most patients feel a strong attraction; it eliminates the boredom of doing nothing. The same influence is exerted in many cases by labor therapy, which has much in common with motor culture and the same psychomotor roots. Let us dwell briefly on those types of diseases in which therapeutic physical culture has already found fairly wide application. Movement therapy for impaired metabolic functions—in obesity, gout, uric acid salt deposits, and diabetes—has been used for a long time (see literature). All these diseases with different clinical pictures and various etiologies obviously have many common constitutional and predisposing domestic and social factors that make it possible to combine them into a single nosological group. In the fight against them, physical culture plays a major role, since tissue oxidation insufficiency is (Bouchard, F. Lagrange, and others) one of the main pathological and at the same time etiological factors. Physical exercises that cause deep and complete breathing, enhance blood circulation and the activity of the neuromuscular apparatus, and restore impaired metabolism bring significant benefit. With complete clarity, the success of treatment with dosed and well-selected physical exercises is manifested in obesity, regardless of the causes of this excessive accumulation of fat in the tissues and organs of the body. Movement therapy in many cases of obesity is of decisive importance. Ertel understood this well in his time and proposed a new treatment system—"terrain cure"—which had great success, especially in incipient cardiac obesity. With considerable success, therapeutic physical culture is now used in gout, diabetes, and other diseases with impaired metabolism, but in more severe cases, when patients are treated in sanatoriums and hospitals, coordinated treatment with other methods is required; the differential diagnosis of impaired metabolism and its etiology must be the starting point for movement therapy. Movement therapy for cardiac patients represents the most important problem of therapeutic physical culture. The heart can suffer both from an excess of muscular work and from its lack. Biologists, anatomists, and physicians point to the close relationship between heart weight and the weight of skeletal musculature. It is also known that cardiac activity is largely dependent on peripheral circulation (Krogh, Deutsch and Kauf, Zelenin). From this it follows that in all heart diseases the main concern is providing assistance to the heart in its hemodynamics. Physical culture performs this function with great success when it utilizes auxiliary circulatory means, that is, when physical exercises are prescribed that increase the action of the neuromuscular apparatus of the chest and cause deep breathing. At the height of a deep inhalation, blood is mechanically squeezed out of the abdominal organs, and negative pressure increases sharply (from 5 cm to 30 cm of mercury column) in the chest cavity; secondly, movements are prescribed that promote the movement of blood from the periphery to the heart (regulation of the venomotor apparatus). This regulation is achieved first by passive gymnastics and then by active work of the lower extremities, which eliminates stagnant phenomena in the abdominal cavity. Improvement of circulatory conditions in the lesser circulation is also achieved by prescribing methodical, strictly dosed breathing exercises. In addition, this reduces tissue acidosis due to an increase in $ ext{CO}_2$ in the blood and pH. The indicated movements can be performed while the patient is lying in bed; further heart training takes place already in a standing position. During the treatment period, preference is given to hygienic exercises and habitual automatic movements (e.g., walking), and when possible, running. The heart musculature is best strengthened by the gradual increase of its load. Ertel's method is good because this load can be perfectly dosed and regulated by timing, distance traveled, and height of ascent. Exercises requiring effort, great strain, and breath-holding should be avoided in heart diseases. Numerous studies of heart work under various conditions of physical strain have shown that the athlete's heart adapts perfectly to work by increasing its volume, the contractility of its walls, the frequency of its rhythm, and so on. The type of activity of the athlete, the sport in which he engages (heavy and light athletes, boxers, swimmers, skiers, rowers, and so on), provide great material for judging what influence all these exercises have on the size, shape, and functional activity of the heart and the entire neurovascular apparatus, which largely determines its work. Adaptation goes so far that even organic changes (valvular insufficiency) do not prevent sports activities and do not cause health disorders. The researcher, the physical culture physician, is presented with the opportunity to evaluate all the details of this adaptation in practice and to study the conditions most favorable for strengthening the myocardium and circulatory organs. Medical