Don't Pay Attention to any advice on Physical Fitness ... ...Except this

so you can't do one-armed push-ups like rocky? good news: you don't need to

Let's put it on the line: Exercise--as distinguished from sport or play--is a pain in the ass. It hurts. It's boring. It's an unpleasant memory (push-ups as punishment; "OK, wise guy, twice around the track"). It's that nuisance we'll get to tomorrow. It's a problem.

Part of the problem for most of us is that the objectives of exercise seem intimidating and esoteric, beyond the reach of all but the fitness fanatics. The means to those objectives are often complex, bewildering and contradictory. Every year, it seems, there's a new and better system for achieving physical fitness--completely different from last year's method. What are we supposed to do, please? Pump iron? Run to exhaustion? Practice yoga? Do calisthenics?

Much of our confusion arises from the fact that when people talk about physical fitness, they're often giving different meaning to the same term. To some, fitness means big muscles or a beautiful body. To others, it means suppleness. To still others, it means how strong you are, how far and how fast you can run or how many push-ups you can do.

In fact, fitness is none of those things--though all of them may be its by-products. Your fitness is measured by one, and only one, criterion: your ability to use your body to live life as you want to.

There are those among us who can get everything they want out of life without ever getting winded, and yet do little or nothing to stay in shape. Such persons would tend to be skinny and dynamic; they move a lot, and swiftly, throughout the day. Unfortunately, most of us don't have that combination of body type and lifestyle. We need special training to get what we want out of life without courting danger. But because we have been conditioned to think of that training as punitive, boring and even dangerous, we wind up doing nothing.

No one can prove that you, specifically, aren't getting as much out of life by being out of shape. But the probability that you're not is overwhelming. You're not as alert, you tire sooner, don't perform as well in your work and sport, don't achieve as much and--sex being a fitness event, whatever else it is--you're almost surely not satisfying either your partner or yourself as much as you would be if you were fit.

It doesn't take more than an eyeball survey to confirm that Americans have gone sports and fitness crazy. Part of the interest has to be credited to television's emphasis on competitive sports, and that's where the credit generally goes. I have another theory: The sports-and-fitness explosion in this country is energized by the interest of women.

Sports once played exclusively by men are now being played by women. Women's high school and college athletics used to feature field hockey and archery. Today, it's softball, basketball and track and field. Recreationally, the increased participation of women is even more noticeable. They are on the ski slopes and tennis courts, volleyball and racquet-ball courts. Where women are, men will be. A man has to be fit today, if only to keep up with his lady.

Because that well-built woman you admire so much responds to a well-built man, you're probably not as attractive to her as you could be. It's not just a matter of the size of your chest and shoulders and the lack of size of your waist and butt; it's also the youthfulness you project.

There's nothing we can do about chronological aging, but physiological aging is something else again. There are periods in our 20s when it's helpful to look older; it gives us more assurance and often earns us more confidence. But that time passes quickly. At 40, we wouldn't mind looking 30 again--and fitness can help us do it. The variable can be as much as 30 years. A man of 50 can look 65--or 35. More than likely, the condition of his internal system will match his external appearance.

Which leads us to the most costly consideration of all: All the available evidence powerfully suggests that the man who isn't exercising is courting premature death.

The hard truth, then, is that exercise, while theoretically an option, is as necessary to a well-lived life as eating, sleeping and lovemaking. That being the case, the trick is to find the least punishing and most rewarding way to get--and keep--yourself in shape.

The thesis of this article is that the best way to do that is by means of a program--unlike any you may have read about before--designed exclusively for you. You'll design it for yourself, with the aid of the instructions that follow.

You'll figure out exactly what you need to do, given your present lifestyle, to achieve both the fitness and the performance level you desire. You won't waste a minute. You won't be uncomfortable. You won't fail. What you'll wind up with, above all, is a different way of looking at fitness--as something that doesn't hurt more than you're willing to bear, is thoroughly personal and produces immediate rewards.

