Bonnie Prudden ( Ruth Alice Prudden; January 29, 1914 – December 11, 2011) was an American physical fitness pioneer, rock climber and mountaineer. Her report to Eisenhower on the unfitness of American children as compared with their European counterparts led to the formation of the President's Council on Youth Fitness. Prudden authored 16 books on physical fitness and myotherapy for all ages and abilities including two best sellers, How to Keep Slender and Fit After Thirty (1961) and Pain Erasure: The Bonnie Prudden Way (1980). She produced six exercise albums, hosted the first regular exercise spots on national television, had a syndicated television show, and wrote a regular column for Sports Illustrated. Schools, prisons, summer camps, factories, hospitals, clubs, YMCAs, universities, geriatric homes and facilities for the physically and emotionally challenged all used and benefited from the many physical fitness programs she provided for them. Prudden also designed the first fitness fashions and developed numerous pieces of exercise equipment that could be built in the average garage and used by the family. She also coined the term and developed the practice of myotherapy in 1976, described as, "A method of relaxing muscle spasm, improving circulation, and alleviating pain. Pressure is applied, using elbows, knuckles, or fingers, and held for several seconds to defuse 'trigger points.' The success of this method depends upon the use of specific corrective exercises of the freed muscles." Early life Born Ruth Alice in New York City, Prudden began her climbing and dance career at age four when she ventured out the second story nursery window of her Mt. Vernon home to go night walking. After three such escapades a doctor told her mother, "There is nothing wrong with this child that discipline and exhaustion won't cure. Put her in the Russian Ballet School." During her growing up years she trained in the Koslov, Magna and Alviene Schools of dance, drama, elocution and gymnastics. She attended German Turnverein gymnastic clubs and Finnish exercise, took piano, violin, voice, riding, and writing lessons and studied anatomy. In 1931 she was enrolled at Horace Mann School where she excelled in English, art, sports, music, and drama, and taught dance to her classmates. After graduating in 1933 she took extension courses in art at the Grand Central School of Design and journalism and psychology courses at Columbia University. At the same time she began studying modern dance with Charles Weidman