Jane Fonda has named May 1 as World Fitness Day, and will lead a group workout at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

We remember actor Jane Fonda leading the fitness revolution of the ’80s, starting with the release of Jane Fonda’s Workout Book (Simon & Schuster, 1981) and video. Now that one-third of adults in the United States are obese — putting them at higher risk for heart disease, diabetes and other health issues — we can’t think of a better time for a national call to exercise, with Fonda’s World Fitness Day on May 1.

Fonda will lead a group workout in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome, along with fellow fitness gurus Richard Simmons and Denise Austin, choreographer Debbie Allen and Tae Bo creator Billy Blanks. Doors to the event, which benefits Fonda’s Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention (G-CAPP), open at 8:30 a.m., with exercise beginning at 10 a.m. Following the 50-minute workout, the Pointer Sisters and Ludacris will perform. Those not in Atlanta can participate via live streaming on WorldFitnessDay.org via Ustream.tv.

Individual tickets are $75 (students 12 and up can register for $25); the price includes a commemorative T-shirt. (The Atlanta Journal Constitution is offering a promo code for 50 percent off admission. Parking is $10.) Participants are encouraged to form teams and bring friends along, but those who simply want to support the exercisers and enjoy the concert can join the Cheering Section for $25 (free for children 12 and under). All admission proceeds go to G-CAPP, an advocacy group founded by Fonda in 1994 to empower young girls to prevent teen pregnancy and to assist teen mothers in Georgia, which has the eighth-highest teen birth rate in the United States.

Each fitness expert will lead the participants — expected to be between 2,000 and 3,000 — for 10 minutes in his or her workout style. Beforehand, players for the Atlanta Falcons will sign autographs. CNN medical correspondent and neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta, M.D., will kick off the event. Participants can explore the Fitness Zone’s product demonstrations and giveaways, wellness screenings, healthy snacks and more, before and after working out. If you’re not tuning in to or attending the event, make World Fitness Day the occasion to try a new workout routine! Below are some of our suggestions.

• If Fonda brings back fond memories of leg warmers, New Yorkers can sweat to ’80s music and learn cool dance moves — including the moonwalk, pop & lock and RoboCop — in the Awesome ’80s Dance Class at Crunch. Also at the gym’s New York locations: BodyArt, created by a physical therapist who blends movement from yoga, Pilates and dance. Select locations in New York, Miami and San Francisco offer BOING with Kangaroo, in which class participants strap on boots equipped with springs, then hop and jog through a high-intensity workout. The Beach Body class is offered at select Crunch locations throughout the country and is designed to get you in top form by bikini season.
• Based on the techniques of dancer Lotte Berk, The Bar Method combines isometrics, dance conditioning and interval training to create long, lean muscles. (Our own muscles were sore for quite a while after our first class.) Celebrity enthusiasts include Drew Barrymore, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Kyra Sedgwick . Send a free pass to a friend who has never tried the workout — simply choose a location and enter her information and a short message, and she will be sent a free class offer via email. The Bar Method has studios throughout the country — the newest opened recently in SoHo in New York City.
• New classes at Equinox, which has locations in Boston, California, Chicago, Connecticut, Dallas, Florida, New York and Washington, DC, include Whipped! and Tabata 2010. Participants in Whipped! are trained to “whip” thick, 40-foot ropes to create a push-pull motion for strength and resistance training. The class also utilizes kettlebells, steps and stability balls. Tabata 2010 combines 20 seconds of intense exercise with 10 seconds of recovery. Each exercise is repeated eight times over a span of four minutes.
• We recently had the opportunity to check out the latest New York location of Pure Yoga, which also has studios in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. The luxurious yoga complexes are run by Equinox in the United States and they offer a wide range of practices, including hatha, ashtanga, Vinyasa, Iyengar, hot power yoga, Kundalini and slow flow. We sampled two of the newest offerings: Forrest Yoga, which emphasizes core work, and hip-hop yoga, an energetic vinyasa class.
• Three very early mornings a week, we attend a fitness boot camp. Can’t find one in your area? Try a Barry’s Bootcamp DVD.

Whether we tune in online or attend an exercise class, we definitely plan to participate in World Fitness Day, slated to become an annual event. At 72, Fonda is an inspiration — she recently told Extra that one of her secrets to looking and feeling young is doing a bit of exercise every day. How do you fit working out into your schedule?

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