No suggestion is made or implied that the program you may now be on hasn't produced its own rewards. To the contrary, anything you've done--whether it's the Canadian Air Force or West Point exercise programs, aerobics, yoga or your own variation--has been beneficial and has created a base to build on. My argument is that there is a more modern way to exercise that avoids both the psychological and the physical hazards of previous programs, is infinitely more efficient and guarantees success.

I confess to a bias in these matters. I am the co-author with Laurence E. Morehouse, a physiologist, professor of kinesiology and founding director of the Human Performance Laboratory at UCLA, of two books that deal with fitness. The first, Total Fitness, was published in 1975 and became an international best seller, as well as a subject of controversy because of its permissive approach to exercise. The second, Maximum Performance, was published last June. It argues that all of us function at a fraction of our capacity and that each can be a better performer than he is--a better producer, leader, organizer, homemaker, athlete, dancer, lover. The two books are linked by one pivotal notion: Whether it's fitness or performance we're after, each one of us takes a different route to excellence.

That each one of us is different is a notion so obvious that it would seem not to need restating. Yet time after time, we are offered fitness programs that address the subject as though what's good for one is good for all.

Not true. Your needs are determined by your age, your present physical condition, your lifestyle and your objectives.

Suppose you sit at a desk all day. Your fitness program should differ from that of a man who works on his feet. This peripatetic worker's program, in turn, should differ from that of a lumberjack. The weekend tennis player's program should differ from that of the touring pro or the amateur who's so well heeled that he can play every day. And so on.

Yet many fitness systems seem to be predicated on the notion that all of us aspire to be world-class athletes. Such standards are hopelessly unrealistic when applied to you and me, and, more importantly, we don't need the fitness that all that suffering produces.

You can't store fitness. It doesn't do you any good to have it if you don't intend to use it. If you're playing defensive tackle to earn your living, you need one kind of fitness. If you have an office job and play tennis (continued on page 286)Physical Fitness(continued from page 244) on weekends, you're not really helping yourself by developing to the football player's fitness level, because you have no use for that much strength and endurance. You'd be far better off sharpening other skills in the time it took you to develop this unneeded fitness.

That means that while you may be among the more than 80,000,000 Americans who play sports and exercise, it doesn't necessarily follow that you're doing yourself all that much good. More than likely, you're wasting time and courting injury. My own inefficiency in these matters is what got me into this field in the first place.

My normal field is man's social, not his physical condition. But I have always had a thing about keeping fit. It was not until I met Dr. Morehouse, however, that I found out how much time and energy I had wasted. I learned not only that just about everything I had been doing was wrong but that I was doing far more than I needed to. My workouts were so arduous that I approached them with dread. I often took short cuts. Sometimes I failed to work out, because I lacked either the time or the inclination. Often the lack of inclination made it seem that I didn't have the time. My guilt was sizable, the results were spotty and my lower back was killing me. When I asked Morehouse to review my program and recommend changes, he replied, "What's your objective?"

"To be fit," I said.

"For what? I can't give you a program unless I know what you want to be fit for."

Today, every exercise I do contributes directly to my performance as a skier and a tennis player. I do half as many exercises as I used to and my workouts take half as long. The backaches are gone and the praise of my friends persuades me that I've improved. I'm able to get to balls that used to go for winners. I'm still moving well in the third set or late in the afternoon on the slopes.

What Morehouse did for me was to change completely the manner in which I exercised.

In the past, I had always measured fitness by what I could do--how strong I was or how far or fast I could run. Morehouse persuaded me that those external measures don't tell me much, if anything, about how fit I am inside my body. All they tell me is how well I can perform.

Years ago, Morehouse was challenged to a swimming race at a faculty picnic by a colleague who had recently had one lung removed and had spots on the other. Both men had been collegiate swimmers. Off they raced, to the cheers of the spectators. Morehouse's colleague won. The next day, he re-entered the hospital; a month later, he was dead.

It's not what you do that counts; it's what the exercise does to you.

As Morehouse puts it in Total Fitness:

All previous programs measure the work you produce--the distance you run or the speed at which you run it or the number of times you can accomplish a specific task. This program ignores exterior accomplishments in favor of interior results. This system is interested in only one thing--the effect you produce on your body. You regulate the effect entirely. You produce exactly the response to effort that you wish and require.

