"There are thousands of theories of again," says Broino Kiveloff, M.D., associate chief of rehabilitation medicine at the New York Infirmary - Beekman Downtown Hospital. "This is a new one-the best one!" Dr. Kiveloff himself is a testament to the method he's been practicing daily for the past 18 years. Though he won't say how old he is, he will say he's been practicing medicine for 55 years. And his grip is still firm, his skin hardly wrinkled, his mind quick and sure. As a 76 year-old painter who's also been practicing the method puts it: "One feels so much more energetic - you feel a surge of energy immediately, almost like jumping off the floor! What are they doing? Lets take a look. When Dr Kiveloffcame to New York from Poland in 1960, he began specializing in rehabilitation medicine, the art and science of helping people regain their ability to live normally after a disabling illness or injury.

Isometric exercises fight age by improving peripheral circulation, Dr. Kiveloffmaintains. Also, he says, 'It makes people happy.'

So have many of the hundreds of people who've written Dr. Kiveloff about their success with the program, as he's gone about "spreading the word" through medical journals and the lay press over the past 10 years. One man we talked to that been restricted to a salt-free diet and put on medication after his doctor discovered his blood pressure was 160/95. Every three months for the past seven years, he had to go to the doctor for blood tests and other checkups on his progress. But after five to eight weeks of isometrics, his pressure fell to 120/80 and he discontinued the medication (though he still avoids salt, he says, because he learned to like the taste of saltless food). "It's so much more wonderful than taking medication," he told us. "You have to go to the doctor only when want to!" An executive nearing 65 told us he hadn't missed a single day of isometrics since he started seven years ago, and his blood pressure has stayed at 130/70 (down from 185/105). "I'm in awfully good shape, fit and flexible, and this is the only regular exercise I get," he told Prevention Magazine. A diabetic hospital technician started the exercises 14 years ago after discovering her blood pressure was up to 195/90. It dropped to 140/70 in short order, she told us, and today ( at the age of 56) it's still there. "The exercises have really, really helped me, but they're the kind of things you have to keep doing every day. Last year I stopped doing them and my blood pressure started going right back up again," she says. She notes the exercises have other benefits, too: They help relax her before bed, help relieve the numbness that sometimes settles in her hands and help cure headaches. Isometrics, she believes, have "given me a new lease on life."

Dr. Kivelofftold us he's begun doing the exercises four or five times a day for added benefit. And, he added, though the original study was done with people exercising in a standing position, it can be done sitting or even lying down. Generally, he says, it takes six to eight weeks to produce a significant drop in blood pressure (if your pressure is elevated to begin with), with the long-term benefits growing over time.

Everything in the world, Dr. Kiveloffmaintains. He explains his theory this way: "The human body is like a plant.

The process known as "cardiovascular adaptation"--or the way a race gets easier the longer you train for it--is largely a matter of improved peripheral circulation, Dr. Kiveloff says. A sound cardiovascular system also requires adequate reserves of blood properly distributed through the body, he says. Normally the muscles store some 40 to 50 percent of the body's total supply. Yet aging affects blood-storing muscle fiber, replacing it with connective tissue, which can't store blood nearly as well. Isometrics, Dr. Kiveloff maintains, attacks all these problems at once. It's been shown to dramatically and reliably improve peripheral circulation. It improves and maintains muscle tone and muscle bulk, delaying the conversion of muscle fiber to connective tissue and thus protecting the proper balance of blood reserves though the body. And it checks the steady upward creep in blood pressure that usually accompanies age, which can lead to serious and often fatal complications. Along the way, Dr. Kiveloff says, you take up arms against again other ways: Good peripheral circulation helps prevent wrinkle, for example. Improved posture aids your overall health and fights off one of the classic signs of age: stooped shoulders. And enhanced sense of well-being so many people report goes a long way toward keeping a youthful spring in your step. Dr. Kiveloff told Prevention Magazinehis original study has never been seriously challenged by other researchers.

Asked about the lack of follow-up studies on Dr. Kiveloff'swork, Dr. Hartley said, "There's not a lot of enthusiasm among doctors about recommending isometrics to people who are prone to coronary disease, because it has the potential for being very stressful exercise."

Yet Dr. Kiveloff maintains that he's seen no side effects--such as irregular heartbeats, dizziness or discomfort--in anyone doing the exercises properly. In fact, he points out a study of 140 patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease concluded that isometric exercise alone is much less likely to produce myocardial ischemia (shortage of blood to the heart) than vigorous dynamic exercise ( Chest, April 4, 1975). In his office at the rehabilitation center at the New York Infirmary, Dr. Kiveloff leans back in his chair. Despite all the publicity, he tells a visitor, he' never made a penny for his isometrics program except the payment for one magazine article. Why does he go on teaching and talking about it, despite the lack of financial reward and some resistance from the medical community?

Background