Exercise walking is in, while calisthenics is fast losing its popularity.

So many Americans say they have taken up walking that last year it surpassed swimming as the nation's No. 1 sport or fitness activity, according to a survey conducted for the National Sporting Goods Association."Of course, some of the walkers may merely be people who walk to the train station in the morning," association spokesman Thomas B. Doyle said in a telephone interview Wednesday.

"What the survey really shows is that the consciousness of walking as a fitness activity has increased," he added. "We have no idea whatsoever if any more walking is really being done."

This caveat not withstanding, the survey indicates that walking for exercise grew 72 percent over five years, from 41.5 million people in 1985 to 71.4 million in 1990.

Meanwhile, with the growing popularity of exercise equipment and clubs, the routine of pushup, situps and other calisthenics has gone into a steep decline.

"Exercising with equipment was in seventh place with 35.3 million participants, which was an increase of more than 3 million over 1985," said Larry Weindruch, another spokesman for the Mount Prospect-based association.

"In that same time period, the number of people who did calisthenics fell by half. There are only 13.2 million of them now, and there used to be more than 26 million."

The data, collected by the NPD Group Inc. of Port Washington, N.Y., was based on telephone surveys of 50,000 people in 20,000 U.S. households.

Swimming, which fell to second place in popularity, drew 67.5 million participants in 1990, compared with 73.3 million participants in 1985 - an 8 percent decline.

Bicycle riding was in third place in 1990 with 55.3 million participants. Next was fishing with 46.9 million participants, followed by camping with 46.2 million and bowling with 40.1 million.

Doyle and Weindruch noted wide divergences in activity patterns between men and women.

Women are more likely than men to participate in fitness - as opposed to sports activities.

"More women swim laps, but more men swim for fun," Doyle said.

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The fastest-growing recreational sports among women - at least by percentage of participation - appear to be archery and hunting.

"In 1990, 1.2 million women said they participated in archery, which is an increase of 120 percent over 1985," Weindruch said. "And 2.3 million said they hunted, which is up 42.9 percent from 1985."

Nye Lavalle, managing director of the Sports Marketing Group, said that his Dallas-based consulting firm released its own survey of exercise and fitness activities in February and that it found similar general trends. But he said there was some disagreement on the popularity of specific activities.

"Our survey covered only people aged 18 and up, while USGA's poll included children down to the age of 7," Lavalle said. "Their poll shows higher participation in team sports like basketball and baseball, which most people don't play much after high school."

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