The problem with previous exercise systems is that they assign tasks that are either too difficult at the outset or become easier and easier to perform. It's all very well to run or swim faster or farther, but if your internal system is not responding to the right degree, you're not achieving fitness.

Previous systems program you into specific tasks. This system offers you your choice of any activity you find enjoyable. All that matters is that the activity churn your system to a level appropriate for your particular circumstance. You monitor that activity. You set the pace in terms of what the activity is doing to your circulo-respiratory system--your heart and vessels and lungs. You do this by taking your pulse.

Lifting a weight so many times tells you nothing about what's happening to your body. You may be working too hard or not hard enough. But if you measure what effect that work has produced on your heart rate, you know exactly where you are. Moreover, your body automatically adjusts to your condition at the moment you're working out. If you're tired or not feeling well, your heart rate will rise to the level you want more rapidly than if you are normal.

Your heart is your computer. The readout of your computer is your pulse, which is a wave sent out from the heart. Your pulse tells you how many times your heart is beating--and in heart-rated exercise, that's the name of the game.

You're in good shape when you can hurry up a couple of flights of stairs with only a moderate increase in your pulse rate. You're in bad shape if the same effort sharply increases your pulse rate. This moderate exertion should produce a pulse rate in a reasonably well-conditioned young man of approximately 120 beats a minute. And taking your pulse is easily learned (see the box on page 299).

Now we come to the reason your fitness program could not possibly be like anyone else's--regardless of your objectives. It's because each person's pulse response to the same amount of effort will be different, depending upon his age and his physical condition.

Let's say that you and two friends go jogging together. Your friend Joe is 20 years old and in fabulous shape. You're 30 and in fairly good shape. Friend Sam is 40 and hasn't run, except to catch an airplane, in ten years. Let's say, further, that you set the pace. You'll get a good workout. Joe might as well have done something more enjoyable, for all the good the jog will do him. And Sam will all but expire.

There's a formula to calculate the exact pulse rate at which you should exercise. Multiply the difference between 220 and your age by 60 percent if you're just starting an exercise program, by 70 percent if you're in moderately good condition and by 80 percent if you're in excellent condition.

During that three-man bout of jogging, Joe should have worked out at a pulse rate of 160 (220 -- 20 = 200 × .80), you should have worked out at a pulse rate of 133 (220 -- 30 = 190 × .70) and Sam should have jogged at a pulse rate 108 (220 -- 40 = 180 × .60). The miracle of exercise is that all three of you would have received the same amount of benefit. If anything, Sam, whose heart rate rose the least, would have benefited the most, because fitness gains are greatest, relative to your condition, at the beginning of a training program.

What we've been talking about is the fundamental principle exercise--overload. Using that principle, you can't help but succeed in putting yourself in shape. Without it, you'll help yourself by exercising, but not nearly so much.

Suppose you jog a mile in nine minutes every day. At the outset, you'd be improving your condition. But gradually, jogging that mile would become easier and easier for you, until you'd reach a point where you'd finish without even puffing. You'd think, Boy, am I in good shape. Well, yes and no. You'd almost certainly be in better shape than you were when you started to exercise. But as the exercise became easier and easier, your body would be working less and less. At the outset, your heart rate might have increased to 130 beats a minute. After two or three months, the same amount of jogging in the same time would raise your heart rate only to 110. So your cardiovascular system wouldn't be getting as good a workout two or three months later as it had been at the outset. If it's not, it's losing condition.

Each time you jog that mile, you want to do something to maintain your pulse rate at 130--or whatever rate is right for you. In order to do that, as your condition improves, you will either have to run a little faster or, if you wanted to maintain the nine-minute mile, you could increase the overload by carrying some small weights in your hands or attached to your waist or ankles.

Regardless of what exercise you do, you must overload as your condition improves in order to make certain that the benefit of training is continuous. Progressive overloading can be accomplished not only by increasing the intensity, as we've just seen, but also by increasing the duration or the frequency of the exercise. Make training gradual and give it spice by using one variable at a time and alternating the variables.