supervision used in the movement therapy of cardiovascular diseases makes it successfully possible to dose physical exercises in connection with the reaction of the cardiovascular system. The behavior of the heart, revealed by the reaction, is the only way to regulate physical exercises and guarantee safety. At the same time, one indispensable condition must be observed: all activity of the subject, all his behavior, all labor load, all social, domestic, and sanitary-hygienic living conditions are subject to control and accounting, which is often overlooked when deciding the question of indications and contraindications. At resorts and in sanatoriums, such conditions, as experience has shown, must be observed. Movement therapy in diseases of the respiratory organs. "Breathing gymnastics" as one of the methods of such treatment has long been used and has proven itself well in medicine, but nevertheless its significance is very limited when, for treatment or prevention, omitting all other types of physical exercise, only it alone is used. Many physical exercises are an excellent stimulus for the correct function of the respiratory apparatus and for increasing lung ventilation: running, swimming, skiing, skating. They all increase the need for oxygen, excite the respiratory and nerve centers upon the accumulation of $ ext{CO}_2$ in the blood. In individuals systematically engaged in these sports, lung capacity, determined by a spirometer, sometimes reaches $6,000 ext{ cm}^3$. The task of breathing gymnastics is not only to develop the respiratory muscles, but also to teach a person how to use their respiratory apparatus well. Breathing gymnastics is of great importance in pathological conditions causing insufficiency of the respiratory apparatus, such as: pharyngeal adenoids, nasal polyps, as well as poor development of the chest and its various deformations. Therapeutic physical culture, including breathing gymnastics, is used with great success during the convalescence period and after many lung and pleural diseases.

Medical physical culture is prescribed in these cases to shorten the recovery period; it achieves for the most part the radical elimination of adhesions. According to a specially devised and carefully tested methodology, medical physical culture is performed in pulmonary tuberculosis already in the subcompensation stage, but the dosage and choice of exercises depend on the patient's individual reaction to them. A slight increase in temperature after exercises is possible; if the decrease of temperature to normal is delayed for 1 hour or more, if the pulse does not calm down for a long time, it is necessary to reduce the load or cancel the exercises for a time. Medical physical culture in diseases of the locomotory organs exerts a general and local effect. The general effect consists in reviving general circulation and metabolism, in eliminating stagnant phenomena, thanks to which decomposition products are eliminated faster, recovery processes are accelerated, and the period of convalescence and disability of the patient is shortened. Particularly favorable influence is exerted by medical physical culture in diseases of the locomotory organs in childhood and adolescent ages, because from forced lying (bone tuberculosis, rickets, etc.) the processes of growth and physical development are delayed. Medical physical culture is used for the purpose of a general impact on the entire organism or a local impact on the sick organ. Most often, both methods are combined. The field of application of medical physical culture in these cases is very extensive. It is used for fresh and old injuries of bones and joints, for example, in fractures, bruises, sprains, in stiff joints, in curvatures and deformations (in orthopedics), in diseases of muscles, tendons, etc. Medical physical culture consists in these cases of systematically performed passive and active movements of various kinds and types. With this method of treatment, the results of consolidation and restoration of the working capacity of the diseased organ are faster and better than with treatment by fixed bandages and prolonged fixation. Fractures of the spine and pelvis are among the most severe injuries that for a long time, and sometimes forever, deprive the victim of working capacity; but even here functional treatment has given excellent results. A number of surgeons (Gaumann, Magnus, Hempel, Gorinevskaya), having abandoned plaster circular corsets that hindered metabolism and blood circulation, switched to combined treatment with traction and movement. Gorinevskaya and Drewing developed a method of treating spinal fractures with movement (Sklifosovsky Institute in Moscow). The main task of such treatment is to preserve mobility in the undamaged part of the spine and to create around the traumatized site a "muscular corset" supporting the spine. Physical exercises in this case increase the general tone of the entire neuromuscular apparatus and contribute to the preservation of normal metabolism. This method contributes to the most rapid and complete