DON T JUST SIT THERE; WALK, JOG, RUN

CONSIDER the human machine in middle age: atrociously maintained, rusty from disuse. None of its parts--the bellows, the tubes, the pump--function as efficiently as they once did. The muscles have degenerated into blancmange. If, in an emergency, the demand for air rises abruptly from the idling requirement of six to eight quarts a minute to 100 quarts or more, the maw gulps like that of a beached carp. The heart throbs about two to three times its customary rate, pumping blood through pipes thickened by sedimentary deposits and grown inelastic with age.

This gruesome image has been framed in the consciousness of a great many flabby, middle-aged Americans. And how have they reacted? They are skipping rope in a gym class, jogging around the reservoir, pedaling a pinioned and wheelless bicycle, flailing arms before the bedroom mirror, doing push-ups on the office floor--in a tenth-hour campaign to redeem years of reprehensible physical neglect.

From yesterday's fad, the cult of physical fitness has developed into a national middle-aged obsession. Its manifestations are everywhere. Through numberless public parks, in every sort of weather, straggle the beflanneled registrants of Run for Your Life programs, jogging up to five miles a day, sometimes at the very respectable rate of seven minutes per mile. In thousands of gyms, yoga and dance studios, reducing emporiums and downtown athletic clubs, an uncomputed and possibly unprecedented tonnage of soft and mature flesh jiggles, bends, hops, kicks, creaks and groans. Washington's Governor Dan Evans organized the Six-Thirty Track Team, a club of state government executives who meet at that dawning hour to exercise, and as a result he was recently given the Tired Tennis Shoe Award as the individual who has done the most in his state to advance the cause of regular jogging. U.S. Senator and Mrs. Mark Hatfield are often seen trotting around their home in Maryland in his and hers black nylon warm-up suits. Dolly Carol Channing has adopted a schedule of exercise--doing the boogaloo (good for muscles in the back, abdomen, knees and some other parts) three nights a week at The Factory, Hollywood's current In nightspot. Behind these scenes, the evidence indicates, hundreds of thousands of Americans are quietly--even furtively--exercising.

Bicycle riding has more than doubled in popularity since 1960. The annual bill for Exercycles, slant boards, Relax-A-cizors and other muscle-toning devices exceeds $35 million. Sales of the Royal Canadian Air Force exercise book have passed eleven million. This bible of the physically insecure now shares its popularity with dozens of other reference works, among them Be Young with Yoga, Jogging and Sexercises (which promises to refine the sexual performance of both genders). A U.S. Government pamphlet on Adult Physical Fitness has sold 750,000 copies, without benefit of advertising, since 1963. By the tens of millions, U.S. televiewers genuflect to the exercise programs of Jack LaLanne, Ed Allen and Richard and Diane Hittleman.

From Legs to Brain

Dwight Eisenhower's 1955 heart attack, the most highly publicized coronary occlusion in history, is usually cited as the trigger of this national impulse to perspire for the sake of health. Eisenhower's heart specialist, Paul Dudley White, seized his moment of national prominence to lecture the public repeatedly on its deplorable shape, suggesting that the tone of the body has much to do with the pace of the mind. "The better the legs," said White, still bicycling today at 81, "the clearer the brain." There is little doubt that some triggering was necessary. For the first time in history, a society found itself so advanced materially that human beings no longer got enough exercise in the search for sustenance. Estimates suggest that 40 million Americans have a temperamental indisposition to any kind of hard physical work. Research by the University of California's Dr. Hardin Jones indicates that, if the circulatory system is any clue, the average U.S. male becomes middle-aged at 25.

American women shape up no better, beneath their facade.

"They have such beautiful hair, beautiful faces," says German Antoinette de Haass, who teaches dance at an Elizabeth Arden salon in Chicago. "But when they take off their clothing, what do you see? A calamity!"

The question that troubles the lazy, the suspicious, the cynical and even the practical is whether all this exercise really does any good. Some claims appear extravagant. Former Detroit Lions Back Dick Woit, who conducts a spartan exercise course for men at Chicago's Lawson Y.M.C.A., insists that his workouts relieve hangovers, nervous stomachs, bad tempers, potbellies, headaches and marital strife. A special exercise regimen for convicts, devised by Bonnie Prudden, is supposed to reduce recidivism, or criminal backsliding.

For Life

Whatever the claims, nearly all medical men who have given serious consideration to the matter agree that a regular program of exercise is not only good but also quite necessary for human well-being amid the tensions of contemporary society. By general agreement, the best exercise for most people is walking, then jogging, then running. These activities have the important side advantages of requiring no skill or equipment while offering endless opportunities for self-congratulation. Beyond this there are specialized programs of exercise under the careful direction of experts. Whatever the exercise, the experts agree that it must be consistent--not just for weeks or months or years, but for life. In a familiar pattern, many Americans start by doing too much in the mistaken hope of doing better. Exercise should lead to exhilaration, not to exhaustion or pain. Back aches, slipped disks and lumbago can affect people who overdo the famous Royal Canadian Air Force exercises. Even joggers can ask for trouble. "The distance some of them go scares me," says Dr. Richard Morrison, who presides over a heart-conditioning program for West Coast executives. "Long distances can make your knees arthritic or give you shin splints." Recent studies at the University of Saskatchewan confirm earlier suspicions that some of the so-called isometric exercises can impose dangerous demands on the heart.

Along with a considerable amount of overdoing, there are a great many misconceptions. A common one involves the benefits of popular sports and games, such as swimming, tennis and golf, which attract the weekend athlete. They are good exercise, but they are generally practiced in such an irregular and undisciplined way as to be of doubtful value. Says Manhattan's Dr. Hans Kraus, physical therapist, author (Backache, Stress and Tension), part-time mountain climber and the man who eased Pesident Kennedy's aching back: "I'm very much for golf as a game, but don't assume that it's the exercise that you need. People think that they are doing something good for themselves and they are not. It doesn't burn off calories and it may even add to tension depending on how you play it."

Whatever form exercise takes, authorities agree that there are psychological as well as physiological benefits, giving the exerciser a gratifying sense of doing something virtuous, sensible and good about his condition. What all of the experts are wholeheartedly against is nonexercise. This leaves little comfort for the many who hold that the only good exercise is lifting a glass at the end of a tense day. For them, a word must be said about the tendency to overdo: after the last glass of Pommard with the blue cheese, it is not wise to rise too rapidly from the chair. That might be too strenuous.

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