The marvelous part of overloading, using your heart rate as a guide, is that it never requires more exertion. Using the same effort, you're soon doing much more than you could just months before. Because your physical condition is so much better, you're not really expending more effort to jog faster or work more productively.

Because your body's response to exercise will be different from anyone else's, your program has to be designed and performed with that in mind. It can't be like anyone else's.

Now let's design your program in the same way Morehouse designed mine.

There are three basic levels of fitness. Your first task is to decide at which level you want to live.

Minimum Maintenance--The irreducible minimum you need to get through your day and still be in one piece.

Total Fitness--This is the level of fitness that keeps you peppy throughout the day, with enough capacity to enjoy your recreational pursuits after work and to maintain a reserve for emergencies.

Superfitness--This is the level of fitness you will approach as you train for maximum performance.

Even if you don't care about fitness at any level, you must incorporate a few simple habits into your everyday life just to prevent deterioration and maintain normal body structure and function.

Minimum Maintenance

1. Stretch and turn as often as you can, turning all your body joints to their full range of motion.

2. Stand for at least two hours a day.

3. Lift something that's heavy for you at least once a day. Just that much will maintain your strength.

4. Walk briskly for at least three minutes, so that you can feel your heart beating. If your head begins to throb, slow down.

5. Burn at least 300 "activity calories" a day, in addition to those you've been burning.

The body takes in calories when you eat. It burns those calories to live. If you did nothing but exist, your body would burn 1500 calories a day. It burns another 800, on the average, as you go through a normal day's routine. What we're talking about are 300 calories in addition to those, calories you burn by being unusually active--walking vigorously, climbing stairs, standing frequently and exercising.

If you have a weight problem, the key to fat reduction is right here. By adding 300 activity calories to your daily effort and diminishing your intake by just 200 calories a day--that's doing without one slice of buttered toast in the morning and one ounce of spirits in the evening--that's 500 calories a day, 3500 a week, or one pound of fat permanently lost. A pound a week is 52 pounds a year, surely enough fat loss for anyone.

Total Fitness

Most people don't exercise, and the reason they don't is that the standards and rigors historically associated with fitness have been beyond their realm. But fitness is no big deal, as Morehouse is fond of saying, if your objectives are simply to work with vitality throughout the day, to enjoy your recreational life and to be effective in case of emergencies. If you trained to that level and wanted nothing more out of life, you'd be totally fit.

Obviously, the man trained to a higher level of fitness could not remain totally fit if he reduced his exercise program but did not correspondingly reduce his objectives.

Muscle tissue has three qualities--bulk, strength and endurance. All three are developed in different ways.

Bulk is achieved by using loads that enable you to do 15 to 20 repetitions of each exercise.

Endurance is achieved by using lighter loads so that you can do 40 to 50 repetitions of each exercise.

Strength is achieved by using the heaviest loads you can manage while doing one to five repetitions of each exercise.

The Total Fitness Program combines all three, in successive eight-week sessions. The first eight weeks, you work for bulk, building the tissue you'll later refine; the next eight weeks, you work for endurance; and the final eight weeks, you concentrate on building strength.

Each week, you'll exercise three times for ten minutes, or a total of 30 minutes. You can do more, but for this level of fitness, you don't really need to.

Precede each bout of exercise with a one-minute warm-up.

Stretch: Extend an arm over your head. Reach as high as you can for seven seconds. Repeat with the other arm.

Twist: With your arms to the side and parallel to the ground, twist your trunk as far as you can to one side, then to the other.

Bend: Grasp the backs of your knees and pull your chest gently toward your thighs. Feel the stretch in your lower back.

Turn: Look to the left, as far as you can. Then put your left hand on your chin and your right hand behind your head. Now gently turn your head still farther. Next, look to the right, reverse your hands and repeat the process.

After this one-minute warm-up, you'll do two sets of two muscle-conditioning exercises.

