Scott Martin

Like a fruitcake-bearing in-law, the off-season has landed on our doorstep - uninvited, unloved and unwilling to leave anytime soon.

Make the best of it, they say: Ride the indoor trainer (painful and boring, just like doing your taxes), hit the local gym (but watch out for the new antibiotic-resistant superbugs), go cross-country skiing (last chance before global warming kicks in).

Or just snuggle up with the remote and some barbecued saber-toothed tiger ribs - part of the Paleolithic diet, don't you know.

If this is your winter plan, then I will be killing you like an antibiotic-resistant superbug next spring. That's because I did my homework and uncovered perhaps the greatest off-season workout ever devised.

My secret : jiggling. No, not the Charlie's Angels kind. We're talking science here.

A Maine researcher reported in October that standing on a vibrating platform for 15 minutes a day could help people get 6-pack abs, according to the Associated Press.

The proof : In a study of mice placed on a jiggling surface for a quarter-hour each day for 15 weeks, the rodents developed 27% fewer abdominal fat cells, had reduced triglycerides in their little mice livers, and enjoyed "other benefits." Possibly of a cheese-related nature.

S-s-s-sign me up ! Building a vibrating platform could be a challenge, but I'll figure something out. Maybe I could just have my supervisor put her fingers around my throat and shake, like she did today when I returned 30 minutes late from my "lunchtime" ride.

And to think I used to make fun of my grandmother, whose basement contained one of those ancient exercise machines sporting a vibrating hip belt designed to melt away fat. I wonder what Granny's watts-to-kilogram ratio was.

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