This SEAL's toughest mission: Demi Moore

KEEPING FIT

JACK WILLIAMS

In his eight years as an underwater demolition commando, Scott Helvenston never came this close to being in over his head.

Not when he had to dodge snipers in El Salvador. Not when he had to dive into murky 40-degree water, where visibility was less than a foot and panic was the enemy.

His assignment this time: Train Demi Moore to perform like a SEAL, Helvenston, 32, was a technical adviser for three months last year on "G.I. Jane," the new movie in which Moore embraces baldness, breaks tradition and bends credibility as an aspiring Navy SEAL.

Only in Hollywood, of course, could such a scenario succeed. The movie, made without the Department of Defense's blessing, ignores the fact that membership in the Navy s elite Seal's (Sea, Air, Land special commandos) is off-limits to women - no matter how intrepid, buff or charismatic.

For his part, Helvenston has spent enough time overseas and underwater to form a Submarines a Us support group. At 17, with special parental consent, he was among the youngest candidates ever to complete SEAL training, one of those 10 to 20 percent of recruits who survive the five sleepless nights of "Hell Week."

Perfect Teacher

He was a natural, it seems, to provide Moore and her acting crew a watered down version of what SEALS do routinely: intense physical training.

Moore, as it turned out, was gutsy and game. But after a two-minute round of rigorous calisthenics followed by a one-mile run, she lost her breakfast, As the Seal's are wont to say: "A person with a strong stomach is a strong person." "She was a trooper," said Helvenston, who left the Navy three years ago and works as a personal trainer and occasional movie stuntman. "Her lower body and abs were stronger than some of the guys. She showed up at 7a.m. the first day, and no one expected her to do what everybody else did."

Like an ex-Olympian or major leaguer, Helvenston will carry his SEAL identity around for a lifetime, proudly but unassumingly. "I think it's somewhat defining of who I am as a person," he says. "But I never thought that much about until I kept meeting people who'd say, 'Oh, wow, you were a Navy SEAL?'"

For all its prestige, though, the Navy's SEAL of approval no more pays the bills than those two national (and one world) military pentathlon championships Helvenston won during a dozen years in the Navy.

So Helvenston, who lives in Carmel Valley, makes a living these days teaching rock climbing, organizing adventure endurance races, doing stunts in movies and marketing his exercise videos.

SEAL Secrets

If there are any secrets to SEAL certified fitness, he's anxious to share them. And you don't have to be a pseudo SEAL, ala Moore, or an exercise fanatic to reap the benefits. Helvenston breaks it down in-to beginner, intermediate and advanced levels of training - all of it without apparatus, if you're game enough to tackle the advanced workout, you've got the zeal of a SEAL, not the prowess.

Helvenston's "Navy SEAL Total Body Workout," consisting of the calisthenics he taught SEAL recruits for several years, goes for $19.95. He offers the "Ultimate Aerobic Workout," "Ah Blast Workout" and a training manual with a fitness evaluation and nutritional guidelines for $39.95, plus $4.50 shipping and handling. For ordering information, call (800)474-3764.

"What I really like," Helvenston said, "is exploring nature's gym. I think people are more attracted today to taking their fitness goals outside, learning how to use the outdoors: mountaineering biking, hiking, rock climbing, kayaking.

"Rock climbing, for example, is an incredible resistance training workout, once you overcome the height situation. You'll get benefits on a rock that you can't achieve in the weight room.

"I know. I spent nine months caught up in the weight-room mentality. I don't regret it because of what I learned. But I wasn't very agile then. It affected what I needed to do as a SEAL."

SEAL training, he says, is functional fitness: 'Just you and your body." "Seal's aren't born; they're made," said Helvenston, who broke two legs and shattered a wrist during a SEAL parachuting accident in the late 1980s, leaving him with recurring back pain.

"SEAL training teaches you to focus more on a specific muscle group, get in tune with the intensity of resistance training," he said. "On a scale of 10, the intensity should be a 7. Occasionally, when you feel sporty, crank it up to from 8 to 10."

Many of us make the mistake of starting out by pushing too hard, "It gets very agonizing and you quit" Helvenston said. "If fitness were painful, I'd quit, too. But then getting on a machine and riding easily for 10 to 15 minutes three days a week Won't do it, either."

When pushed for time, Helvenston schedules what he calls "make-up days" or finds 15 minutes in which to cram a mini-workout. Once, during a three-hour flight, he was getting antsy. He hadn't done his chest and shoulder routine in a while.

"So I did it right there, in the back of the plane, using the seats to do dips for resistance" he said. Flight attendants eyed him suspiciously. His wife and two children hid their faces.

"I've designed a routine you that you can drop down and do anywhere, he said. "But I don't recommend it on a plane.

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