Remembrance of things past
We do not know what the Viennese doctor told Mahler, for the telegram he sent Alma the next day is no longer to be found. According to her Erinnerungen, Kovacs diagnosed inborn contracted mitral valves on both sides, with compensatory movements. He ordered Mahler to give up sport altogether: no mountain climbing, no bicycle rides, no swimming, indeed with incredible short sightedness he recommended this man who had always practised the most strenuous sports to take a field course to accustom himself to walking, overlooking the inevitable psychological effect of all these prohibitions. For the next few days, Mahler obediently followed the doctor's instructions and taught himself how to walk. He practised walking slowly for the first time in his life. His diligence was touching. Looking at his watch, he walked for five minutes, for ten, and so on. (Henry-Louis de La Grange.Gustav Mahler. Vienna: Triumph and Disillusion (1904–1907). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999:693.)
Muscles and ageing
For the past two decades, extensive research has documented the skeletal muscle composition of both normal non-athletic and world class athletic humans. In doing so, two classes of muscle fibres have been identified. One so called slow twitch fibre and the other the fast. The average healthy adult has roughly equal numbers of slow and fast twitch fibres. However, competitive athletes frequently show a disproportionate number of one or the other so that in the case of sprinters most fibres are fast and in the case of endurance athletes the fibres have a tendency to be slow. Now investigators have turned their attention to the process of ageing and muscle composition. It has …