Push-aways: If you haven't worked out in a long time, start this exercise in an upright position. Stand just beyond arm's reach from a wall. Put your hands against the wall at shoulder height. Lean forward, then push away from the wall. Repeat 15 to 20 times. That will probably be much too easy for most of you. If so, put your hands on a dresser or countertop the next time. Then a chair, then the floor, with your knees touching, then without knees touching (the conventional push-up position). When that becomes too easy, begin to elevate your feet--to the chair, the table, the dresser and, finally, to the handstand push-up position if necessary. Remember, if it feels neither too hard nor too easy for you, you're getting the right benefit for yourself, regardless of what anyone else is doing.

Sit-backs: Terrific exercise, much more beneficial than sit-ups and easier on your lower back.

Sit on the floor. Bend your knees fully. Move your chest as close to your knees as you can. Now raise your chest slightly, tuck your chin in toward your chest and lean back until you can feel the tension in your abdominal muscles. Put your hands on your abdomen to help you feel the muscles working; a little pressure on the muscles will "remind" them to tighten up. Hold that position for 15 to 20 seconds. The right position is neither too hard nor too easy; you'll know it's right if you're just about to quiver as the exercise ends.

After the sit-back, do another set of push-aways. Then do one more sit-back. Remember, you don't move up and down as in the sit-up; you simply hold the position.

Cardiovascular conditioning: The heart of the program. The objective is to exercise your cardiovascular system--heart, vessels, lungs--for at least five minutes at your "target pulse rate," or TPR. The formula, once again, is:

220 -- your age × 60 percent (beginners)

220 -- your age × 70 percent (intermediates)

220 -- your age × 80 percent (advanced)

The best way to raise your pulse is to use your legs. How you use your legs is up to you. Running in place and jogging will do the job. But you might enjoy yourself a lot more if you put on some rock and let go. Any continuous, rhythmic activity that gets you on target is fine.

As your condition improves, you'll be doing more work to reach your target than you did at the outset. But the work won't require any more exertion.

After eight weeks, you'll have enough muscle bulk. For the next eight weeks, you'll work for endurance in the following manner:

Push-aways: Move back to an easy position and do 40 to 50 push-aways. Don't let false pride keep you from starting against the wall. You might be surprised. As soon as that becomes too easy, move to the dresser, table, etc.

Sit-backs: Move back into a position that you can hold for 40 to 50 seconds. Put your hands on your abdomen and push to remind your muscles to work. Keep them tight.

Repeat a set of push-aways. Then do another sit-back.

Cardiovascular conditioning: The objective is the same, to raise your heart rate. This time, however, we'll employ interval training--30 seconds of slow movement alternated with 30 seconds of the most vigorous movement you can manage. Keep that up for six minutes, being careful not to exceed your TPR.

Note well: The man who started at 60 percent of 220 minus his age in the first eight weeks and exercised faithfully three times a week is now in good enough shape to exercise at 70 percent of 220 minus his age. The man who started at 70 percent can now move up to 80. In the Total Fitness Program, Morehouse says, 80 percent is all you really need.

The third eight weeks are devoted to building strength.

Push-aways: Assume a position that's really a challenge--so much so that you can manage only a single push-away. In this position, your feet will undoubtedly be higher than your head. If that doesn't produce enough resistance, ask your mate to press down on your back. Work up to five push-aways, then increase resistance.

Sit-backs: The objective is to assume a position that you can hold for only six to ten seconds without quivering. There are two ways to create that much difficulty. First, pit your hands and the muscles of your abdomen against each other, pressing hands against abdomen, pushing abdomen against hands. Second, make your sit-back as deep as possible without touching the floor; move your arms to your chest, then behind your head, then over your head; or, finally, put a weight--a heavy pot or an oversized dictionary--on your chest.

After you've done a sit-back, repeat the push-away. Then do another sit-back.

Cardiovascular conditioning: Because the strength exercises take so little time, you can now move up to eight minutes in this department.

By this point, you should be comfortably exercising at 80 percent of maximum. To get your heart going that fast, you simply shorten your intervals. Lope along for 15 seconds, then sprint for 15 seconds. Lope again. Sprint again, etc. You should reach your TPR within two to three minutes.

After you've completed the third eight-week period, if that's all the fitness you're after, put yourself on a Total Fitness Maintenance Program by working out for bulk, strength and endurance once each week, on alternate days. On Monday, work for bulk; Wednesday, for endurance; Friday, for strength.

