THE BEST BUDDY MONEY CAN BUY

Want to finally get in shape? Hire a personal trainer, and watch your investment pay off.

Like so many women raised in the sixties, I never cared much about fitness. The only strength that mattered to me was the kind that resided in my brain. But then came that dinner with my family at our neighborhood Mexican restaurant. To entertain my sons while waiting for our food, I challenged each to a playful arm wrestling match. I started with the older one, gripping his hand and pushing hard. His arm didn't budge an inch, and he crowed, drawing stares, when he won. "My turn!" my younger son squealed. This time I actually clenched my teeth, determined to win. I pressed as hard as I could against his immovable slender arm before finally feeling the muscle give - my muscle - as I lost again.

My sons are only eight and ten years old. I am 42. The day will come when I won't be able to bear them no matter how many push-ups I do to get in shape. But eight and ten? I'm not ready to be weaker than kids who haven't even hit adolescence.

It isn't that I haven't tried getting fit. Over the years I've joined and quit health clubs more times than I care to count. I've risen at six to walk the hills with girlfriends before work. I've cluttered the living room with step platforms and Jane Fonda tapes. All of this was in pursuit of staying well as I aged, of warding off heart disease and preventing osteoporosis. But fostering good health was never motivation enough. I'd work out for a while, enjoying the novelty, then stop within a few months.

This time I had an immediate goal. So the following Monday I joined the health club in my office building and toured the weird assortment of machines that promised to make my body strong. "We have an introductory special: three sessions with a personal trainer for $99," the manager told me. "I'll skip it," I said confidently. After all, this was exercise, not brain surgery. Trainers are for Madonna and Cher, women who have a whole lot of time - and money.

A week later, after getting nowhere futzing around with a few machines and dumbbells, I started to wonder. A good massage costs $40. So does a modest dinner out with my husband. And while those treats feel good, neither has much lasting effect. Why not $99 to help me retain the upper hand, at least for a few more years?

"I'm not trying to lose weight or achieve some hourglass figure," I told my trainer-to-be, Eric Jordan. "I just want to be strong enough to beat my boys at arm wrestling." Jordan looked up from his desk, clearly delighted. Later he told me he was thinking, here's a woman who doesn't want the impossible.

Before I knew it I was lying flat on my back on a bench, gripping a 20-pound steel bar with 20 pounds of added weight just a foot above my chest. Okay, so this wasn't brain surgery, but it was no cakewalk either. "Press up with one smooth motion, then very slowly bring the bar down to your chest," Jordan said, his hands poised to catch the bar if I dropped it. I took a breath and laughed nervously. "I'm really not sure if I can." His voice coaxed me. "Just clear your mind, and give it a try."

I did what he said, focusing on tightening my chest muscles (the pectorals), clenching my biceps, and keeping my shoulders back while pushing the bar up until my arms were fully extended. After a few more, there it was: my first set of bench presses. Shakily executed, but bench presses nevertheless. After the set I stood up, my arms trembling from exertion. Jordan steadied my shoulder with one hand and with the other pushed my right arm back in a long luxurious stretch. In that moment I thought no touch, no massage, had ever felt so good.

Turning to look at Jordan, I half expected to see impatience or boredom in his eyes. Instead he beamed. "You're a lot stronger than you think," he said. "When we're done you're going to see this gym as a playground."
So he's suggesting I treat my body as a toy? Frankly, my husband likes to think of my body as his toy, and after 21 years together, I'm glad he does. Still, it felt great to have someone look at me as a person of physical power. So this is how my sons must feel when their coaches push them, encourage them, rub down their sore muscles. No wonder they're so devoted to soccer and hockey.

Jordan began to seem like the coach I never had as a kid. Women of my generation rarely played organized sports, and now I realize what we missed. With this endeavor I was gaining a new confidence in myself. My initial goal - of beating my sons at arm wrestling - began to seem irrelevant. I was thoroughly enjoying building my muscles, seeing what they could do. So I committed to ten more weekly sessions.

Over the weeks I began to feel and appreciate the movement of individual muscles. I developed better balance by lifting a 50-pound barbell from the floor and pressing it over my head, a complicated move that requires as much coordination as it does strength.

Soon I found I could do things I hadn't thought possible. On vacation with the boys, I paddled a canoe upstream and actually reveled in working my arms. Visiting a friend who has a toddler, I deftly stepped over the kiddie gate blocking the living room without breaking my stride. (My friend had to stop, shift her bag to one side, then lift each leg gingerly over the barrier.) And while I haven't lost weight, I do look different in a way that pleases me. The backs of my upper arms are firmer, and my pectorals are more pronounced.

It would be nice to brag that I faithfully worked out four or five times a week, but inevitably life intervenes. My seriously ill mother died a couple of months into the program. Though I had anticipated her death for months, I felt too sad and tired to get to the gym. In years past that's when I would have quit. Oh, I would have told myself I was just taking a break, but I never would have returned to the club. This time my regular appointments with Jordan kept me on track. I didn't go more than once a week. but that was enough to keep me from becoming sedentary again. With three months of training under my belt, I know I'm not yet over the hump - six months is the point by which half of all new exercisers drop out - but I'm pretty sure I'll make it.

As for the arm wrestling, I never did schedule a rematch. My husband convinced me that such competition probably doesn't make for smooth mother-son relations. One recent night, however, I whispered to my ten-year-old son, Alec. "Let's give it a quick try. Just once. We don't have to tell your dad." He and I sauntered into the kitchen, ostensibly to ' wash the dinner dishes. We sat across from each other at the table and quietly positioned our elbows.

"Ahem." We looked up to see my younger son and my husband watching. grinning at having caught us. "Oh, go ahead," my husband sighed.
Our hands clasped, Alec and I pushed. ' For what seemed like a long time, maybe '' a minute, we held steady. I couldn't bear him. He couldn't beat me. Then I sensed him tiring, and I pressed his arm down.
I know I won't be stronger than Alec when he's 13, perhaps not even when he's 12. I'm growing older, and he's growing up.
For now, though, I won.

By Jayne GARRISON