Let's Get Physical

Attention, baby boomers: if you aerobicized religiously in the '80s, slacked off and got a little flabby during the '90s, and now find yourself pondering a pre-retirement return to exercise, NEWSWEEK would like to offer you two simple pieces of advice. First, don't push too hard and risk injuring yourself; we know you hate hearing this, but you're not 25 anymore. Second, American Apparel may be reviving skintight unitards, but if these didn't flatter you at the aforementioned age of 25 (and trust us, they didn't flatter anyone who wasn't Jane Fonda), they're not going to now. Boomers, do yourselves a favor. Back away slowly from the spandex.

But please, don't back away from the gym—because, actually, you're looking admirably fit these days. The boomers are the generation we have to thank for Suzanne (ThighMaster) Somers (born in 1946), Richard ("Sweatin' to the Oldies") Simmons (1948) and that Tae Bo guy (1955, and his name is Billy Blanks). Now they're responsible for a new fad that might be called "Sweatin' With the Oldies." As their golden years approach, boomers are heading back to the fitness centers in record numbers. And they're overhauling their entire concept of working out, fashioning an approach to exercise that fits their new, somewhat weightier needs.

In the last decade, boomers have become the fastest-growing segment of the health-nut crowd. Now gyms are returning the favor, increasingly catering to their growing clientele of folks in their 40s, 50s and 60s. They're cutting down on cumbersome, hard-to-use exercise equipment and instead beefing up on group activities that are gentler on the joints (like water aerobics) and the psyche (tai chi and at least a dozen varieties of yoga). There are new devices—"foam rollers" and "stability disks," anyone?—and new exercises that emphasize agility and balance, not aerobics and bench pressing. The boomers even have their own national fitness magazine, founded in 2005, with a circulation of 50,000 and growing. The mag is remarkably direct about its mission, even if it's not necessarily the kind of glossy thing you'd want to display on your coffee table: its name is GeezerJock.

The boomers, it seems, have accepted that they won't remain forever young. But they've also realized that staying in shape can keep them from feeling old. In doing so, they've finally embraced the realistic, wholesome attitude experts have been advocating since the nation became obsessed with fitness more than three decades ago. Their latest workout craze puts health before beauty; yes, they still get physical, but for different reasons than they used to. "For them, this isn't about looking hot anymore," says Arleen Cauchi, CEO of the Boomer Fitness or B-Fit gym of San Carlos, Calif. "It's more about enjoying life. It's, 'I want to feel good about myself, and I don't want my back to hurt when I'm running around with my grandkids'." Well said, even if it doesn't make for much of an Olivia Newton-John song.

It's no wonder the boomers have remained fitness fans for so long—theirs was the first generation that was into working out. In 1954, when the eldest of them were still in elementary school, researchers measured the fitness of American kids and found that the country was in danger of raising a generation of porkers. Nearly 60 percent of kids failed at least one of the tests, compared with 9 percent of European children the same age. Dwight Eisenhower, a former high-school football and baseball star, was horrified; he founded the President's Council on Youth Fitness in 1956. John F. Kennedy went even further, branding his own countrymen as "soft" in Sports Illustrated. It was the cold-war era, soft in any form was unacceptable, and schools around the country promptly overhauled their physical-education programs in response.

It worked. After graduation, the strapping young boomers took the principles they'd learned in P.E. class and ran with them, as it were, starting the '70s running craze. Inspired by the out-of-nowhere success of American distance runners at the Olympics of the '60s and early '70s —and frightened by suddenly rising rates of heart disease—a generation laced up its jogging shoes. It was the first major fitness fad to sweep the country, and it happened fast. In 1964, the Boston Marathon had 403 participants. Five years later the field had tripled. On April 16, 1984, 6,924 people hit the Boston roads, and millions more were pounding the considerably less mean streets of their own neighborhoods.