We all have periods of commitment when we're simply too busy to play or engage in extensive conditioning programs. Or else we're traveling and have no access to facilities. In periods like those, ten minutes a day, three days a week, of Total Fitness training will prevent you from losing the fitness you've attained.

Superfitness for Maximum Performance

Now that you're fit, you've got the base to move into areas of performance that are simply inaccessible to you when you're out of shape.

Which brings us to a new, much more specialized kind of fitness training.

Everything you've done to this point has been to develop your foundation. Now you're going to get specific. The technical word is specificity and its translation is "the special adaptation to imposed demands." The body responds to the demands placed upon it. So your objective is to place the very demands on your body in training for your event that will be placed on it in the event itself.

This may shock the skiers and tennis players who are jogging to keep in shape for their events, but they're mostly spinning their wheels. Jogging is a terrific way to begin a conditioning program, but after several weeks, it's time to get specific. The only jogging you do on a tennis court is when you're retrieving balls during warm-ups. If you want to be able to volley all out in a long match, you should take your tennis racket in hand and play a phantom game. Stroke the ball, move up, move back, bend, stretch. Now you're telling your muscles exactly what's expected of them--at the same time, you're giving your cardiovascular system the workout it needs to carry you through your match.

By increasing your objective--to be a better performer in the sport of your choice--you've increased your need for fitness. The best way to get into condition for that sport is to play the sport itself. But that route can take you only so far. You don't build up the reserves or the tolerance to stress you'll need to perform at higher levels. That dormant performer in you needs special conditioning before he can come alive.

Maximum performance requires work on skills as well as fitness. But it's imperative that you develop the fitness capacity first, before you work on skills. If you're trying to improve with muscles that aren't sufficiently trained, you'll tend to improvise as the muscles tire. This leads to inefficient habits that will eventually have to be unlearned before you can move to higher levels.

Here's the general rule, as we express it in Maximum Performance:

Whatever the sport, conditioning for maximum performance is performed in the same posture, with the same intensity and rhythm inherent in the event. But it's not just the event; it's the manner in which you perform that event--or wish to. If tennis is your game, do you play singles or doubles? Your conditioning program will vary, depending on your answer. Do you play, or wish to play, an hour every day? Two hours twice a week? Do you play in tournaments? Are the tournaments decided in three- or five-set matches? Every response changes your program.

You don't need a degree in physiology to apply some common-sense analysis to your needs. All you have to do is think about how you play--or would like to play--your game, and then assign low, moderate or high priorities to its elements.

Morehouse identifies eight such elements:

Muscle mass: The size of fibers in your tissues. You need mass before you can develop endurance and strength.

Muscle endurance: The ability to contract muscles repeatedly without developing undue fatigue.

Muscle strength: Brute force.

Circulo-respiratory endurance: The ability to keep moving for prolonged periods.

Mobility: Reaching, turning, bending.

Durability of joints or ligaments: The ability to withstand jolts and shocks.

Toughness of skin: The ability to withstand friction or tearing.

Ability to relax: Releasing excess tension.

If you don't need strength in your sport, why waste time developing it? Don't devote hours to what isn't useful. Training should always correspond to your needs, not to someone else's need or notion of what you should be doing.

The illustrated exercises that accompany this article should be performed once you have completed the 24-week Total Fitness Program, described on the preceding pages. After becoming totally fit, you will probably want to begin training for your favorite sport or sports, and the Early Conditioning for Maximum Performance exercises will prepare you to do that. They should be done for at least eight weeks before going on to more specific conditioning. Of course, if you're already in good shape, you can start right away on the Early Conditioning exercises.

While the Total Fitness Program is performed within one self-contained "circuit," Early Conditioning for Maximum Performance comprises a warm-up circuit with four exercises, or stations, a conditioning circuit with six stations and a flexibility circuit with eight stations (see pages 298 and 299).

Once you've completed the early conditioning, you can then go on to design your own specific conditioning program, using your own methods or those designed for specific conditioning in Maximum Performance.

Remember that training for endurance involves light resistance and many repetitions; training for strength involves heavy resistance and few repetitions.

