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.

5 Ways to Work Your Core More When You Do Push-Ups

May 24, 2020 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

How many push-ups do you do each week? Hopefully, they are part of your resistance-training routine. We think of push-ups as an upper-body exercise that requires no equipment. The muscles you activate when you do this movement are the triceps, deltoids, and pectoral muscles. However, other muscles help to stabilize…

5 Surprising Facts about Strawberries that Explain Their Health Benefits

May 24, 2020May 24, 2020 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

Strawberries are “berry” tasty and excellent for your health too. You can buy these luscious orbs fresh at your local supermarket or, even better, at a farmer’s market or a pick-your-own strawberry farm. Another option is to buy frozen berries. They have the advantage of having a longer shelf life…

Do Dehydrated, Frozen, or Canned Fruits and Vegetables Contain More Pesticides?

May 24, 2020 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

Eating a healthy diet means making nutrient-dense food choices that are low in sugar and as unrefined as possible, but when you choose produce you have another variable to consider, pesticides. Fruits and vegetables grown in a conventional manner are sprayed with chemicals to deter pests. It is not clear…

5 Nutrient-Dense Foods That Help Curb Hunger

May 24, 2020 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

There are lots of reasons people overeat and genuine hunger is only one of them. Some eat to calm their emotions or out of boredom rather than to boost their energy reserves. However, some people feel hungry and reach for a snack after a meal because they eat the wrong…

The Piriformis: A Tiny Muscle That Can Cause Annoying Problems

May 24, 2020 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

When we strength train, we focus on the big muscles that show, like our glutes, quads, hamstrings, chest, and muscles in our back that make us look firm in a tank top. We tend to neglect the smaller muscles that we can’t see. One of those muscles is called the piriformis…

How Much Exercise Do You Need to Lower Your Risk of Developing Cancer?

May 24, 2020 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

Some studies suggest that regular exercise may lower the risk of some forms of cancer. Who wouldn’t want that extra benefit, especially with cancer being in the top five causes of premature death? Yet there are still unanswered questions. What types of cancer does exercise lower the risk of and…

Should You Elevate Your Heels When You Squat?

May 17, 2020 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

What would a workout be without squats? Squats are the king of lower body exercises because they work so many muscles at the same time. Plus, they’re a functional movement that mimics the movements you do every day. By doing squats, you build stronger quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes, although squats…

3 Leafy Greens that May Help Your Workouts

May 17, 2020 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

How many times have you heard nutritionists say to eat your greens? It’s good advice! Green, leafy vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and fiber and they supply your body with carbohydrates in a form that’s easy on your blood sugar. You might not think of leafy greens as…

Can Eating More Vegetables Offset the Effects of Eating Red Meat?

May 17, 2020 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

A hot steak fresh off the grill might titillate the taste buds, but some studies link a diet high in red and processed meat with a greater risk of health problems such as cardiovascular disease and some forms of cancer. According to the American Heart Association, consuming large amounts of…

5 Things You’re Getting Wrong about Vitamin D

May 17, 2020 by Cathe Friedrich

Cathe Friedrich

Vitamin D plays a critical role in the human body. We think of it as being the bone health vitamin, but the sunshine vitamin behaves more like a hormone and plays other roles in human health. For example, vitamin D is active in regulating immune function and that’s important for…