Women's Health Month: Talking about strength training

is women's health month the time to encourage women to make their health a priority and this morning we're talking about strength training according to the CDC more than 60 percent of women do not engage in the recommended amount of physical activity more than 25 percent of U.S women are not active at all and physical inactivity is more common among women than men joining me now is fitness instructor and coach mariango from Lifetime Health Clubs good morning Mary good morning I'm so excited to b

e here I'm excited to see you do that thing again you just have to I mean that is like women empowerment I love it now when you think about strength training a lot of times you think about men but it's really important for women oh absolutely you know I think the fear behind strength training for women is being bulky but really strength training really improves your quality of life in general so that's the way you want to think about it to change the narrative yeah we put a bunch of things that

like helping with fat loss restoring your food levels reducing risk of injury and athletic performance which you know all about because I know you were an athlete for many many years what kind of recommendations do you have for the exercises that we can do to start strength training well in general you want to think about it from the bottom up right your shoulders anything that's going to help improve your posture so here we have a bent over row which is going to help with your posture keeping y

ou upright because a lot of us tend to live in this position where the entire front part of your body your chest is light so you want to open everything up from your back all the way down to the bottom so this here is a bent over row it builds your rhomboids the middle of your back your biceps your shoulders even your core your glutes and your hamstrings so that would be the first exercise and then you have your the overhead press overhead press exactly we all want nice shoulders and now the sea

son's coming where you're exposing your arms a lot so building your shoulders you're using your arms a lot to carry things pick things up put them overhead so building the arms is very key and when you do these what what weight should we start with well there is no specific weight that I recommend I say when you're first starting you want to start with weight selection that you can comfortably do 12 to 15 reps with for about two to three sets all right and then from there you increase your weigh

t and you increase your sets they don't start to not too heavy not too heavy now push-ups that's a tough one you love push-ups I don't like them yeah well the thing is push-ups work every single muscle in your body your arms your triceps your back your core your glutes your quads your hamstrings because you have to keep everything everything so tight to be able to carry your own weight I always tell everybody when we do push-ups carry our own and wait literally and figuratively if you can do a p

ush-up there's so much more you can do after that I'm guessing you can modify if you can't do a real push-up in the beginning yes we're going to say full push-ups okay okay because even a modified push-up is a real push-up just place your knees on the floor starting with a shorter lever you can even start by standing up placing your hands on the wall and then getting your chest and your forehead towards the wall and as you get stronger you walk down until you're completely parallel to the floor

all right squats squats are great so we all know the trend lately everyone's been talking about glutes everyone wants a bigger glutes but the thing is bigger is not always better if it's not firm and supportive right your glutes support your hips they help to stabilize your hips and your knees so that's why it's very important to build your glute muscles and you're hitting those muscles when you're squatting your glutes your quads and in New York City we're going up and down stairs all day right

you want to have strong legs but squats too they don't just build your quads they build your back and your core as well now I know you know all this strength training you also have to watch your diet and nutrition what is your suggestion there absolutely I mean key drink water hydrate hydrate hydrate helps with recovery helps with endurance take your iron pills ladies we have our menstrual cycle you're dealing with pregnancy and you're losing iron in those ways so it's very important to have ir

on and then make sure you're snacking healthy snacks nuts cheese granola things like that are important and just make sure you get into a routine come in take a class we have such great classes we have Alpha strength which focuses on Olympic lifting but if you're not if that's too intimidating then we have barbell strength which is fun and it's in a larger group setting you have music and lights and great energy so fun yeah Mary thank you so much for being here you are an inspiration I want to j

ust go out and work out I want to see you in class okay thank you