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Community Corner

Bedford-Stuyvesant YMCA Fitness Coaches Will Work You Hard!

With summer approaching, it's time to get serious about your work; start with the fitness coaches at the YMCA!

Although it may still feel like the dead of winter these days, the truth is summer is on its way! 

Are you ready to shed your extra winter layers and don a swimsuit?  If not, the fitness coaches at the Bedford-Stuyvesant YMCA, located at 1121 Bedford Avenue, want to offer you a few of their favorite exercises to get that body beach-ready:

Health and Lifestyles Director and Trainer Fabiola Francisque recommends her favorite exercise, the lunge. Lunges work your lower body, quads and hamstrings. They will tighten and tone your thighs and lift your glutes.

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Stand with one foot forward and one about three feet behind you. Bend your knees to lower your body straight down while keeping your knee and your toes in line. Push back up and repeat to feel the burn!

Wil Murray, trainer at the YMCA for 2 years, recommends oblique crunches. The crunches work your rectus abdominis and your external oblique to make a strong core muscles and fight fat that tends to get comfortable sitting around your hips. 

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Beginners can leave their feet on the floor, but if you’re looking for something more challenging, you can begin with one knee up and progress to lifting your whole leg up for a really powerful crunch. Don’t forget to stretch it out in between sets.

Gary Michel, YMCA trainer for 3 years, recommends a back exercise called close grip pull downs. The pull downs will emphasize larger shoulders and a smaller waist, referred to as the V-Taper. Grab the pull down bar and slowly lower down to your chest keeping your elbows close to your body.

Tanya Jenkins, trainer for 3 years chooses the plank. Plank works your entire core, front abdominal muscles, and lower back and upper and lower oblique. Lie face down on your mat resting on your forearms; pull yourself off the floor pushing down on your elbows and forearms and hold.

Jenkins says that it is important to keep your back flat and hold your abs in tight. Beginners can practice holding for 10-15 seconds and more advanced for 15 seconds to a minute, repeating 3-5 times.

Marguerite Zampini, also a trainer for 3 years, recommends the stability ball wall squats. Doing squats with the assistance of an exercise ball is a safe and easy way to make sure you’re doing squats correctly, she says. The ball helps keep the body aligned to assure proper form. 

Lean against the wall with your ball pressing against the small of your back then begin to slowly lower your body dropping your hips and falling into a sitting position, where your thighs are parallel to the floor.  Hold this position and then slowly roll back up to standing position. Repeat!

Do these exercises 3-5 times a week at home, or come into the Bedford-Stuyvesant YMCA to let these trainers help shape your body into tighter form. One of the YMCA's fitness coaches will train you four times for free over a 12-week period with the purchase of annual YMCA membership.

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