restoration of working capacity. Of enormous importance in surgery is movement therapy in the postoperative period. Any surgical intervention traumatizes the patient in many respects and lowers vital functions: the patient for a more or less long period must maintain immobility, sometimes be on a semi-starvation diet in a state of depression. In the postoperative period, various complications caused by immobility are very often encountered: constipation, intestinal atonia, bronchitis and atelectatic pneumonia, etc. The patient, especially after abdominal operations, is afraid to breathe deeply, his spirometry drops sharply, diaphragmatic breathing is almost excluded and he breathes superficially; on this basis, pneumonia and other stagnant phenomena develop, which must be combated with the motor means of physical culture according to a developed methodology. The widest application of physical culture has been received after such operations as herniotomy and appendectomy, proceeding without complications, as well as in the postoperative period in gynecological patients. Research data have shown that wound healing by primary intention in experimental and control groups in percentage terms are identical. In experimental patients, retention of urine and gases was not observed, stool appeared independently on the second day, while in control patients retention of urine and gases was observed. The general well-being of patients as a result of the use of physical culture significantly improved: stiffness and fear of movement disappeared. The decrease in weight of the experimental group (0.75 kg) is significantly less than in the control patients (1.80 kg). Great Medical Encyclopedia, vol. XXXIII. Exemplary list of exercises used after appendectomy and herniotomy. Exercise 1. Deep thoracic breathing (without movement of the arms) 4–5 times. Exercise 2. Starting position — lying on the back. Hands on the chest, fingers intertwined. Execution: 1) slowly with some effort straighten the arms forward-upward with the palms turning "away from oneself", at the beginning of the movement exhale; 2) return to the starting position — inhale. Repeat 3–4 times. (The exercise begins on a full inhalation. Breathing is thoracic. Exhalation is longer than inhalation.) Exercise 3. Starting position — lying on the back. Arms freely along the torso. Execution: 1) slowly, in the tempo of inhalation, raise the arms through the front upward — inhale; 2) return to the starting position — exhale. Repeat 3–4 times. (The exercise should begin on a full exhalation. Exhalation is longer than inhalation.) Exercise 4. Starting position — lying on the back. Hands behind the head. Execution: 1) slowly bring the elbows inward — exhale; 2) return to the starting position — inhale. Repeat 3–4 times. Exercise 5. Starting position — lying on the back. Hands on the chest. Execution: 1) spread the arms to the sides — inhale; 2) return to the starting position — exhale. Repeat 3–4 times. (The exercise begins on a full exhalation.) Exercise 6. Starting position — lying on the back. Arms along the torso, giving light support. Execution: 1) in a sliding motion, carefully bend the right leg at the hip and knee joints, place it on the foot; 2) return to the starting position. Breathing is arbitrary. Repeat 2–4 times. Exercise 7. Starting position — the same. Execution: 1) in a sliding motion, carefully bend the right leg at the hip and knee joints, place it on the foot; 2) do the same with the left leg; in this position take a deep breath 2–4 times; 3) return to the initial position. Repeat 1–3 times. Exercise 8. Starting position — lying on the back. Arms free. Execution: turn to the sore side, lie down for 1 minute and take 2 deep breaths with the simultaneous raising of the arm through the side upward. The same on the healthy side. Repeat 1–2 times. Exercise 9. Starting position — lying on the back. Arms freely along the torso. Execution: 1) take the left leg to the side (to the left) in a sliding motion — inhale; 2) return to the position — exhale. The same for the right. Repeat 2–4 times. Exercise 10. Starting position — lying on the back. Hands behind the head. Execution: 1) carefully raise the extended leg forward-upward by 45–90°; 2) return to the starting position. Repeat 2–4 times. (Start the exercise with the leg on the healthy side.) Exercise 11. Sitting for 1–3 minutes. (The first time sit up with the help of the instructor.) Exercise 12. Stand up and walk 10–30 steps. Exercise 13. Starting position — sitting on the bed, hands to shoulders, elbows brought together. Execution: 1) turn the torso to the right, simultaneously spreading the arms to the sides — inhale; 2) return to the starting position — exhale. Repeat 2–3 times. The same to the left. (Option: when turning the torso, raise the arms up.) Exercise 14. Starting position — sitting on the bed. Hands on the waist. Execution: 1) tilt the torso to the right — exhale; 2) return to the starting position — inhale. Repeat 2–3 times. The same to the left. Exercise 15. Starting position — fundamental stance. Execution: 1) raise straight arms through the front upward, simultaneously putting the right (left) leg back — inhale; 2) lower the arms through the sides downward, bring the leg together — exhale. Repeat 2–4 times. Exercise 16. Starting position — fundamental stance. Arms to the sides, clenched into a fist, palms upward. Execution: 1) slowly with tension bend the arms at the elbows; 2) return to the starting position. Breathing is arbitrary. Repeat 4–5 times. Exercises by days. Appendicitis. 