Put the tape in the cassette deck, then merge onto the freeway in front of a guy who has inexplicably left a tiny gap between his car and the next. Give him a courtesy wave before he gives you the single-digit salute.
“Do you spend hours commuting or confined to your car or truck as part of your job?” the taped voice of exercise physiologist Sandra Lotz Fisher asks. “Feel stressed, tired, pressed for time, no time for exercise . . . .” (slight, concerned pause) “. . . like a car potato? Then `Freeway Flex,’ is exactly what you need!”
You eat in your car, make phone calls in your car, listen to books on tape, practice deep breathing, put on makeup and shave in your car. In certain situations, you even pray in your car. So, say Fisher and a few other fitness buffs, why not work out in your car?
“People are doing a lot of dangerous things in their cars–putting on makeup, talking on the cell phone, filling out expense reports,” says Fisher, speaking live this time, on the telephone, from her New York office. “Actually, (`Freeway Flex’) encourages them to keep their hands on the wheel and their eyes on the road.”
And their stomachs in, backs pushed against the seat, heads bobbing side to side, shoulders shrugging up and down and “fannies,” as auto exercise leader Natalie Manor calls them, tensing and relaxing, tensing and relaxing . . .
“Freeway Flex” and Manor’s competing set of tapes, “Karkicks,” take auto-exercisers through stretching and relaxation movements mostly involving the shoulders and neck, and then continue on to isometric exercises: tightening the muscles of the hands, arms, legs, stomach and buttocks.
“Most people can slide right through the tape,” says Manor, a business consultant who developed “Karkicks” while making the 50-mile trip from her home in New Hampshire to Boston in her five-speed Volvo station wagon.
Maybe, but have they experienced California traffic? Extensive testing (on two carpool partners and a husband) showed exercisers can be flummoxed by instructions such as tighten your quadriceps (“Freeway Flex”) and lift your hips (“Karkicks”). Throw in a stall, a rain squall and a couple of unexplained slow downs, and exercising while driving can get more than a little dicey.
Fisher’s and Manor’s tapes both carry warnings about how and when to use the tapes in order to ensure safe driving, and both also carry disclaimers. So, if you suffer any loss, injury or accident while the tape is in your player, don’t try to pin it on the exercises.
Or, as Fisher says:
“Extreme care must be taken in performing exercises while driving. The participant assumes the risk of determining whether he or she can safely perform the exercises while driving or being a passenger, and assumes the risk of injury from performing the exercises. The creator, producer, instructor and distributor disclaim any liability of loss in connection with the exercises herein. Have fun and enjoy `Freeway Flex!’ “
The California State Automobile Association is not against fun. And yet, as Merry Banks, manager of the association’s traffic safety department in San Francisco says, “I would caution readers they need to give their full attention to being a safe driver.”
Banks hasn’t heard the tapes, so she can’t comment on them specifically. “But I feel anytime you add something to the driver’s workload it can be dangerous,” she says. “We have to be very conservative about any additional tasks we give the driver.”
In other words, movements such as repeatedly pressing a palm to the car ceiling (an arm and shoulder exercise from “Karkicks”) may be one task too many for some drivers.
“I’m all in favor of people getting a good workout,” Banks says. “But I don’t think they should do it while they’re driving.”
Just how beneficial can an in-car workout be, anyway?
“It depends on what your image is of fitness,” says Manor.
For example, car exercise isn’t going to do much for your cardiovascular system, says Fisher. No one can grip-and-release the wheel that fast. But, done regularly and frequently, she says, the exercises can help tone muscles, improve flexibility and reduce stress.
Car exercise isn’t going to replace a daily three-mile jog and regular weight-training sessions, says Bill Tulin, co-author with Rebecca Johnson of “Travel Fitness: Feel Better, Perform Better on the Road” (Human Kinetics, $14.95). The book includes a section on exercising in the car.
“If you’re a couch potato, doing car exercises may improve your muscle tone,” says Tulin, who runs, swims and plays various sports. “But there’s no way I’m going to increase my conditioning by doing exercises in the car.”
And yet, he does them regularly, while driving from his home in Marin County to his office in San Francisco to his clients in Silicon Valley.
“Sitting for two hours not moving in a car is not good for my back,” says Tulin. “So I’m regularly doing back exercises. I’ll do a lot of pelvic tilts and a lot of dynamic sitting,” which he describes as sitting with good posture, making sure the curves in the spine are where they’re supposed to be.
But his favorite exercise is the “ankle cross”: cross your left ankle over your right ankle; push forward with your right leg and pull back with your left.
But isn’t that impossible while driving a car?
“If you’re not in cruise (control) this is not something you can do,” Tulin concedes.
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“Freeway Flex,” one cassette with three exercise routines by Sandra Lotz Fisher, is available for $11.95, plus $2 for shipping. Call 212-744-5900 or write Fitness by Fisher, 535 E. 86th St., New York, NY 10028-7533. “Karkicks,” a set with an instruction tape and a workout tape by Natalie Manor, is $14.95, plus $3.25 for shipping. Call 800-666-2230 or write Karkicks, P.O. Box 1508, Merrimack, NH 03054.
