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Virtually 100 per cent of gyms now offer some dance-based fitness classes, said [Liz Neporent], whose company, Wellness 360, builds and manages fitness centres for corporations, hotels and high-end residential clients globally. \"It's fun and it's motivational. It brings in a lot of non-traditional fitness people.\" \"Obviously you've always had your ballet classes, but now I've had three or four teachers come through saying 'I have my own signature dance class for kids designed to get them up and moving',\" Neporent said. \"You might not put your child on a stationary bike or a treadmill, but you might put them in a twice-weekly dance class.\" \"Traditional aerobics has lots of marching. You don't want to feel like you're marching in place. You want something you can take on the dance floor and learn a new skill and feel like it's fun and it's flirty and it's exciting.\"

\"As a general rule, the products sold on infomercials are of poor quality and bad design,\" says Liz Neporent, co-author, with Suzanne Schlosberg, of \"Fitness for Dummies\" (Wiley, $21.99).

\"It's the workout that meets your needs and goals the best,\" says Liz Neporent, author of \"The Ultimate Body: 10 Perfect Workouts for Women\" (Ballantine, 2003). \"There is no such thing as a universal, perfect workout.\" In 1998, a panel of exercise scientists with the American College of Sports Medicine reviewed 262 studies to develop the optimal exercise prescription. It included the elements of what has become known as the fitness \"pyramid\" of activities -- cardiovascular or aerobic exercise, resistance (weight) training, and flexibility (stretching) exercises. \"A beginning exerciser should be aware that for the long term, more is better,\" says exercise physiologist Sal Fichera of Forza Fitness in Manhattan. \"The perfect workout doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to include every form of exercise under the sun and it is attainable,\" Neporent says. \"But let's be honest. It takes work and commitment.\"

Chair dip: Sit on the edge of a sturdy chair with your legs together and straight in front of you, toes pointing up. Keeping your elbows relaxed, straighten your arms, place your hands about six inches apart, and firmly grip the edges of the seat. Slide your butt just off the front of the chair so that your upper body is pointing straight down. Keep your abdominals pulled in and your head centered between your shoulders. Push-ups: To help show off a firmer cleavage. Lie on your stomach, bend your knees, and cross your ankles. Bend your elbows and place your palms on the floor a bit to the side and in front of your shoulders. Straighten your arms and lift your body so you're balanced on your palms and knees. Tuck your chin a few inches toward your chest so your forehead faces the floor. Tighten your abdominals. 4 PHOTOS - ASSOCIATED PRESS - 1 - MATCHING THE EXERCISE TO THE DRESSSLEEVELESS: Lateral raises can help sculpt shoulders like Julia Roberts'.; 2 - LOW BACK: Renee Zellweger demonstrates how one- arm rows help the upper and middle back.; 3 - LOW CUT: Push-ups will help show a firmer cleavage in a dress like Halle Berry's.; 4 - CAP SLEEVES: Does Kate Hudson do chair dips to help her upper arms look svelte?

Have you always dreamed of working with a certified personal trainer but been put off by the high cost? Perhaps it's time to check out www.myfitnessexpert.com (plans vary, from $29.95 for one month to $239.40 for one year).

exercises lOne-arm bent-over row lPress-up lDumb-bell push-press lDumb-bell step-up lDecline press-up lDumb-bell lunge lDumb-bell squat lDumb-bell bench press Week 1 Do one set of 15 x 15kg dumb- bell squats. One set of 15 x 20kg one-arm bent-over rows. 15 body press-ups and one set of 12 x 15kg dumb-bell push-presses. Week 7 Three sets of eight x 15kg dumb-bell lunges. Three sets of eight x 40kg one-arm bent-over rows (hold the dumb-bell in the 'up' position for three seconds each time). Three sets of 10 x 30kg dumb- bell bench presses. Three sets of 10 x 25kg dumb-bell push-presses. Week 8 Three sets of eight x 20kg dumb-bell lunges. Three sets of between six and eight 45kg one-arm bent-over rows. Three sets of 10 x 30kg dumb-bell bench presses. Three sets of 10 x 25kg dumb-bell push-presses.

