Fonda, 72, still going strong

— Jane Fonda can play down her still enviable physique with charming self-deprecation, gasping in exasperation and covering her rump with both hands as her new exercise routine aims her 72-year old “booty” toward the (kindly out-of-focus) camera.

But when she sits to lead a bout of Kegel exercises, the noun she chooses is “urine” and nothing cuter.

By turns chatty pal and factoid-spouting schoolmarm, the 1980s superstar of aerobics videotapes has returned to fitness marketing after a 15-year absence. Jane Fonda: Prime Time Walk Out and Jane Fonda: Prime Time Fit & Strong (Lionsgate, $14.98 each) go on sale Tuesday, and if the stir they caused in our office is any indication, they’ll do well.

Katherine Benenati and I had a brief tug-of-war overthe screeners Lionsgate sent the newspaper. I won because although she’s a certified personal trainer and I gave up my certification years ago, Benenati’s not qualified to order off the senior menu at IHOP.

She wasn’t a tubby twenty something who in 1981 did not yet own a videotape-play-ing machine and so pranced in her cramped living room to Michael Jackson music as it pulsed from a phonograph (read: audio only) version of Jane Fonda’s Workout Record New and Improved.

Jane never cooed “I hope you felt the burn” in Benenati’s teacup ear at 33 1/3 scratchy revolutions per minute.

And Benenati never fought with her father over buying anything from “Hanoi Jane.” In my dad’s eyes, the daughter of actor Henry Fonda was a pariah for having badmouthed veterans returning from Vietnam and, most especially, for posing with enemy troops during a pro-enemy visit to North Vietnam in 1972.

But my father did not live to hear Fonda’s repeated apologies for her contemptuous statements about U.S. soldiers. I believe he would have forgiven her.

She has never renounced her opposition to that war, but she has apologized to the troops, to reporters, to Oprah. Still, old is not the same as forgotten. And - check out this smooth transition - that is good.

It’s heartening to discover that, suddenly, marketers in our usually youth-obsessed culture have decided to try making a buck off my desire to look fabulous and not leak urine in my senescence.

So what’s in these new workout DVDs?

Each has a 16x9 widescreen format and includes 61 minutes of instruction. Each includes a grandmotherly lecture in which Fonda urges us to reconnect with our bodies, especially those who might have been sexually abused or are obese. We don’t want “cut-offness” from our bodies, she says, and she says it so earnestly that I think I know what she’s talking about, and I think she’s right. Yes, “empowerment can actually come through the muscles,” as she says.

But Fonda was always more icon than expert, so less-forgiving sorts might find this chat an opportunity to exercise the virtue of forbearance.

Each disc has two 25-minute (or so) workouts, one easy, the other a little tougher, as well as a bonus chapter of function-preserving specialty exercises.

Flattering lighting and a pastel set give Fonda’s skin a firm cast under her makeup, and she wears leotards with sleeves; so there are no “memento mori” moments of horror. You won’t have to leave the living room to weep over the insults of time - as sometimes happens when ancient pop bands get together for fundraisers on PBS.

And the videography’s also helpful for following the simple exercise routines, providing full-body views and only zooming in on her feet or arms when they’re the only parts she’s moving.

Also, the set’s full of designer detail so you’ll have something to notice as you reuse the DVD. (Is this really Fonda’s living room? Is that armchair pulled up to a writing desk? Is that arcing lamp aimed at anything?)

There’s also an unobtrusively monotonous and pleasant original soundtrack.

WALK OUT

Both workouts on the Walk Out disc require a chair and a towel. She begins with a 5-minute standing warmup reminiscent of Warm-Ups Gone By and ends with five minutes of standing and seated stretches.

Neither workout involves much walking; rather, Fonda does low-impact aerobics moves for the time equivalent of walking one mile. The moves include simple step touches, shoulder rolls, V steps and heel digs, but also the sometimes dreaded grapevine.

Little of this choreography ought to threaten bad knees, but there is a section of quick stepping side lunges. She suggests we march in place any time we don’t want to do the old motions.

Her patter is often wry, including her observation that it’s “never too late” to learn to grapevine.

The Level Two workout goes a little faster and gets a little fancier with, for instance, boogie side steps, the pony - gotta love the pony - a simple mambo step, and some “bob-and-weave” plies that she admits are more bob than weave.

The bonus section addresses Kegel exercises and their importance for helping elderly women keep our, yes, urine in check.

FIT & STRONG

The bonus on the strength disc includes balance exercises. And balancing on one foot is a prominent requirement of the workouts, too. Both require a towel (“or a shawl”), dumbbells (or canned goods) and a chair.

Level One is a blend of balance-supporting basics - seated pelvic tilts, seated leg extensions and some standing up, including teetering on one foot. She admits that she finds that difficult, and we can see how hard it is for her.

“Oh my gosh, it’s almost over,” she cries. “Ah! It’s over. So happy that’s over.”

The second workout is a little more vigorous, with more standing up and more use of handweights. She becomes a little more out of breath.

I could pick nits. But it’s not an outrage that she accidentally calls a one-minute plie hold “squats” or that her form in standing triceps extensions could be sharper. She does insist that stretches need to be held “at least 20 seconds” one time too often, and that starts you counting how long she holds hers, and it’s not always 20 seconds.

But working out with the elderly Jane Fonda is refreshing after all these years. Well conditioned women in their 60s will complain that her exercise selection’s not arduous enough.

But for a septuagenarian with a titanium knee and a titanium hip, she’s doing all right.

ActiveStyle, Pages 25 on 11/29/2010

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