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Bringing workouts back in

by Daniel Velton

Buttocks, hips, and thighs are three subjects that concern gym rats and couch potatoes alike.

Whether those thoughts contract the 43 muscles it takes to frown, or flex the 17 it takes to smile, they hardly touch on the overall fitness of all 650 muscles in our bodies.

Shirley Archer, wellness professional at Stanford School of Medicine and author of a new book on weight training, "The Everything Weight Training Book," believes a beautiful body is not half as important as a healthy one. That's why her work in the fitness field always begins from the approach of health, she said. She has seen the need for it first-hand.

Before her fitness career, Archer worked long hours in high-rises as a Wall Street attorney in New York City. There she realized that work habits, and choices, affect one's health. "I saw lawyers having heart attacks in their 40s," she said, "and knew that this was no way to live. I knew my health would catch up to me eventually."

So, despite having passed the bar exam in New York, Washington, D.C., and California, she returned to the Bay Area and entered the fitness industry as a San Francisco stress-management advisor for attorneys. It was by no means her first experience in the health field, having taught karate in high school and a group fitness class in graduate school.

"I've been active all my life," she said.

A graduate from Stanford University, with a master's from Harvard and a law degree from Georgetown, Archer has experienced a number of different lifestyles. Living and working over the years in Tokyo, Boston, Washington, D.C., New York, and San Francisco helped sharpen her eye for healthy living -- and its opposite.

She moved back to Palo Alto in 1992, and over the years acquired more certifications than one could lift -- including a license in massage therapy and another from the Mind-Body Institute.

Archer sensed the need, as a fitness journalist and health educator, to "offer through public exposure some friendly, accessible instruction for exercise and weight training, which is evidence-based and demystifies the gym equipment."

Her new book does just that. "It's designed for people who are starting the program," she said.

Lowell Kleizner started the program in his mid-40s. He joined organized aerobics classes and felt his endurance rising. When he turned fifty, he joined a Stanford circuit weight-training class, taught by Archer, to regain upper body strength. Last summer, at age 61, he rode his bicycle across the country.

Archer's book is not just about toning, shaping and strengthening the Kleizners of the world, though.

"A study done on people over age 90 in convalescent homes shows that having strength gives us the opportunity to enjoy life," Archer said. "After training a couple days a week, some people were able to dress themselves, or walk without a cane. Things they couldn't do before."

Such studies smash one of the stereotypes of weight training: that it is not for the elderly. "It's never too late to start," Archer said. "The sooner you do, the healthier you'll be." Women, she added, often have misgivings about training at any age, out of fear that they will grow bulging biceps or a rack of shoulders much wider than their waist.

There's no need to worry, though, about growing too "big," the book explains. That results from hard training and hormones. If anything, regular weight training and physical activity can help reduce the risk of osteoporosis for women.

Men and women alike, who simply have no time to spend hours on end in the gym, may be pleased to learn as well that "visible results from weight training can be achieved in as little as 25 minutes, twice a week."

The invisible results, however, last longer.

In a 1996 report, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed that regular physical activity lowers cholesterol, fat in the blood stream, reduces the risk of developing diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as the risk of developing colon cancer or feelings of depression and anxiety. It helps manage weight, also building and maintaining healthy muscles, bones, and joints.

It's a surprise the field of weight training didn't grab public attention sooner.

"It became popular with bodybuilding," Archer explained. "But that was a sport, with people in search of the perfect physique. Then it evolved when athletes found more muscle helped their performance. Later people started using it for therapeutic purposes."

Studies show that after the age of 30, the human body starts losing muscle mass, information that helped gym membership grow over the past decade -- when Baby Boomers were beginning to lose muscle mass.

One of the chief causes of poor health in this country is the sedentary lifestyle we lead, Archer said. "We don't have to move if we don't want to. We eat less vegetables and fruits and more junk food. So we're burning the candle from both ends. We seem to pride ourselves on running ourselves into the ground."

To reduce the risk of running ourselves into the ground, Archer continues to hold international fitness seminars, train other instructors, and speak to the public and educate the young and old. She is currently working on another book, about the exercise form known as Pilates.

Returning to her old lifestyle remains out of the question, though.

"Do I miss working 80 to 100 hours a week? No," she laughed. "I'm still busy here but in a healthy, balanced way."

E-mail Daniel Velton at dvelton@paweekly.com