As far as fitness, aerobics teacher is a step ahead

She doesn't have the health problems that often come with old age.
BROADVIEW HEIGHTS, Ohio (AP) -- Even at 80, Carol Baker loves to make muscles beg for mercy.
She works deltoids, biceps, triceps, abductors, gluteus muscles and adductors during an intense hour of her aerobics class. "And I usually run overtime" she said.
A mirrored studio is her stage at Bally Total Fitness in suburban Cleveland. Wearing a T-shirt, stretch pants and microphone headset, Baker wastes no time getting into a fast-paced 40 minutes of warm-up stretches and hops, heart-pumping aerobics and vigorous dance steps up and down on step benches.
Baker moves seamlessly from one hop to the next, thinking 18 to 32 counts ahead of her students, all the while alert for slackers.
"Bend your knees! Bend your knees! Bend your knees!"
Mary Kay Manning, 48, the owner of three dance studios, has been taking Baker's fitness classes for 22 years. She's sweaty and happy just like everyone else seems to be at the end of the Monday through Friday 8 a.m. class.
First-time student
"I felt it, and I didn't think I would," says April Roark, 27, a first-timer from Cleveland. Her 21/2-pound weights started out deceptively light, but grew heavier with each minute of the half-hour Baker has her students use them.
Instructors such as Baker are rare, said her boss, Lisa Cameron. "She's awesome. People feel confident taking her class, not intimidated. Her classes are always full."
Men join the class, occasionally, but not for long. "They can't keep up," Baker said with an endorphin-rich laugh. That's because men insist on hoisting macho 10-pound weights throughout the workout. "Three pounds is enough."
Baker, who sometimes slips a classical music tape into her exercise sessions, studied piano at Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory of Music.
She married at 19, moved to Los Angeles with her Army Air Corps husband, Bill, now deceased, and got a job at a Hollywood health club. When they moved back to Cleveland, she worked at a women's club next to the Old Arcade.
No fitness routines
Those were the days when ladies' fitness meant Swedish massages, steam rooms, tanning lamps and a few leg lifts. "We never got our heart rate up."
She then had four children and started working at the old Scandinavian Health Spa, which became Bally.
Exercise pays, said the 125-pound Baker, who hasn't a hint of arthritis or osteoporosis. She's a conservative eater, having a banana and a glass of water every morning, oatmeal for lunch and salad with chicken or other protein for dinner. One, maybe two cups of coffee a day is her limit.
"The secret is eating right," Baker said. "You have to stay off the white stuff," meaning flour, sugar and salt. "But if I want a slice of cake occasionally, I have it."
Former smoker
She stopped smoking almost six years ago.
"I quit cold turkey. If I had known it would be that easy, I would have stopped years ago."
She's one senior citizen who doesn't have to worry about high prescription drug prices. A multivitamin, two vitamin C tablets and a calcium supplement, and Baker is good to go in the mornings.
She gained and lost 20 pounds with the all the stress and sadness that went with her oldest son's death a year ago. "But, you know, you have to go on."
After all, there are six grandchildren to keep up with, not to mention the babies she cares for three hours every afternoon at the Children's House, a Broadview Heights Montessori school.
Each morning, Baker has one goal for her students. "I want everyone to walk out of here to the best day they've ever had."
As for the instructor, "I'm so revved I could teach another class!"