Circuit training can be done using almost any type of resistance training equipment, including free weights. But [Gary Heavin] added another twist: The studios in his chain are stocked with a line of hydraulic resistance machines, designed and manufactured by Curves. These machines - 3 inches shorter than conventional strength training machines, to better accommodate the average female frame - use hydraulic fluid, instead of plates or weight stacks, as resistance. \"There's nothing to set or adjust,\" says Heavin. \"You just jump on the machine and blast.\" .ivillage.com), decided to visit a Curves after receiving the umpteenth e-mail from one of her iVillage correspondents, raving about the club and the concept. \"At first, I was skeptical,\" [Liz Neporent] says. \"But I have to say, I really think the idea is very, very good.\" Neporent, who also is the author of \"The Ultimate Body: 10 Perfect Workouts for Women\" (Ballantine, $14.95), says she thinks the hybrid cardio-strength training workout is perfect for the Curves audience. \"If you concentrated on pure cardio, you might burn more calories,\" she says (conversely, if you focused more intensely on weights, you'd see greater results in strength and musculature). However, she says, \"it's a good, solid, all-around workout.\" We, too, were skeptical when we went to visit Curves, and also came away impressed: As is the case with most clubs in the chain, the Curves in Manhasset is small and sparsely furnished (compared, say, with your typical Bally's or World Gym). There are no mirrors and no showers. It's basically an 1,100- square-foot room, with little more than the machine circuit and a few exercise mats. While the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly, there was no dawdling, none of the standing around and talking - or gawking - you see at most health clubs. To the beat of pleasant, up-tempo hits from the '70s and '80s, in which a voice every 30 seconds instructs exercisers to move to the next station, women of all ages and sizes were getting a workout. (One complaint heard among Curves-goers is that there is a wait to get on the circuit at certain \"rush hours.\" Another is that the clubs have limited hours, are open only half a day on Saturdays and closed Sundays.)

Liz Neporent was in her apartment one block from the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. When the first plane hit, she was talking on the phone with co-workers, including her husband, Jay Shafran, who were in their office just south of the Twin Towers. These excerpts from her journal, begun an hour after the second Tower collapsed, are followed by her thoughts a year later. 9.12.01 - I finally found Jay yesterday by breaking into someone's computer. I e- mailed everyone, and almost instantly my brother shot back a note saying Jay was looking for me. I was so relieved. He told me to stay put and Jay would come get me. 9.8.02 - Last night I dreamed I was falling through empty space, and I just kept falling, falling, falling. Many nights during the past year, I've dreamed of planes diving into buildings, or buildings falling, or that I'm trying to escape from a building that is about to collapse. These dreams are often full of gray ash, and sometimes the buildings look out of focus and faraway, like the backgrounds of a Monet watercolor. In them, I feel more detached than terrified.

Doodling, twisting paper clips and tapping your toes can help you lose weight. Studies show world-class fidgeters can burn up to 800 extra calories per day as much as getting 30 minutes of accumulated activity daily.

To extend the analogy, you look for certain credentials when hiring someone to handle your taxes. Shouldn't you also expect a certain level of competence when choosing who's going to handle your body...literally? The problem here is that-unlike many other services and professions-anybody can call himself a personal trainer. Because trainers are not licensed by any state or national agency, one way to distinguish the good ones is to see whether they've been certified, preferably by either the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) or the American Council on Exercise (ACE), the largest certifying body in the country (about 20,000 trainers nationwide are ACE-certified). \"There are others that are good,\" said Liz Neporent, who, as a co- owner of Plus One Fitness in Manhattan, has 275 trainers on her payroll. \"But having a certification from one of the 'Big Three' tells me they have a minimum level of competence. It also demonstrates to me that they're planning to stay in the business, that [being a trainer] is not just an alternative to delivering pizza or working at the Gap.\" As an adolescent, [Audra Eisenberg] said, \"I was obese and disgusted with myself.\" Now, at age 24, she's trim, muscular, self-confident. Eisenberg had already lost weight on her own when she started working out with a trainer in 1997. But, she said, \"I had plateaued. I was doing the same thing and I wasn't getting anywhere. [My trainer] set me up with a weight routine. At first, I was afraid, because I thought my legs would be humongous. But he told me that wouldn't happen, that I'd get stronger, and not necessarily 'bigger.'\" Her trainer was right: Eisenberg reduced her body fat from 25 percent to 18 percent, and stayed the exact same weight: a muscular 112 pounds (she weighed 162 as an adolescent). And as for her personal relationship with her personal trainer, Matt Sulam-well, that, too, is a success story. They're getting married this Sunday.