itute for outdoor
recreations at times when weather conditions are too extreme. But the
major part of them, and especially the more unusual of these exercises,
are regularly practised as a part of his daily routine. As a matter of
fact, they are pretty closely dove-tailed in with his office work.

FLEXING EXERCISES

However, if the President really has a favorite among his various
physical exercises, it is said to be that of "flexing." This he employs
almost entirely as an indoor exercise, and it perhaps is the one he
practises more often than any other.

"Flexing," as Doctor Grayson put it into its simplest every-day term, is
nothing more nor less than just good, old-fashioned "stretching"
expressed in a scientific and systematized form of exercise. It is the
most generally and commonly executed muscular exercise, and it is
practised by nearly all the animal kingdom.

President Wilson uses his flexing movements with a careful regard to
system, and a great deal more regularly and frequently than any other of
his varied physical exercises. Particularly during his periods of
concentration, when at work at his desk in the preparation of his
messages to Congress or in the drafting of notes to foreign governments,
the President, at short intervals, will either settle back in his chair
and flex his arms and hands and the muscles across his back and chest,
or he will rise and stand erect for a more thorough practice of the
flexing movements for a period of a minute or more. At these times he
will throw his body into almost every conceivable posture--twisting,
turning, bending, stooping, the arms down, forward, back, and over his
head, the muscles of the limbs and entire body flexed almost to the
point of tremor, the fingers spread, and the muscles rigidly tensed.

In the opinion of Doctor Grayson, if business and professional men,
particularly those who work at high tension in the cities, would pause
in their work at frequent intervals during the day and give a few
seconds of their time to the energetic practice of the flexing or
stretching exercises, there would soon come to be not only less, but,
possibly in time, no cases reported of this or that noted man, the
famous lawyer, merchant, or financier, dropping dead at his desk or in
his home or in the street, on account of apoplexy caused by hardened
arteries.

One of Mr. Wilson's principal physical movements is that of
body-twisting. With the toes at a slight outwar