1st day. Immediately after the operation exercise 1. After 2 hours — exercise 1 and 2. — 2nd day. Exercises 2, 3, 8 (only on the sore side), 6, 4. The same after 2 hours, increasing the number of repetitions. — 3rd day. Exercises 3, 8 (with the surgeon's permission you can turn to the healthy side), 2, 9, 4, 10 and 5. The same after 2 hours, increasing the number of repetitions. — 4th day. Exercises 3, 7, 2, 10, 11 (1 minute), 5. The same after 2 hours. — 5th day. Exercises 3, 10, 4, 11 (1.5 min.), 12 (10 steps), 13, 2. The same after 2 hours. — 6th day. Exercises 2, 10, 4, 11 (2 min.), 12 (15 steps), 13, 5. The same after 2 hours. — 7th day. Exercises 2, 10, 9, 11 (3 min.), 12 (20 steps), 13, 14, 3. The same after 2 hours. — 8th day. Exercises 2, 10, 9, 11 (3 min.), 12 (30 steps), 15, 16 and 4. Hernia. 1st day. Immediately after the operation exercise 1, after 2 hours exercises 1 and 2. — 2nd day. Exercises 2, 3, 7 and 4. The same after 2 hours, increasing the number of repetitions. — 3rd day. Exercises 3, 8 (only on the sore side), 6, 9, 5. The same after 2 hours. — 4th day.

Exercises 3, 8, 4, 9, 10, 5. Repeat after 2 hours.-5th day. Exercises 3, 8, 4, 9, 10, 2. Repeat after 2 hours.-6th day. Exercises 3, 6, 4, 9, 10, 11 (1 min.), 5. Repeat after 2 hours.-7th day. Exercises 3, 10, 4, 11 (1¹/₂ min.), 12 (10 steps), 13, 5. Repeat after 2 hours.-8th day. Exercises 2, 10, 4, 11 (2 min.), 12 (15 steps), 13, 3. Repeat after 2 hours.-9th day. Exercises 3, 10, 4, 11 (3 min.), 12 (20 steps), 13, 14, 5. Repeat after 2 hours.-10th day. Exercises 2, 10, 4, 11 (3 min.), 12 (30 steps), 15, 16, 3. Repeat after 2 hours. The use of physical exercises for prophylactic purposes during pregnancy and in the postpartum period has received full recognition by obstetricians and wide dissemination in women's consultation clinics and maternity hospitals. Physical exercises during pregnancy, on the one hand, serve as a means of improving metabolic functions, toning the organism, and combating stagnant phenomena; on the other hand, they prepare the woman for the birth act by developing and strengthening the abdominal press and increasing the elasticity of the pelvic floor. In the postpartum period, gymnastics is used from the second day; it consists of a set of exercises aimed at combating stagnant phenomena in the pelvic region, toning the entire organism, and strengthening the abdominal press and pelvic floor weakened after childbirth. Physical culture has also found application in the treatment of chronic gynecological diseases, such as: remnants of inflammatory processes, incorrect position of the uterus, plethora, infantilism, etc. The combined use of therapeutic physical culture with physiotherapy and balneological procedures is carried out with excellent results in a number of health resorts, wherein local treatment is combined with the general tonic effect of physical exercises carried out in the fresh air (games, sports, excursions, swimming, etc.).-Movement therapy for nervous diseases-local and general-is expanding and deepening every year under the influence of a more detailed study of this issue and the elaboration of a specific methodology. Therapeutic physical culture is used for functional neuroses and organic diseases of the nervous system. The examples given above do not, of course, exhaust the cases of therapeutic physical culture application. Its field of application is enormous and expands, one might say, every day. This is a promising method of treatment, but as yet little studied in clinical settings. It requires a detailed study of indications and contraindications, and the development of a special methodology for all diseases. T. Organization of Physical Culture. The physical culture movement in the USSR is directed by the Supreme Council of Physical Culture of the USSR under the Central Executive Committee of the USSR. The Supreme Council of Physical Culture has as its task state management and control over physical culture. It exercises management over all departments and voluntary organizations. Councils of physical culture based on the same principle have been created under the Central Executive Committees of all union republics, autonomous, krai, and oblast executive committees, and city and district executive committees. The main departments managed by the councils of physical culture are: the People's Commissariat of Health (medical control, physical culture in the system of therapeutic and prophylactic institutions, etc.); the People's Commissariats of Education (organization of physical culture in the