anna bogdanova
STRENGTH TRAINING FOR MUSCLES, NERVOUS SYSTEM AND SKIN
Women’s Health Innovator
Anna Bogdanova
I want to replace diets and long, gruelling cardio with more food and muscle because we need to build more than we break down - at all stages of life - to maintain our strength, fitness and freedom well into our senior life.
That's why I teach women how to strength train effectively in just 5-15 minutes a day, focusing on their muscles - they are our most important health insurance!
★ 50.000+ danish women have completed Anna Bogdanova's digital training programme ★
♦︎ Academic background in psychology, exercise physiology and exercise nutrition, and certified in behavioral design, modern pain theory and stress coaching
♦︎ Deputy Director of EuropeActive (non-profit organization), setting standards for online training throughout the health and fitness sector in Europ
♦︎ Author of bestselling books “Skyhigh metabolism”, “Veldrejet”, “Painless”, and “The 5-minute Lift”
♦︎ Has received the Talent 100 award from Berlingske Business, a Danish media, for her innovative digital training courses (2019)
♦︎ Selected by the Danish Chamber of Commerce as one of the 25 Danish female entrepreneurs you should know (2022)
DO YOU NEED TO WORK OUT ALL THE TIME?
“I bet you’re one of those people who just love to work out ALL the time”.
I’ve lost track of how many times I hear this.
But here’s a secret for you:
Exercise was completely unknown territory for me my entire childhood.
I did absolutely ZERO sports or physical activity until I turned 18 - I even skipped every single gym class!
My route into fitness only happened when I saw a picture of my 18-year-old ‘had-way-too-many-sweets-in-all-the-classes’ butt from behind, which instantly made me want to do thousands of butt exercises I had seen in a magazine!
After a short period of step classes, stairmasters and so on - which I wasn’t any good at and didn’t get any results from - I came across a Muscle & Fitness Hers magazine and discovered weight training.
It was like an epiphany: this was actually something I was really good at! And it wasn’t exhausting, it didn’t feel like running in a hamster wheel, and instantly gave me the feeling of being invincible.
I’ll go as far as to say that strength training changed my life.
Everything became easier. I had more energy. And fewer mood swings. I wanted to be more active every day.But everything wasn’t perfect. For a while I did way too much training. Too much work. Had too little to eat. Didn’t get enough sleep. Got by on energy drinks. In the end I suffered a total breakdown due to stress.
I gained weight, was totally disconnected from my body and none of the typical advice for dealing with stress worked.But this was also what made me curious.Why did my body crash, when I was doing all the right things (i.e. a lot of exercise and very healthy eating)?
In my search for the answer, through different educations and meeting so many clients… I realized what’s wrong with all the traditional get-into-shape strategies.
They’re all centered around ‘eat less and exercise more’ - that you need to be energy deficient to become healthy/skinny/beautiful etc.
But this has serious consequences for the health of women!
When you are chronically energy deficient, your brain will automatically turn down vital functions like ovulation, your immune system, detoxification, brain capacity, skin quality and muscle mass – and will over-sensitize your nervous system to the point of chronic pain, trying to get you into energy saving mode. It’s insane!
OVERTRAINING & STRESS COLLAPSE
I also went through a period during which I trained far too hard.
- I worked and exercised too much,
- ate too little, slept too little
- and lived on energy drinks
I ended up going down with total stress collapse. I gained weight, couldn't get back in touch with my own body, and none of the classic anti-stress advice worked.
But that was also what made me curious. Why did my body crash when I did everything 'right' (i.e. exercised a lot and ate healthily)?
And in my search for the answer, through several training courses and in meeting with many clients, it dawned on me what is wrong with the traditional get-in-shape strategies: they all go for 'eat less, exercise more' – that is, the idea that you have to be in an energy deficit to be healthy/slim/beautiful.
This strategy, however, has dramatic consequences for women's health, because when you are in a chronic energy deficit, the brain will turn down a large number of vital processes (e.g. ovulation, immune response, detoxification, conduction speed of nerve pathways, cognitive capacity, skin regeneration, and not least, muscle growth).
It's crazy!
YOUR MUSCLES ARE VITAL
Your muscle mass will naturally decrease as you get older… unless you make an effort to sustain it! And building or just sustaining your muscle mass can, without exaggerating, be a matter of life and death.
Because muscles are not just key to shaping your body. They’re also responsible for balancing your hormones, keeping down inflammation, preventing osteoporosis and ensuring longevity.
My exercise programs are constructed as micro training for your muscles, but also for your brain. Because your nervous system needs exercise to activate your muscles as efficiently and as fast as possible. These programs are short and time efficient, so you’ll have enough energy to do all the other things in life you dream of.
P.S. Weight gain with age is actually quite natural. But it is to some extent possible for us to control what the weight consists of.
There are... hold on... 22 years between these two photos of me – and 22 kilos!
I WANT TO BE ABLE TO KEEP UP WITH LIFE
MAXIMUM IMPACT WITH MINIMAL EFFORT
But… if you were to tell the 13-14-15 year-old version of me that one day I would do physical training as my job, she would roll her eyes at you!
I still have no desire to become a super athlete, but I do want to be able to keep up. With my children, with life, the bus, my dog! I want to stay young in the sense that I’m able to move my body and do the things I like to do - also as I get older. And I want to be here as long as possible for my two boys.
And so it happened that I became one of those people who “loves to work out”. Mostly because I love the results. Energy, freedom, strength.
But training is not my whole life. And I don’t work out all the time, maybe just one or two hours a week. When my life’s really hectic, it might only be 30 minutes! I just want to keep it short and efficient, so I can get on to all the other things I love to do.
Of course this demands a lot of the programming and progression of the exercises. But that’s complex and nerdy and you don’t need to bother with that (unless you really want to).
I’ve done all the work for you and you can just plug’n’play my busy-life-friendly, only-5-to-10-minutes-a-day workout programs without thinking any more about it.
It’s sort of like a daily routine, like brushing your teeth or applying anti-age lotion. You don’t need to debate doing it or not today, tomorrow or next week. You just do it.
Love from Anna