While the fitness boom of the '80s popularized many items that would go on to benefit humanity (striped leotards, headbands, leg warmers, atrocious-tasting shakes, Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" video), it contributed precious little to the world of international cinema. Sure, there's the little-loved Perfect, but after that, the pickings get slimmer, particularly the 1984 montage-fest Pulsebeat (a.k.a. Pulsaciones), whose video box, in a burst of questionable marketing savvy, declares, "Move over, Perfect, Pulsebeat dances on to the screen with the handsome Daniel Greene... and the gorgeous Lee Taylor Allan." Boldly challenging the oppressive barriers separating softcore porn, exercise videos, and narrative cinema, PulseBeat stars the handsome Daniel Greene as a musclebound Lou Ferrigno lookalike who owns a gym where spandex-clad writhing runs rampant and steam rooms host frequent topless bull sessions. Life as a gym owner isn't all muscle-flexing and weight-training, as Greene learns when the owner of a hated rival gym steals away one of his best instructors just in time for the vaunted Aerobithon competition. Greene perks up considerably, however, after a pencil-necked geek (Robert Small) takes over his finances, and he finds a replacement for his traitorous ex-employee in the gorgeous Lee Taylor Allan, whose ability to gyrate rhythmically to synth-pop sends Greene into spasms of ecstasy. Allan conveniently shares his mania for flexing and body oil, and soon makes it apparent to the biceps-flexing entrepreneur that her interest in him goes well beyond a desire to build endurance and sufficiently work her quads. A newly pumped-up Small soon finds romance as well, wooing, with surprising ease, an attractive, fitness-obsessed doctor he innocently mistakes for a hardened prostitute. Trouble looms, however, in the form of swarthy turncoat aerobics instructor Alex Intriago, whose unhinged excursions into the netherworld of extreme aerobics leads Greene to yell, "What'll happen if one of your groupies tries some of that kamikaze shit of yours and breaks her neck?" Thankfully, none do, although Greene and Intriago inevitably part ways, leading to a Aerobithon-centered climax that confirms competitive aerobics' standing as the least cinematic sport this side of senior-circuit lawn-bowling.
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