DON'T BE IN A HURRY SOLUTION TO MAINTAINING FITNESS: CARRY THAT WEIGHT A LONG TIME.

Byline: Elizabeth Smilor Lifestyle Editor

Run, walk, swim or jump rope - just bring up your heart rate for about 30 minutes several times a week. Then, add weight training into your weekly routine. The result: a better-looking and healthier you.

That's the basic tenet many of us have been following (or trying to follow) for years.

But now there's another theory to think about: Don't go to so much trouble. That's the news from Ken Hutchins, founder of Florida-based SuperSlow Exercise Guild Inc. The organization, as its name implies, advocates using weight machines to do repetitions verrrrrry slooowwwwllly.

Let's count together here:

Onnnnne ...

Twwooooo

Thrreeeee

And so on until you reach 14. That's how long he says each exercise should take - about twice as long as previously advocated.

The idea is to bring your muscles to what Hutchins calls ``failure.'' You do a rep so slowly that eventually the weight becomes unbearable. You keep doing it until gravity eventually takes over and you can hold on no longer. It isn't pretty. It isn't comfortable. It's short, but far from sweet. It carries the risk of injury. Yet, say advocates, it works.

``Physiology people,'' Hutchins says, ``have focused in on (aerobics) as being the end-all to everything. In doing that, they've forgotten the only intellectual or volitional way to strengthen bones, increase metabolism, strengthen muscles is through the skeletal muscles (which SuperSlow uses).''

According to Hutchins, president of the exercise guild, you only have to do the workout once a week to achieve maximum results. In addition, do nothing but eat right. Health benefits, he maintains, include increased HDL (the good cholesterol), gains in bone density and improved glucose levels in diabetics. Metabolism will increase as muscle tone grows and your body will burn calories faster even when you're sitting still, he says.

``People are desperate for something that works, and they have no time to do what they've been doing,'' Hutchins says. ``All these years, we've been trying to go around the muscles and do all the steady-state nonsense focusing on the heart.''

``Steady-state'' refers to continual exercise for a sustained period of time - walking, swimming, playing racquetball, for instance. Hutchins' Web site, www.superslow.com, contains articles with such names as ``Aerobics: Just Say No.''

His rejection of other forms of exercise has angered some fitness experts. The American College of Sports Medicine, the largest medicine and exercise-science organization, with more than 18,000 members, does not currently endorse SuperSlow.

``I have no doubt that it would improve strength,'' said Glenn Gaesser, an ACSM member and professor of exercise physiology at the University of Virginia. ``The question is whether it works any better than any other technique.''

One study suggests it might. In 1993 and 1999, according to a recent Newsweek story, fitness-research director Wayne Westcott performed research that supports Hutchins' claim. Westcott asked two groups of middle-age non-weightlifters to do one of two workouts. One spent seven seconds per repetition on 10-rep sets. The other spent 14 seconds on each of five-rep sets. By the end of eight to 10 weeks, the slow lifters had 50 percent more strength than the faster ones.

Still, Gaesser says no long-term studies have proved the benefits.

``The claim I have a beef with is that this is the only form of exercise that you need,'' he said. ``There's no evidence it would help the cardiovascular system like aerobics would.''

That's the same beef some Los Angeles-area personal trainers have with the theory.

``I don't think (SuperSlow) is a panacea for the whole workout crowd,'' said Woodland Hills personal trainer Dakota Mitchell, who employs a similar slower lifting method with some of his clients. ``It's really effective, but it's something to use within the whole arsenal of workouts. It takes a lot of focus, and people get bored.''

Phil Benedict, fitness manager for Bodies in Motion in Pasadena, said he would never discourage someone from doing an activity they enjoy.

``Let's say you're an outdoors person: He says to stop because it will hinder his training,'' Benedict said. ``If your goal is overall health, you need to get your heart in condition and body fat down. That's where aerobic training comes in.''

Nor would Greg Burns, who, along with Carrie Kuehn, is one of two certified SuperSlow trainers in the Los Angeles area.

``I tell my clients to continue to do what they're interested in doing ... recreational activities,'' he said. ``But to sit on exercise machines is ridiculous. I see so many problems from overuse of these machines.''

He agrees with Hutchins' notion that aerobic exercise will hinder muscular strength, and he speaks from personal experience.

``I love to run, but I know that I tend to lose muscle when I do it. My knees hurt, my back hurts,'' Burns said, adding that not having run regularly for three to four years has not affected his endurance.

Burns, who works out of his own facility in Calabasas and SuperSlow L.A. in Brentwood, has been certified since 1995 and says quick results from clients who do the workout with him for 20 minutes once a week have convinced him SuperSlow is the only way to go.

``It's a totally addicting way to work out. It's such a deep fatigue in the muscles ... it just feels like you've done something good for your body,'' Burns said. ``The reason I'm doing this is to help people feel better.''

He says it's an easy regimen for people to stick to and one that's good for everyone, especially older people and those suffering from chronic back, neck or knee problems. ``I've had one woman who's 75, and after three months with the SuperSlow workout she has the bones of a 35-year-old.''

Mitchell and Benedict argue slower weight training is only suited for advanced weightlifters.

``It works the body on more than just a muscular level, rather on a neuromuscular level, so there's a longer recovery time,'' Mitchell said, adding that he thinks the method is not safe for people with pre-existing injuries because it's easy to aggravate muscles you might not realize you're using.

Peter Snell, an exercise physiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, thinks SuperSlow is probably better for beginning strength trainers. What bothers him are the health claims, he says.

``I think the effect on HDL is doubtful,'' says Snell, whose expertise is exercise and blood flow. ``I know (weight training) has very little effect on muscle blood flow. As far as benefits to the heart, it doesn't have those of aerobic exercise. As far as lowering cholesterol, a lot is pretty nebulous. A lot depends on what you're eating, and genetics.''

He says he doesn't buy the claims that aerobic exercise is unnecessary. Such exercise helps increase the capacity of the heart to pump more blood with each beat because its chambers get bigger.

Some of his research has shown that the hearts of endurance athletes, compared with those of an untrained control group, had bigger chamber sizes. In weight-trained athletes, there was no increase in chamber size, he says.

``But there was an increase in wall thickness because the heart is working against the high blood pressure that occurs with weight training,'' Snell says. ``Essentially the same thing happens in someone who has chronic hypertension.''

In his research, he does a lot of measurements of individuals' resting metabolic rate. Generally speaking, he says, it is closely related to muscle mass. But the difference is ``relatively small.''

``I think the average person who works out in a gym probably only makes a moderate change in their resting metabolism,'' says Snell, a former Olympic gold medalist in the mile and 800-meter races. ``What is more important is that they're capable of doing more exercise in their daily lives that they don't even count (as exercise).''

Hutchins, meanwhile, hasn't been surprised by the criticism.

``In my opinion, the entire field of exercise and fitness is one of those last areas of our lives where we feel we have a right to our own opinion,'' Hutchins says. ``Then someone comes along and defines exercise as I have on the Web site and tells us what's exercise and what isn't. I've touched on something personal there. It's almost like insulting someone's religion; it's almost that dear to them.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Is slower better?

Intense weight training will make you stronger, but some fitness experts question its overall health benefits

John Lazar/Staff Photographer

(2) Calabasas trainer Greg Burns leads fellow SuperSlow exercise trainer Carrie Kuehn in a repetitious, slow exercise.

(3) Kuehn says she does one 20-minute session a week with the SuperSlow method.

(4) SuperSlow L.A. trainer Carrie Kuehn works on her arm and shoulder areas under the watchful eye of fellow trainer Greg Burns.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News