Dancing Exercises Are A Great Way To Get Fit
Seeing the ratings of Britain's Strictly Come Dancing, or Dancing With The Stars , spending energy on the dance floor has become very popular. Dance as exercise might be just the fun activity that we all needs to stick with the cardio workouts known to be so very good for your health.
Studies, One out of the UK and one from Italy, presented at the most recent annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Seattle suggested that dancing could be the way to go.
The results of the Italian research found that salsa dancing improved aerobic fitness, while the UK work found that the less strenuous, but still fun, fox trot or tango added two thousand steps to our daily walking total.
Every little bot helps, but ten then thousands steps are recommended daily by experts.
The Italian researchers looked at lively salsa dancing, measuring the heart rate and oxygen levels in dancers who were doing the dance either during lessons, at a night club or doing a group dance known as the rueda de casino.
The average age of the participants was 36 years old, and eleven pairs of dancer were involved.
The maximum heart rate of the dancers went up 58-75% and their oxygen levels went up 41-56%, depending on where the subjects danced.
Those dancing at the nightclub proved to get the most aerobic workout, though all three locations increased heart rate and oxygen levels.
Study author Gian Pietro Emerenziani, from the University of the Studies of Rome stated that Salsa is an energetic dance. All three types of salsa in the study, practiced regularly, will have a positive affect on fitness and health.
Aa team of UK researchers conducted a study of the effects of dancing by offering a 12-week series of ballroom dancing lessons to a group of adults who are usually not active.
The 27 subjects had an average age of 53; most, 22, were females. They attended lessons once a week for two hours. The dances included the tango, fox trot and cha-cha.
Stephen Cobley who is a senior lecturer at Leeds Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom said that dancing can be a fun, social event, and also great for your health.
Dancing means you can avoid the gym or stop getting all hot and sweaty to get the cardio benefit of a workout.
Dancing can helps strengthen bones and muscles without stressing joints, tones the body, helps with posture and balance, improves your stamina, boosts flexibility, reduces stress, wards off potential problems like diabetes, high blood-pressure, heart disease, osteoporosis and even depression.
As you shuffle your feet, you want to keep half an eye on your heart rate, so that youre sure the dancing is intense enough.
Also don't take away the benefits of the dance session by consuming high calorie drinks or snacks.
However, before you just straight into it, be sure that you've had a word with you family doctor about what type of activity is right for you, especially if you have been inactive for some while.
If your doctor agrees that being active is safe for you, dance as fitness - square dancing, swing dancing, line dancing, folk dancing, ballroom dancing, belly dancing, salsa, flamenco, jazz, modern, clogging and contra - can be good for your health, and your overall fitness levels, not to mention your social life.
Next - just head on over to the Daily Health Bulletin for more information on using dance as exercise or dance as exercise as an alternative to other exercise, plus for alimited time get 5 free fantastic health reports.