Autorobics for Idle Motorists : Freeway Vexing? Try Some Flexing

By DIANNE KLEIN

Jan. 25, 1989 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Next time you find yourself behind the steering wheel--doesn’t matter where or when--take a few moments to look around you. Heads are what you see, right?

There’s one zipping by you in a station wagon, another in a Jag. Pretty soon, you can spot literally hundreds of them whipping by in Japanese imports, Dodge vans, big rigs, you name it.

But take a closer look. These are idle heads. These are heads at rest. These are heads that at that very moment could be gainfully engaged in, say, chin dips ( cervical flexions ), or head side bends, ( cervical lateral flexions ).

And the bodies supporting those heads! Why, the sloth of it all is enough to make Larry Reynolds, Huntington Beach entrepreneur and fitness freak, grip his own steering wheel in a fit of angst.

When Reynolds sees all those idle heads, the next thing you know he’s thinking about idle thighs working their way like unleashed cellulite to the seat’s edge. Then there’s all those derrieres snuggled into the curve of butter-soft leather seats--a crying shame.

And from there, well, it gets even uglier. The thought of flaccid upper-arm flesh flapping in the breeze of auto air conditioners all over the freeway is enough to drive anyone to Autorobics.

Which, of course, is exactly what Reynolds, his brother-in-law, John Casella, and physical therapist Charles Eldred had in mind when they came up with the idea of Autorobics, the book, and Autorobics, the commuter-exercise club.

Autorobics, says Reynolds, 45, is an idea born about 3 years ago when he was stuck for 3 hours behind a spilled load of flour on the Golden State Freeway in Burbank. He was frustrated. He was angry. He was stressed.

And it was then, too, that he was saved. Steering-wheel curls (elbow flexions) is what did it at first, and then he moved on to a round of leg steering-wheel presses (hip flexions) . He felt much better. He felt freer, more relaxed. He felt he was on to something.

Then came the fateful dinner with Casella, 26, a manager at Price Waterhouse in Newport Beach. After the table had been cleared and the wives moved to another room, the husbands, both of them weight lifters and gluttons for other forms of physical punishment, stayed up late talking.

They talked isometrics and they talked freeways. Then they talked big time.

Casella broached the idea to his college buddy Eldred, 25, who lives in Fresno, to give the concept a technical touch, and from there-- voila!

In no time at all, the three scraped up about $8,000 to self-publish the spiral bound “Autorobics: An Exercise Program for the Daily Commuter,” complete with a red, black and yellow car decal “Autorobics, Commuter Exercise Club,” and chock full of all sorts of unique ways to pass your time in traffic.

Consider the car squat (ankle plantarflexion ), the fanny firmer (gluteal squeeze) or the floorboard toe raiser (ankle dorsiflexion) . From there you can whip right into a round of car sit-ups (abdominal contractions) , some seat twists (spinal rotations) or maybe some seat thigh presses (hip extensions) . Steering wheel flys (shoulder internal rotations) and military ceiling presses (shoulder elevations) can also be fun.

But if you’re thinking of forgoing an hour at the gym for an hour behind the wheel, even the authors concede that you’re kidding yourself.

“This is not a big philosophical program here,” says Reynolds, whose other invention, locks for golf bags, earns him a living. “We are really trying not to promise anybody anything. We are trying to be honest about it.

“It’s better than sitting there steaming,” he says. “What we promise is that if you do the exercises, they will definitely tone and improve the muscles.

“A lot of people may look at this and say, ‘This is ridiculous.’ But my philosophy is that something is better than nothing.”

There’s Time to Exercise

Adds Dane Jako, personal trainer, body builder and manager of Gold’s Gym in Cypress, (someone who says he has no need of Autorobics, thank you): “Tensing your stomach, pushing on the steering wheel, it does work, but you are not going to get a range of motion with the muscle. . . . Isometrics are good when there is nothing else available.”

But is that so bad? Reynolds asks, adding:

“I don’t know anybody who doesn’t have time to exercise while they are driving on the freeway.”

While that, in fact, may indeed be true, the California Highway Patrol, for one, doesn’t appear to take too kindly to the idea.

Alice Huffacker, spokeswoman for the CHP in Sacramento, had this to say: “It sounds like in an effort to be fit, you are putting your body at great risk of being in an accident.”

“No, no, no,” counter the authors, one of whom, Casella, is also the model in the book’s illustrations.

“In all the exercises except one,” Casella notes, “the driver has both hands on the steering wheel.”

That would be the seat dips (shoulder depressions) , for which one is instructed to “place hands on seat and fully extend arms, lifting body off seat. Slowly flex arms, returning body to normal seat position. Repeat 3 to 5 times.”

Reynolds explains that you wouldn’t want to do the seat dips “if you are going 70 or 80 m.p.h. . . . unless you’re on the I-5 between L.A. and San Francisco, out in the middle of nowhere. That might be ideal.”

Out in the middle of nowhere, incidentally, is where the Autorobics concept appears to be getting a trial run.

Eldred and Casella turned to another Cal State Fresno alum, Jeff Buchanan, assistant administrator at the Mid-Cal Auto Truck Plaza in Santa Nella, about 75 miles northwest of Fresno smack on Interstate 5, to see if he could proffer some of the books at the truck stop and elsewhere around town.

Buchanan says that 25 of them have been sold in Santa Nella since he put them on display 2 weeks ago, counting the stand at the Apricot Tree restaurant.

“It’s kind of a crazy idea,” Buchanan says, “but who knows?”

As for himself, Buchanan, 25, says he is partial to the “steering wheel isometrics and the tummy tuck. . . . The exercises help relieve the fatigue of driving.”

But Carmella Lewis, 58, the manager of the truck-stop store who actually has to ring up the books, says that Autorobics is just about the weirdest thing she has seen anybody try to sell to truckers, who are not exactly a trend-setting group.

“I have them right on the counter,” she says of the books priced at $5.25 in Santa Nella. “The truckers, they see ‘em, and they just kind of look at ‘em. But I did sell one today! It was to a trucker. He just put it down on the counter and said, ‘Well, I’m gonna try it.’ ”

This is the kind of reaction that Reynolds says he’s counting on. Truck-stop sales, he says, could spearhead a nationwide craze for Autorobics. (He’s already let David Letterman in on the idea.)

“This is not just for Yuppies,” Reynolds says. “Every truck driver in the United States wants to have a firm fanny.”

Well, now, just hold on a minute.

Mack Chaffin, owner of Command Express Trucking in Santa Ana, for one, disagrees.

“Truckers, they are just not bent that way,” Chaffin says. “It’s not something they would do. It is not part of their makeup. . . . In all the years that I have known truckers, I have never heard them talk about (fitness). Truckers talk about their next load, about gettin’ a beer, or they’re griping about some dispatcher. Exercise or health is not a mainstay.”

And that, Chaffin adds, goes for men and women.

“Yuppies are not their friend,” he says. “They are not the kind of people they would emulate. (Autorobics) wouldn’t be the kind of thing that I would go to a truck stop and try to sell and expect to get out of there with my life or limb.”

SOME AUTOROBICS EXERCISES Chin dips (cervical flexion)

Place palm on forehead, attempt to push chin down.

For neck muscles.

Head side bends (cervical lateral flexion)

Place palm on side of head and attempt to tip head.

For back and neck muscles.

Steering wheel push-ups (shoulder flexion)

Place palms on steering wheel and push forward.

For shoulder, chest and arm muscles.

Leg steering wheel presses (hip flexion)

Press thigh against steering wheel (or palm) and attempt to push upward.

For pelvic and thigh muscles.