school education system, development of independent children's physical culture movement, training of personnel; committees on physical culture have been created in the People's Commissariat of Education system to manage this sector); economic people's commissariats (physical culture in the production process, physical culture in the higher education system; special committees on physical culture have been created in the commissariats); the People's Commissariat of Agriculture, and the People's Commissariat of State Farms (physical culture work in collective and state farms, sports facilities, deployment of mass physical culture work in collective and state farms). The independent physical culture movement in the USSR is organized in the form of voluntary sports societies created under individual trade unions and departments. The basis of a voluntary sports society is the collective at production (plant, factory, institutional), as well as sports clubs for individual sports genres. Active members of voluntary societies can be persons no younger than 16 years old who have passed the norm for the Ready for Labor and Defense badge of the 1st degree. The following sports societies have already been organized and exist: Dynamo, Spartak, Lokomotiv, Stalinetz, Vita (uniting medical university students), Avangard (under the Central Committee of Medical and Sanitary Labor), etc. Basic statistical data on physical culture: Table 2. Number of athletes. Years Number Years Number 1917 - 1931 2,800,000 1928 650,000 1932 4,700,000 1929 1,100,000 1933 6,000,000 Number of persons who passed the norms for the Ready for Labor and Defense badge of the 1st degree: 1932-500,000, 1933-1,400,000, 1934-2,500,000. Coverage of schoolchildren with independent work: in 1933-5,943,000, in 1934-8,453,000. Coverage of schoolchildren with organized classes: in 1933, 20,000,000 schoolchildren were covered.-Personnel as of January 1, 1933: highest qualification specialists-1,300 people, medium-1,500 people, elementary-7,700 people (total 10,500 people). Table 3. Medical personnel. Physicians 1929 1932 1933 Physician-specialists in physical culture... 260 420 665 Assistant physicians..........

675 Physical culture facilities: as of January 1, 1933-6,540 physical culture facilities with a capacity of 7,500,000 people. Financing: 250 million rubles were spent during the first five-year plan. 800 million rubles have been budgeted for the second five-year plan. Scientific work on physical culture. The mass deployment of the physical culture movement in the USSR very acutely raised the question of the scientific substantiation of the theory and practice of the physical culture movement. In the pre-October period in tsarist Russia, there was not a single institution engaged in scientific issues on physical culture. In 1918, two central institutes of physical culture were created in Moscow and Leningrad to train physical culture personnel, which actually became the center of scientific work on physical culture. On the basis of 709

physical; these institutions in 1930, the Central Research Institute was created in Moscow and Leningrad, the Ukrainian Research Institute is created in Kharkov, and the Georgian one in Tiflis. Simultaneously, scientific offices on physical culture are being created throughout the Union, numbering already 29. A large number of related institutes of the People's Commissariat of Health and the People's Commissariat of Education are conducting research work on physical culture (Obukh Institute in Moscow, Okhmatmlad, Gifto, Sklifosovsky Institute, a number of military hospitals, Institutes of Health Protection of Children and Adolescents, etc.). Scientific work on physical culture grew particularly during the period of building the Soviet "Ready for Labor and Defense" system. The main issues related to the polytechnic school, preschool education, physical culture in production processes, therapeutic physical culture, medical control, and defense have been developed. The network of research institutes on physical culture and offices has grown. A number of related research institutes have been drawn into the elaboration of issues related to the scientific substantiation of physical culture. Physical culture press. In the USSR, a central newspaper is published, the organ of the Supreme Council of Physical Culture of the USSR, "Krasny Sport" [Red Sport], in Leningrad-the newspaper "Spartak", and in Ukraine-"Gotov k trudu i oborone" [Ready for Labor and Defense]. Physical culture newspapers are published in a number of krais and oblasts. Among methodological journals, "Fizkultura i sport" [Physical Culture and Sport] is published in Moscow, "Fizkulturnik Ukrainy" [Physical Culture Worker of Ukraine] and "Fizkulturnik Zakavkazya" [Physical Culture Worker of Transcaucasia]. Over the past year, a mass physical culture newspaper for the countryside, published by Pravda, "Kultura i sport" [Culture and Sport], has been specially published. The publishing house "Fizkultura i sport" annually issues up to 75 various books on physical culture.

