Working out Slacking off the fat BY SARA DONNELLY

Who says getting in shape for summer has to be tough? At Go Figure Tone & Tan, in Scarborough, you can let mechanized tables do the work for you. It’s called the "No Sweat Exercise" and Go Figure’s owner, the pleasantly plump Arline Berube, swears by it.

"Some people are skeptical," says Berube. "But I say you can have a free try and judge for yourself."

Berube says about 30 former skeptics tempted by the promise of gain without pain on her business’s sign have become hooked on her machines, which are lined up neatly along the length of her small gym and tanning salon on Route 1. The seven machines resemble cots — all of them require the exerciser to lay down to work out — and they sport names like "The Circulation Table" and the "Body Bender Table." Exercisers recline on the cots, switch on the power on the side, and "work out" for 10 minutes at each station. There’s a machine that scissors your legs for you for leg raises, one which moves your upper body up and down for push-ups, and one which massages your butt (not sure what movement this simulates, but you get the picture). Berube says, among the women and men — ranging in age from 27 to 87 years old — who use the machines, the only person who has proven her sign wrong and broken a sweat is one middle-aged woman who Berube says is "going through the change of life."

But, besides menopause, pretty much nothing will make you exert yourself to the point of perspiration in this gym.

"It can be a lazy man’s exercise, or a lazy woman’s," says Berube, who herself exercises on the machines daily. "A couple of my clients spend all day sitting. They get no exercise whatsoever. Since they’ve been coming here they’ve improved their circulation and mobility and they feel so much better."

Berube’s machines, commonly known as "toning tables," have questionable value in the exercise world. While it’s certain you won’t get a cardiovascular workout while reclining on one, some people swear the tables improve flexibility, relieve back pain, and even shave off inches.

"Toning" sessions cost $5 a piece. And if you’re not sure that getting a mechanized butt massage will "rid your body of cellulite," as Berube’s brochure trumpets, you can try out one of her other lazy beautification techniques — including the Inch Loss Body Wrap which will allegedly make you "lose 5-15 inches" and a service called Dry Skin Brushing, which Berube’s brochure promises to "cleanse the Body of Toxins & Impurities!" and "rid the Body of Unsightly Cellulite!"

Those zealots jogging the Boulevard have got it all wrong.