Once you're under way, you're in for a pleasant reward--an almost immediate improvement in your capacity to perform. Morehouse calls this phenomenon "the effect of first exposure." It's the first exposure that counts most when you're adapting to new demands. In fact, almost 50 percent of your improvement will occur in the first 25 percent of your program.

Whether you are training for total fitness or maximum performance, your improvement will be guaranteed if you keep these thoughts in mind:

Set a definite goal for each training session. Champions never fail in their training, because they set their sights on tiny increments of improvement with each workout.

There's no need to kill yourself to stay in shape or improve your performance. There's no need to exercise to the point of exhaustion. There's no need to feel guilty if you miss a day. If you try and haven't got it, skip it and try again tomorrow.

Above all, measure your progress not by comparison with others so much as by the conquest of your own limitations. As we say in Maximum Performance, "The only valid comparisons are between your present, past and future performance."

It's your maximum you're pursuing--a reflection of your condition, capacity and objectives.

(Turn to pages 298 and 299 for the exercises included in Early Conditioning for Maximum Performance.)

Early Conditioning for Maximum Performance Warm-up, Training and Calm-Down Circuits

If you're going to be able to perform like a champion, you have to train like one. Champions work out in circuits--series of exercises that improve performance much better than repeating one exercise until exhaustion. Each circuit is made up of several exercises.

The exercises below are to be performed in five circuits: 1. Limbering; 2. Warm-up; 3. Training; 4. Calm-down; 5. Flexibility.

The warm-up and calm-down circuits contain the same six exercises as the training circuit. All three circuits should be done nonstop, but the intensity and speed of your performance will vary. The warm-up circuit is done at moderate speed but without strain. The training circuit is done quickly, vigorously, at 80 percent of your maximum capacity. For the calm-down circuit, you take it easy, just going through the motions. Always complete your exercises with the flexibility circuit to prevent stiffness and bring your heart rate back to near normal.

Limbering Circuit

The four limbering exercises should be done for two minutes while walking. Each exercise should be performed for about 30 seconds and should flow into the next without stopping, while you increase the tempo of your walking.

1. Rotating stretch: Walking slowly, extend your arms from your sides and rotate them horizontally, twisting to the left and right alternately and stretching your shoulders and back. This is the same basic arm-swinging motion as the Twist in the Total Fitness warm-up, but here locomotion is added.

2. Overhead stretch: This resembles the Stretch in the Total Fitness warm-up, plus footwork. Increase your walking speed and reach over your head with one arm at a time and lean to the opposite side, stretching your waist.

3. Propeller stretch: Increase your walking speed to a fairly snappy rate. Move your extended arms in large circles like two propellers. After 15 seconds, move the arms in the opposite direction.

4. Swing stretch: Exaggerate the usual swing of your arms when you walk and increase the length of your stride to stretch the torso. By now, you should be walking very briskly. This motion, by the way, resembles a cross-country skier's movements.

1. Rope skipping: Great for strengthening the leg muscles and developing agility. On each circuit, skip rope for a whole minute. On the training circuit, skip fast enough to get your pulse rate up to 80 percent of your maximum. After you master alternate foot skipping, try skipping on one foot ten times, then on the other ten times. A particularly useful variation for skiers is to jump back and forth across a line.

2. Sit-backs (not shown): This is a variation of the Total Fitness Sit-back. It's done on a chair instead of the floor. Sit at the edge of a chair so that your back doesn't touch the back rest. Lean back until you feel a slight strain on the abdominal muscles. Now put your two hands on the upper abdomen, one hand beneath the other. Push out your stomach while you press in with your hands. Breathe normally and hold this position for 15 to 20 seconds. Keep your chest elevated and move your hands down to the lower abdomen and push and press in again for 15 to 20 seconds. Finally, put your hands at the sides of your abdomen and push your stomach out against your hands for the same length of time. During the training circuit, lean back farther and push harder with your hands.

3. Reverse push-away: With your back to the wall and your feet about a foot from it, lean back, pressing your hands and forearms against the wall for balance. Adjust your feet for comfort, if necessary. Slide your hands down to the level of your hips, fingers down. Push away from the wall slowly and hold 15 to 20 seconds. Use near-maximum tension in the training circuit.