;v< Medical control.-Birzin G. and Gorinevskaya V., Rukovodstvo po vrachebnomu kontrolyu [Guide to Medical Control], Moscow, 1925; Gurevich M. and Ozeretsky N., Psikhomotorika [Psychomotorics], pts. 1-2, Moscow-Leningrad, 1930; Egorov A., Metodika massovykh issledovaniy krovi [Methodology of Mass Blood Examinations], Moscow-Leningrad, 1930; Ivanovsky B., Vrachebny kontrol nad fizkulturoy [Medical Control over Physical Culture], Moscow-Leningrad, 1935; Minkevich M. and Gorinevskaya V., Standarty antropometricheskikh i fiziologicheskikh issledovaniy [Standards of Anthropometric and Physiological Studies], Moscow, 1928. Age and women's physical culture.-Vrachebnye issledovaniya fizkulturnikov [Medical Studies of Athletes], Collection of works of the Moscow Oblast Health Department, Moscow, 1931; Korsunskaya M., Fizicheskoe razvitie moskovskogo proletarskogo doshkolnika [Physical Development of the Moscow Proletarian Preschooler], Moscow-Leningrad, 1931; Obosnovanie fizkultury zhenshchiny [Substantiation of Women's Physical Culture], Moscow, 1931; Chulitskaya L., Fizkultura rebenka doshkolnogo vozrasta [Physical Culture of the Preschool Child], Leningrad, 1925. Therapeutic physical culture.-Lechebnaya fizkultura v statsionare [Therapeutic Physical Culture in Inpatient Facilities], Leningrad, 1934; Osnovy lechebno-profilakticheskoy fizkultury na kurortakh YUBK VOK'a [Fundamentals of Therapeutic and Prophylactic Physical Culture in the Health Resorts of the South Coast of Crimea of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries], 1934; Sarkizov-Seravini, Lechebnaya fizkultura [Therapeutic Physical Culture], Moscow, 1935; Sbornik nauchno-issledovatelskikh trudov po vrachebno-fizkulturnoy rabote tsentralnogo stadiona "Dinamo" [Collection of Research Works on Medical and Physical Culture Work of the Central Dynamo Stadium], Moscow, 1934; Sokolova and Mashkov V., Lechebnaya fizkultura serdtsa [Therapeutic Physical Culture of the Heart], ed. by M. Konchalovsky, Moscow, 1934; Trudy nauchno-issledovatelskoy laboratorii OSFK [Works of the Research Laboratory of the Oblast Council of Physical Culture], Odessa, 1930; Fizkultura i klinika [Physical Culture and Clinic], Moscow-Leningrad, 1928; Fizkultura v lechebno-profilakticheskikh uchrezhdeniyakh zh[izni?] [Physical Culture in Therapeutic and Prophylactic Institutions and on...]

710 in production, M., 1934; Shimshelich V., Mo-shkov V. and Nikitin T., Therapeutic Physical Culture, M., Periodical publications.-Biology, medicine and physical culture, M., from 1933; Vestnik fizkul'tury, Kharkov, from 1933; Goto trudu i oborone, materials on the GTO complex, M., 1933-34; Materials on the study of the influence of physical culture on the human organism, Kharkov, 1931; Collection of materials on the academic disciplines of the GCIFC, M.-L., 1932-33; Theory and practice of physical culture, collection of articles and works on physical culture for the period 1925-1931, M., 1931; Works of the State Central Scientific Research Institute for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy, M., 1934; Works of the P. Lesgaft Institute of Physical Education, L., 1932-34; Works of the Leningrad Regional Scientific-Practical Institute for the Protection of the Health of Children and Adolescents, L., 1933-35; Works of the Moscow State Central Institute for the Protection of the Health of Children and Adolescents (OZDiP), M.-L., 1933-35; Works of the Odessa Regional Branch of the Ukrainian Scientific Research Institute of Physical Culture, Odessa, 1932-34; Physical culture in scientific and practical terms, collection of works of the GCIFC, L., 1924-28. V. Gorenivsky, S. Magiton.