About the Author

Ron Portal is retired after thirty-seven years of teaching physical education in the San Jose Unified School District. Portal says that his career was most influenced by a thirty-five year old heart specialist who was the keynote speaker at a physical education conference in 1961. The doctor provided his audience with a detailed explanation of the effects that aerobic exercise has on the arterial system. The most interesting information he provided was that aerobic exercise lowers the resting pulse rate and that it is the elevated resting pulse rate that causes hardening of the arteries and not cholesterol. Shortly after that presentation, the young doctor unexpectedly died of a brain tumor and his revolutionary ideas about the influence of aerobic exercise were forgotten. Portal observed that though out the 20th century increased research continued to strongly support the doctor's views about aerobic exercise and improved arterial profiles. Unfortunately the effects were not understood and attempts at an explanation resulted in blind speculation (B.S.). Frustrated because the current general belief has cholesterol as the villain and diet as the most important preventive feature of arterial disease, Portal became convinced it is time and there is a need for Aerobics, The Invisible Advantage.