search Center was different from what anyone else had told me," says Joe Abate, twenty-one, a placekicker on Harvard's football team. "He told me I needed to work on my strength, but that my form was good. I was really happy because he gave me an idea of what my problem is, and now I can work on it on my own."

Abate is motivated partially by the prospect of a professional football career if he is able to fulfill his potential; he is also spurred by the fact that his pilgrimage to Trabuco Canyon cost $1,500-too large an investment to squander. Ariel charges that hefty sum per analysis, and if a tennis-playing patron wanted both his forehand and his backhand diagnosed, each stroke would be $1,500. Throw in a serve and you're up to $4,500.

At those prices, needless to say, the Coto Research Center isn't mobbed by weekend duffers and casual tennis players. So, considering that he generously donates time and resources to Olympic-caliber amateur athletes, how does Ariel keep the center financially solvent?

It's easy. Ariel is a far cry from the proverbial absent-minded professor. He is conspicuously practical and frugal, he is shrewd, he is a spectacular salesman. And he receives a steady and comfortable income from royalties from Nautilus and Universal exercise machines, of which he was a principal inventor.

Ironically, his newest invention may hopelessly antiquate both of those weight-lifting systems, which grace the hardwood floors of virtually every health club or gym in the country. He has developed a computerized exerciser that memorizes an individual's workout and offers feedback from day to day. It supplies extra resistance to build specific muscle groups; if an athlete is injured, it allows him to continue training by isolating the sore joint or muscle and releasing tension on it. If the athlete carries his workout on cassette, it is possible for him to use the machine anywhere in the world and pick up where he left off the day before. Major international hotel groups are considering installing the exercisers

Ariel now is working on a model of the computerized exerciser that

could be used at home, in conjunction with an ordinary television set; commands and feedback would be flashed on the TV screen. He believes the machines could be marketed, through a national corporation such as Radio Shack or Apple Computers, for little more than $1,000 apiece.

Corporations pay Ariel and Penny to test their sports equipmentin fact, CBA's first contract, back in 1971, was to see whether Spaulding basketballs were bouncing and arching properly, which they were. They have tested running shoes, tennis rackets, golf clubs, tennis balls. Ariel's conclusion: the most important component is the person who's using them.

"It's like a gold-plated ignition key for a '48 Volkswagen," he says in his rich Israeli accent. "The golf club is only as good as the person swinging it."

Admitted workaholics, Ariel and Penny live within walking distance from the center. Even the computers know their habits: if either one signs onto a Megatak terminal after midnight, the machine flashes "Good Grief!" on its screen. They have little social life and gleefully pump every dollar they earn back into their business.

"I suppose the business is worth about $10 million," says the stocky Ariel, who favors jeans and openneck shirts. "But yoo can eat only one steak and drive one car-and I happen to prefer Chevy."

Ariel's lifestyle may be modest, but he isn't coy about his abilities. He proudly displays laminated copies of magazine articles proclaiming him a genius and announces, without hesitation, that his is the most advanced sports research center in the world.

"They talk about East Germany," he says, scoffing at those who have created world champions through chemistry. "We are about two generations ahead."

To back up that statement, Ariel is uncommonly accommodating to American Olympic aspirants. "We don't even get a tax write-off," he boasts. "We just love the sports."

Russ Hodge, former world record holder in the decathlon, is sports program director at the research center. He develops specialized programs for Ariel's clients and, in his

spare time, trains himself for an Olympic. comeback. Using an Ariel analysis, the forty-one-year-old Hodge hopes to compensate for his diminished speed with more finesse.

The U.S. Olympic women's volleyball team also is in residence at Coto de Caza, where coach Arie Selinger has constant access to Ariel's computers. "Our biomechanical analyses of spiking, serving and passing are helping to confirm our thoughts," Selinger says. "We are reevaluating what we've been doing and changing some things, particularly our spiking."

World-class track-and-field athletes who have dropped in for diagnosis and pointers include discus throwers Al Oerter and Mac Wilkins and sprinter Evelyn Ashford.

"I predicted Ashford would get hurt a few weeks before it happened," Ariel says, referring to her devastating thigh injury of April 1980. "I had tested her on my force plate [a $25,000 metal plate imbedded in his track, with a cor iputer beneath it] and discovered ti at her horizontal force equaled he • body weight. Running that wa'y, she could not last."

For Oerter and Wilkins, Ariel diagnosed problems in form that were inhibiting their results. Wilkins's front leg was absorbing energy that should have been going into the toss, and Oerter was releasing the discus at an inefficient angle. Both have made the best throws of their illustrious careers since their sessions with Ariel.

Ariel rattles off an eclectic list of athletes he has digitized: Dallas Cowboys' tackle Rayfield Wright, the Kansas City Royals' pitching staff, a world Frisbee champion, the consecutive free-throw record holder, as well as Kentucky Derby winner Spectacular Bid. The horse's owners found Ariel's findings, concerning why "The Bid" was able to dominate the Thoroughbred world so totally, so intriguing that they have decided to keep them under wraps. Ariel is particularly confident of his ability to predict a great racehorse and maintains an interest in a stable in Florida.

If Gideon Ariel puts his money on a longshot, don't ask questions. Just follow suit-and you'll follow him to the cashier's window. 0

EXPRESS July 1981