AEROBICS STRIVES TO STEP UP GROWTH.

Byline: Ira Dreyfuss Associated Press 

Aerobics, facing declines in participation, is trying to invite more people to the dance.

Fitness instructors are adding exercise bikes and weight training to the choreography, hoping to gain participants instead of sliding backward.

The decrease was cited in a survey by a demographics firm, American Sports Data. Its analysis of questionnaires from nearly 18,000 Americans found that high-impact aerobics was down 8.2 percent in 1995, low-impact was down 3.3 percent and step aerobics was essentially flat at a .3 percent gain.

Aerobics still has a strong base. The Hartsdale, N.Y., firm found that 10.5 million Americans ages 6 or older had done high-impact at least once in 1995. More than 13.7 million had done low-impact, and 12.6 million had done step.

High-impact requires more forceful movements and is harder on the bones and joints than low-impact. Step, in which participants step up and down on a low bench, has a foot in both camps; its adherents say it's less jarring to step than to jump through a high-impact aerobics class.

Although industry leaders and instructors think aerobics is still doing well, they are trying for a new direction.

``Over the past five years, we have shifted our focus, away from the aerobics and over to the term, `fitness,' '' said Kathie Davis, executive director of IDEA, a San Diego-based group once known as the International Dance Exercise Association.

Aerobics instructors have upgraded their skills and consider themselves fitness instructors, Davis said. Many have moved out of the classroom into personal training, including weight training, she said. And classes have expanded from dance steps to include time on exercise bikes, circuit training with weights or aerobics in the water, she said.

However, aerobics has yet to find a new trend-setter. One recent attempt, slide, has participants move from side to side on somewhat slippery plastic mats. ``That is one of the areas that did not do well,'' Davis said.