TOTAL FITNESS: In 30 Minutes a Week

If you are put off by the stoic, military, huff-and-puff approach to fitness or weight loss (calisthenics, crash diet, body building), you will somersault when you read this. Morehouse wrote a standard text on physiology and devised the Skylab exercise machine and program. He tells us, ""Exercise, as it is generally practiced, is not simply boring; it is punitive, dangerous and ineffective."" Morehouse evaluates fitness -- for men and women, for all ages -- according to pulse rate -- not on ability to perform so many push-ups, etc. Should pulse rate be excessive, he suggests an eight-week, ten-minute a day (every other), pleasant series of ""pushaways"" (from the wall), ""sitbacks"" (as opposed to ""ups""), and ""loping"" (running in place, dancing, whatever you like). This can be followed by a minimum maintenance of daily joint flexing, standing, lifting something heavy for five seconds, raising the pulse to 120 for three minutes, and burning 300 calories -- all in the normal course of the day's activities (walking, toweling down, climbing stairs, etc.). In any case, he says, ""You should never feel sore or tired after you exercise. You should feel good."" ""Exercise should be like dancing."" Morehouse also covers such matters as diet (make it varied), ""myths"" (don't drink while exercising), and basic cardiac physiology. Gross calls all of this ""revolutionary""; while that seems extravagant, it is certainly refreshing and it sounds like fun.