She became one of the first exercise instructors on television, appearing as a guest on the “Home” and “Today” shows on NBC in the 1950s, and then on a syndicated show named for her in the 1960s. She wrote fitness articles for Sports Illustrated. She recorded a half-dozen records and wrote 15 books. She shared the television spotlight with Debbie Drake, another fitness instructor, and might have garnered even more fame, like Jane Fonda, had home video existed at the time.

In later years, Ms. Prudden came up with a way to eliminate the pain caused by exercising. It involved applying pressure with an elbow or thumb on what she called “trigger points,” immediately followed by remedial exercise. She trademarked the name Myotherapy and opened a clinic in Tucson where she and a half dozen employees administered it.

Ruth Alice Prudden was born in Manhattan on Jan. 29, 1914, and acquired the nickname Bonnie from people who deemed her a “bonnie lass.” She grew up in Mount Vernon, N.Y., where around age 3 she began to descend from her bedroom window to wander the neighborhood. Her parents’ doctor thought she might stop if she got sufficiently tired, so they enrolled her in a rigorous ballet school. By the time she was 20, she was dancing on Broadway.

In 1936 she married Richard S. Hirschland, a wealthy metal container manufacturer who would have rather been an artist, and abandoned her dancing career to be a homemaker in Westchester County. She volunteered for charities before starting the fitness sessions for her daughters and their friends in the mid-1940s at the Pleasant Ridge Elementary School in Harrison, N.Y. The program grew from the school to the Girl Scout House to a Knights of Columbus hall. She named her fitness program the Institute for Physical Fitness in 1954. Enrollment inexplicably spurted when she began to charge.

She and Mr. Hirschland climbed the Matterhorn on their honeymoon and became avid climbers in the Shawangunk Mountains in New York State. They often climbed with Dr. Hans Kraus, the professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation with whom Ms. Prudden wrote the report that influenced President Eisenhower.

In her 20s, Ms. Prudden had a skiing accident and broke her pelvis in five places, putting her in traction for three months. She was told she would never ski, climb or have children. None of that turned out to be true. But the injury most likely did contribute years later to two total hip replacements, in 1970 and 1980.

She never stopped exercising, however. Even triple bypass heart surgery at 92 did not hinder her daily routine, by then largely done in the swimming pool or in bed, for which she had devised a set of rigorous exercises.

Ms. Prudden’s marriage ended in divorce in the mid-1950s. In addition to her daughter Suzy, she is survived by another daughter, Joan Meijer; four grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.

“You can’t run back the clock,” Ms. Prudden liked to say. “But you can wind it up again.”

Bonnie Prudden