4. Prone lift (not shown): Lie on your stomach with a small pillow or a folded blanket beneath your midsection. Stretch out your arms. Lift your arms and legs at the same time about four inches off the floor and hold this position for 15 to 20 seconds. Rest a few seconds, then repeat. During the training circuit, tighten your back muscles as much as possible without pain, holding the lift position.

5. Bench stepping: For this, a bench or a box at least a foot high is needed. Step onto it with the left foot, bring up the right foot, then return to the floor with the left foot, the right foot following. Repeat this ten times, then reverse the lead foot. Alternate this way for at least a minute. During the training circuit, increase your speed until your pulse rate is 80 percent of maximum.

6. Push-aways: This is basically the Total Fitness Push-away that was described earlier, but here it's done 15 to 20 times during each of the warm-up, training and calm-down circuits. For the training circuit, change to a more difficult position. If you cannot yet do 15 to 20 push-aways on the floor (standard push-ups) and have been pushing off a wall or a table, push away from a lower surface on the training circuit. If you can easily do floor push-aways during the warm-up and calm-down circuits, raise your feet higher than your body for the training circuit.

Flexibility Circuit

1. Inverted pedaling (not shown): Lie on your back with your hips elevated by your hands and pedal in the air slowly for a minute.

2. Hamstring stretch: Stay on your back with your legs up and draw one knee toward your chest, holding the thigh with your hands. Straighten the other leg upward as much as possible for ten seconds. Repeat three times with each leg.

3. Knee hug (not shown): Still on your back, grasp both thighs and pull them toward your chest to slowly stretch the lower back. Hold for ten seconds, rest five seconds, then repeat.

4. Hip raise: Remain on your back, flatten both feet on the floor just in front of your buttocks; slowly raise your hips and slowly lower the vertebrae from the neck downward to the floor for ten seconds. This stretches the lower back. Rest five seconds and repeat.

5. Inner-thigh stretch: (A) Still lying, flex your knees and put your soles together, so that your knees fan outward. Press your hands on the outside of each knee for ten seconds while pressing the knees against the hands (not shown). (B) Relax the legs a moment, then, keeping the legs relaxed, put your hands inside your knees and gently press the knees outward. Hold for ten seconds, relax for five and repeat the sequence.

6. Hip flexor stretch (not shown): Squat, put your hands on the floor, arms outside your knees. Extend your left leg backward. Keeping your back and left leg straight, press your right knee toward the floor until you feel a slight stretch in the left groin. Hold ten seconds and do the exercise with the right leg extended. Repeat the series.

7. Heel-cord stretch: Stand at arm's length from a wall with your heels on the floor and the balls of your feet on a book or a small board an inch thick. Lock your knees and lean forward without lifting your heels, to support yourself with your hands on the wall. Hold for ten seconds, relax five seconds and repeat. As flexibility increases, move the book farther from the wall.

8. All-body stretch (not shown): Mark an X on the floor two feet from the wall and another X on the wall at shoulder level, on line with the X on the floor.

A. Stand facing away from the wall X, feet astride the floor X.

B. Touch the floor X with both hands, keeping your heels flat and your knees slightly bent.

C. Return to standing position.

D. Twist left and try to touch the wall X with your right hand. Don't move your feet.

E. Twist right and reach toward the wall X with your left hand.

Repeat series four times.

"You'd be far better off sharpening other skills in the time it took you to develop unneeded fitness."

Time your Ticker

Put on your wrist watch, so that you can see its face with the palm of that hand turned toward you. Place this wrist in the palm of your other hand so that it falls into the crotch between your thumb and forefinger. The tips of your third and fourth fingers will now fall naturally over your pulse. Press lightly. If you don't feel your pulse at first, move your fingers slightly.

Once you can feel your pulse, begin to count from zero as the sweep hand of your watch crosses a five-second mark.

Take your pulse for six seconds and then add a zero. Example: Your pulse beats 12 times in six seconds. That gives you a rate of 120 beats a minute.