After taking a test Glide, she's sold

Lately I've found that light weekend hiking, though good for the soul, hasn't been as kind to the rest of me. It also doesn't provide the sweaty camaraderie of organized classes.

It was time to return to the gym -- but not to the same old cardio grind. Enter Gliding discs.

The Frisbee-ish plates, which slide across the floor like skimpy saucer sleds, replace abrupt, high-impact movements with graceful, fluid motions that are easy to follow. Controlling the movements offers a workout for the torso as well as the limbs performing the movements.

Introduced at the IDEA international fitness conference in July 2004, the discs have been gaining popularity in the U.S. and Europe, appearing in a growing number of fitness centers and popping up in large retail stores.

Standing with the balls of your feet on the 9-inch discs and your heels on the ground, you can perform almost any exercise with the grace of Mikhail Baryshnikov and the panache of Fred Astaire. At least that's the general idea.

Even better, the system can accommodate all levels of fitness -- including rank beginners. I was in.

Several local fitness centers, including Equinox and the Sports Club/LA, are incorporating the discs into their classes in various ways. But Crunch, in Los Angeles, offers a class based entirely around the discs.

Instructor Marc Montemerlo has been teaching the class for about three months. At the beginning of a recent afternoon session, he was practically vibrating with enthusiasm as he pulled out the discs and took inventory of the class.

It didn't take long. Normally the class is fairly large, he said, but on this afternoon, during the holiday shopping rush, most people apparently had better things to do than slide around a gym floor. It was just me and two other self-described beginners.

We each took a body bar -- a 4-foot, rubber-coated, slightly weighted steel bar commonly used for sculpting and toning -- and placed it in front of us like a walking stick. We were to use it throughout the class to stabilize our movements and, barbell style, to work the upper body.