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They do; before 5 a.m., Mercedes and Triumphs purr up to the Aerobics Center, and their drivers begin to circulate around the one-mile track. Each has undergone a stress test and has been weighed submerged in water to determine what proportion of his body weight is fat. Runners punch their times into a computer and receive their points. At the end of each month they get a printout of their progress. Thirty points a week, says Cooper, will maintain condition. Some overachievers earn 400.
To some, the Aerobics routine may seem too much like what Vic Braden said jogging is, a second job. Another profitable brawnstorm, this one invented in Europe and developed in the U.S. by Peter Stocker, is called Parcourse. Dotted around its 1½-mile track are signs, directing the faithful to stop and perform an exercise, then jog on. Pa-course suggests a hybrid of miniature golf and the stations of the cross, and citizens should be warned, because its franchises, creeping eastward from California, can now be found in 65 cities.
No doubt the society needs ants more than grasshoppers, who jump dazzlingly but probably don't keep up their aerobics points. Perhaps each sort of bug should listen to Dr. George Sheehan, 58, marathoner, author (Dr. Sheehan on Running) and cardiologist: "Play is the priceless ingredient in any successful fitness program. But ... play is not just fun and pleasure. It has to do with human need. Fitness is something that has purpose but no meaning. Play is something that has meaning but no purpose; fitness is a bonus in play, and people are finally learning how to play."
BULLETIN: Actress Farrah Fawcett-Majors was kidnaped today by a large white bull as she prepared to jog nude around the Central Park Reservoir to popularize physical fitness. Amid a crackle of thunderbolts, the bull leaped an 8-ft. chain-link fence with Fawcett-Majors on its back, and swam off with her in the direction of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Witnesses said that the animal bellowed several times in what seemed to be Greek. Park authorities were investigating the disappearance.