Full Life Fitness: A Complete Exercise Program for Mature Adults: A Complete Exercise Program for Mature Adults

Exercise therapist and consultant Clark's intended audience is ``mature adults,'' as well as anyone younger who has avoided a fitness regimen. And the author, host of the PBS series The Wellness Workout , certainly means well. She presents detailed rationales and instructions for a broad range of low- and no-stress exercises--aerobics, muscle conditioning, stretches and water-based workouts. She emphasizes the need for warm-ups and cool-downs (to avoid sudden shocks to an out-of-shape heart). She conscientiously notes how asthma, arthritis, minor incontinence and medications may have an impact on exercise, but does not accept any of these as excuses for remaining a couch potato. However, Full Life Fitness is so earnest in its intent and execution that it becomes overwhelming; will a sedentary or older reader, heretofore unmotivated to exercise, really want to plough through all this? Clark's prose doesn't surmount the problem--her writing is peppered with exclamation points and glistening cliches (``zest for life''). She may have proved her ability to energize TV watchers, but in print she frequently reminds one of an overly perky activities leader in a nursing home. (July)