Time to get up and get moving! Today E2-er Dawn shares with us all about Zumba!
Zumba: A Workout for everyone.
60 minutes of great music and dancing where the rule is that as long as you are smiling and moving you are doing it right. While it might sound to good to be true, this is exactly what occurs at a Zumba class and even though it is a lot of fun, Zumba is a real workout with great results.
Zumba is a Latin-inspired dance workout that was created in 2001. Participants follow easy moves to great latin, pop and hip hop songs. I tried my first Zumba class about 2 years ago. I’ll be honnest, the first time that I saw it listed as a class at the gym I had to look it up online. At first the words “latin-inspired dance” made me a bit nervous. As an overweight woman trying to lose weight the last thing I wanted to was go to a class full of people who were extremely in shape or dancers. When I got there I learned 2 things: First there were people of all ages, shapes and sizes participating and second everyone was having too much fun to worry about how they or other people looked doing the moves.
I currently attend Zumba classes 3 times a week in a local community centre. Zumba is offered in many communities as a stand alone class, as a group fitness option at many gyms, as a DVD workout and even for video game systems such as Wii and Xbox Kinect. No special equipment is required, just comfortable clothing and running shoes.
The best part is that Zumba is that it is a really a great workout. According to zumbacalories.com a 150lbs person would burn 536 calories participating in a moderate intensity Zumba class for an hour. In addition to being a great cardio workout many instructors will also incorporate abs, squats and arm workouts into the choreography.
One of the challenges I find when doing cardio exercise is that I am easily bored. Spending an hour on a treadmill or elliptical feels like forever to me and I‘m often thinking of excuses to cut my workout short. During a Zumba class I am working just as hard during a 60 minutes class, but I’m often surprised when the cool down song starts to play and surprised to find that 60 minutes have gone by.
Zumba is an excellent activity for any fitness level because you can modify all of the moves to fit where you are at. Bad knees? Its easy to follow the moves at a low intensity level with no jumping as your fitness level improves you can increase the intensity.
So if you are looking to spice up your workout routine with some latin music and moves, look up a local Zumba class and give it a try.
- Dawn
Have you tried Zumba?
