The Benefits of Dance-Based Cardio Workouts
Aerobic exercise – including dancing – can improve heart health and strengthen your cardiovascular system, as well as help you lose weight if weight loss is your aim.
Dancing can also provide weight-bearing exercise that can prevent bone problems like osteoporosis. This is particularly evident with high-impact styles like salsa and hip-hop dancing.
Improves Balance and Coordination
Dancing can be an exciting way to exercise and there are a lot of health benefits associated with it. It’s been found that dancing cardio exercise routines promote static balance and flexibility for one.
Dance-based workouts can also help strengthen coordination. The rhythmic movements and continuous acceleration and deceleration of dance moves help strengthen core muscles while increasing balance and coordination, according to professional ballroom dancer Leon Turetsky.
Cardio dance classes typically last 30 minutes and vary in complexity, with participants typically burning 500+ calories during one class – more than cycling at moderate pace for the same amount of time! Furthermore, intensive dance workouts have the power to increase heart rates up to 73% of maximum capacity for strengthening cardiovascular systems.
Burns Calories
Doing anything that raises your heart rate and quickens breathing can count as moderate-intensity exercise, burning calories at an increased rate. Dancing typically uses all muscles at once, providing a full-body workout!
Not only can dance cardio help burn calories, its energetic movements can also bolster your mood. Research indicates that regular physical activity stimulates the release of feel-good endorphins that can ease stress, depression, and reduce anxiety levels.
Many dance-based workouts also incorporate well-known cardio exercises like jumping jacks and squats into fun moves that masquerade as dance routines. Plus, since dancing requires bearing your weight it builds muscle strength and bone density (just make sure that other forms of weight-bearing exercise like weightlifting complement dance classes for maximum benefits.)
Strengthens Muscles
Dance exercises strengthen many of the same muscles you would develop through strength training sessions, while simultaneously producing happiness-inducing endorphins in your brain to reduce stress and lower blood pressure.
Dancing fitness classes like Zumba or Jazzercise offer an effective cardio workout that can burn a high number of calories in short order – one 30-minute class can burn as many as 500, surpassing even cycling light pace for equal duration!
No matter if it be structured dance fitness classes or spontaneous dancing in your living room with friends, dancing can do wonders for heart health and balance and coordination. Just be sure to warm up properly by running or walking for five to ten minutes prior to starting any form of exercise, drinking plenty of water throughout your workout, and starting slowly so you feel more at home before progressing further as time and intensity permits. If this is all new to you then try starting with shorter classes initially and gradually increasing duration/intensity accordingly as strength increases and comfort level increases over time/intensity/comfort zones until eventually feeling at home/stronger/less pressure/pressure situations arises/decreeping up.
Relieves Stress
As your heart rate speeds up during dancing exercise, your heart rate rises and calories burn away quickly while simultaneously engaging core and other muscle groups as you shimmy, step, and shift weight to today’s hits. Dancing can also improve mental acuity while toning and tightening all areas of the body simultaneously.
As with other aerobic exercises, dance cardio can help lower the risk of heart disease. One study discovered that its up-and-down movements strengthened lower-body strength while mitigating long-term emotional stress on the heart.
Even if dancing is new to you, making dance fitness part of your regular routine shouldn’t be daunting. Many classes cater to beginner dancers by providing low-impact options with plenty of repetition to learn the moves. Plus, dancing incorporates tried and true aerobic exercises such as jumping jacks and squats into its moves for added muscle targeting!
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