Daily News from New York, New York • 257

bench presses, incline presses, jungle machines, vibrating belts, bicycles, sit-up boards. Many of the 2,000 customers who rush to the club each day ignore the gym for the 75-foot swimming pool. The club also features sun rooms, steam rooms, sauna baths. Supervising the shedding of pounds and firming up of muscles is head physical director Walter Podolak. For 15 years, he wrestled under the name of Golden Superman and even today has an abiding faith in the curative powers of exercise.

"It's the most important thing in the world," says the muscular director who will be 60 next year. "I try to impress that fact on everyone who comes here." Podolak stresses seven basic exercises in his toning-up procedure. They range from sit-ups on the abdominal board to swinging dumb-bells between the legs. "I work with from 25 to 40 in a class," says Podolak. "They all do the same thing, with lighter or heavier weights as the case may be.

No I don't ask for a doctor's certificate from anyone participating in the workouts. There's no need for it. In all my years of conducting physical workouts, I've never had a guy pass out on me." It's a rarity for a health club to demand a doctor's approval before accepting a customer. According to some medical men, failure to require the certificate could result in disastrous consequences. Dr.

Seymour Rinzler, director of the N.Y. City's Bureau of Nutrition and famed "Anti-Coronary Club," warns that "you must be wary of what you do when you're middle aged." The nutrition expert says: "If a man came to me and explained that he was 40 and out of condition, I certainly wouldn't tell him to suddenly engage in strenuous exercise. The worst thing a sedentary individual can do is suddenly begin lifting weights or dashing around a track. The heart just can't take that stress. Look at the men who drop dead shoveling snow, or the ones who collapse on golf courses.

Many of those fatalities can be attributed to the tremendous and unexpected demands on the heart." Health club physical directors insist that they're careful with every man initiated into an exercise program. Podolak says: "I caution everyone in my class to take it easy, to do as much as he is able. We never plunge into any exercise. There's always a warmup session. Of course, many men can't wait to do something strenuous, especially when they spot one of my regulars, a 74-year-old man, doing 200 sit-ups without any apparent effort." Al Roon, who presides over five health clubs in town, points out that his physical directors try to work closely with family doctors.

"Our clubs stress private instruction, and so we keep close tabs on the physical health of each customer," he says. The Al Roon's Health Clubs boast 5,000 annual members who have a varied choice as to physical activity. The clubs offer (continued on next page) CD 11 II Group of men take crack at doing pushups in the gymnasium of the Hotel Shelton's Executive Health Club. principle of individual attention is not neglected. Michael Castoro, president of the Shelton Towers Hotel as well as three Shelton Health Clubs, feels that health clubs really came into their own when the late President Kennedy called attention to physical fitness programs.

"Up to that time," Castoro says, "1,500 people had taken out annual membership cards in our clubs. Today, we have a membership of 15,000 men and women." Castoro believes the government should play an active part in raising the nation's physical standards. "I think it should start out by helping to finance private health clubs," he says. "It costs $300,000 to build a club, and many businessmen either can't, or won't invest, such a tremendous sum." The Shelton Health Clubs (there are six of them) offer a diversity of equipment to the eager exerciser. The 80-foot gym at the Lexington Ave.

branch, for example, has the usual gleaming "The trend today is overwhelmingly in favor of exercise to prevent heart disease. It's the one major method to thwart the primary heart attack. I think it's a pity so manydoctors are standing idly by and doing nothing about encouraging a physical fitness program. "Many so-called 'big' cardiologists still refuse to recommend exercise programs. They insist that the 'exercise-to-prevent-heart attack' theory hasn't been scientifically proven.

They'll just sit back for the next 50 years waiting for it to be proven to their satisfaction while deaths continue to occur from heart attacks that could have been prevented. In the last 25 years, I've watched 10,000 men go through my physical fitness program. Not one man died during the course of the program." Every health club in New York features a physical fitness program. In almost every instance, it is tailored to the individual's requirements. Many clubs offer group classes, but the PAGE 31 NEW YORK SUNDAY NEWS MARCH 24, 1968.