Entrepreneurial Mom Leads Exercise Class

The Connecticut Post Online:

It was quite a sight: six mothers and their children in strollers striding purposefully across Shelton Road in single file.

They’d just finished their warm-ups for the “Stroller Strides” fitness program on the circular cement patio behind the Fairchild Nichols Memorial Library.

“We’re going to take it a little easier today because it’s so hot,” Amanda Naqvi, the 25-year-old instructor and mother of Mika’il, 7 months, told the group last Thursday.

She made sure they all had plenty of water and were using proper stroller form — pushing with their legs and thighs to prevent sore arms and shoulders — before setting off on their mile-and-a-half walk.

As they walked down to Nichols Park and then back to the library, they stopped several times to do different exercises using resistance bands.

Naqvi offered three free sessions at the Nichols Library branch as a way to introduce area moms to Stroller Strides, a franchise exercise program.

Naqvi’s husband, Hamza, gave her the Stroller Strides franchise as a Mother’s Day present.

“I’m an entrepreneur at heart,” she said. At age 19, Naqvi was running her first business, Imagine That, an arts-and-crafts studio in Milford.

Stroller Strides seems to be the perfect outlet for Naqvi now.