Cathe Friedrich Fitness

Cathe Friedrich has been a leading innovator of the home exercise video industry for over two decades. With over 600 workout titles to her credit, she created one of the first “step” aerobic videos in 1989, and continues to this day to produce fun, intense, and challenging workouts for all body types and fitness levels. Her workouts are distributed on DVD and via digital downloads and streaming. Cathe holds a long-time ACE primary certification and has specialty fitness certifications in Indoor Cycling, Body Pump, Kickboxing, Boxing, Prenatal Fitness, Resist-A-Ball, Yoga Fit, Silver Sneakers and more. Her award-winning fitness workouts have been featured in the New York Times, Dallas News, and the Philadelphia Inquirer and have appeared in articles in the magazines' Shape, Oxygen, Self, Health, Fit, Consumer Digest and Fitness. Cathe has also been featured on Fox Business News, CBS, and QVC. Cathe is the mother of two boys: Eric, age fourteen, and Kyle, age twelve.

3 Best Exercises for Building Wider Shoulders

January 24, 2021 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

Are you struggling to get that wide-shoulder look? Having wider shoulders makes you appear stronger and more confident! Plus, you ARE stronger when you strengthen your upper body. At one time, it was popular to wear shoulder pads to get that broad-shouldered look, but that’s an illusion. The best way…

Mediterranean Diet and Atherosclerosis: Why the Mediterranean Diet is the Best Choice for Heart Health

January 24, 2021 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

The word "diet" has a negative connotation. In fact, it’s a word you might want to purge from your vocabulary. No wonder! The word diet conjures up images of hunger, deprivation, and unhealthy fad diets people adopt to lose weight fast and often lead to frustration and hunger. Not a…

5 Things You Should Know About Bone Spurs

January 24, 2021 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

What are those strange things called bone spurs that show up on an x-ray? Also known as osteophytes, these bony protuberances are most likely to appear after the age of 60. Bone spurs are areas where the bone overgrows along the edge of a joint. Should you be concerned if…

Is Stretching More Effective Than Walking for Lowering Blood Pressure?

January 24, 2021 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

For heart health and longevity, blood pressure matters! A study published in the journal Hypertension found that women and men with normal blood pressure had a total life expectancy 4.9 and 5.1 years longer relative to those with hypertension. Plus, controlling blood pressure and keeping it in a healthy range…

5 Things to Consider Before Taking a Supplement

January 24, 2021 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

Around 77% of Americans take one or more nutritional supplements, and the number of people popping supplements is on the rise. Some of the most popular are supplements for heart and immune health. Supplement taking is highest in middle-aged men and women. But not everyone who takes one or more…

5 Science-Backed Ways to Prevent Exercise Cramps

January 24, 2021 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

Have you ever been in the midst of an exercise, say squat jumps, and suddenly felt a cramp in your calf muscle that forced you to grab your aching leg? Exercise cramps are painful, and they can interfere with or cut short a good workout, although they usually resolve fairly…

How to Lower Your Risk of Back and Shoulder Pain When You Do Overhead Presses

January 17, 2021January 17, 2021 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

Are overhead presses, also known as the military press, part of your shoulder routine? They’re a favorite of bodybuilders who want strong, well-defined shoulders, and it’s one of the best exercises for working the shoulders and upper body. If you could choose only one exercise for broadening your shoulders,…

How to Boost Muscle Hypertrophy By Working Your Muscles from a Stretched Position

January 17, 2021January 17, 2021 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

Bodybuilders are always looking for ways to boost muscle growth by switching or upgrading their strength-training techniques. There’s no shortage of ways to change the stimulus you place on your muscles. For example, you can change the resistance, number of reps, number of sets, lifting tempo, number of exercises, how…

Exercise and Vasomotor Symptoms: Do Workouts Reduce Hot Flashes?

January 17, 2021 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

One symptom many women are familiar with after menopause is hot flashes. For some unlikely women, those flashes of intense heat, also known as vasomotor dysfunction, or vasomotor symptoms, begin even before menopause starts, during the perimenopausal period, and worsens as menopause draws closer. What do vasomotor symptoms, specifically a…

How Healthy is Your Heart? A Simple Exercise Test You Can Do at Home

January 17, 2021 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

How healthy is your heart? It’s probably not something you think about daily but it matters for health and longevity. Many people who have cardiovascular disease don’t know it, as they may experience few symptoms in the early stages. It’s only when heart disease progresses that the characteristic shortness of…