Shall we dance?

If so, then let’s Zumba, a mix of Latin moves that burns calories and boosts your heart rate, while you have fun and look good doing it

By Jody Robbins
CTW Features

Image courtesy iStock Photo

Watch an episode of ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” and you’ll start thinking you can dance. Or at least you’ll believe you can try. You probably should go with that thought, because at least you’ll get a good aerobic workout while you’re giving it your best shot.

“You see these shows, and how people who aren’t very good are able to improve, and you think, ‘I can dance, too,’ ” says Nancy Burrows, exercise programs director at Chicago’s posh East Bank Club. “I don’t think you’re going to end up in a [music] video, but it’s a way to get started, get a good workout and do something different, whether it’s jazz, Latin dance, belly dancing or whatever. They are all good additions to any fitness routine, and anybody can do them if they are willing to give it a try.”

Still not ready for ballroom dance classes, or investing heavily in a rigorous course of tango classes? Then dip your toe in the dance pool with Zumba, a new form of aerobic training that mixes high-energy, mostly Latin music and dance moves into a fitness routine that is interval-based and fairly easy to follow throughout the 50-minute to one-hour classes. You’ll feel sexy doing it, and look sexier when you get maximum workout results.

There is a lot of footwork involved, but it’s also about full-body movement, making it important to have enough core strength before jumping in. Still, it’s not hard to keep up a close approximation of what the veterans around you are doing, and there’s a quick learning curve thanks to the repetitive nature within each cycle of the class.

Incorporating elements from different Latin dances, Zumba originated in Colombia and was brought to the United States by founder “Beto” Perez in 1999. Zumba trainer classes are held around the country, and there are now more than 2,000 instructors worldwide, according to Zumba.com.

In many ways, it’s the cultural appeal of Zumba that makes it stand out, in addition to the fact that it is actually linked to a very popular type of modern dancing. It’s not going to make you a graceful salsa dancer, but it will help you along that path.

“One of the positives of Zumba is you can take it with you; you’ll see those exact steps at any Latin dance club,” says instructor Albert Arias, a former professional dancer in Chicago. “You have to concentrate, and there is no constant repetition, so you are never bored.

“‘Zumba’ is slang in Colombia that means ‘to party,’ so the premise is to have a good time,” says Aria, who has taught Zumba for two years. “The technical definition of Zumba is interval training to Latin rhythms, where you take the heart rate up, bring it down, up, down. It’s like a one-hour workout where you’re doing both fast and slow songs, so you’re not pumping out the entire hour. It incorporates actual steps from the salsa, cha cha, merengue, mambo and the tango.”

Zumba classes taught by Arias are bilingual, as are instructional DVDs: “I go back and forth between English and Spanish, and it gets the students fired up, whether it’s otra vez (another time), a countdown in Spanish, or izquierda o derecho (left, right),” Arias says.

“There is a burst of Latin influence happening in communities across the country,” he says. “More people are going to clubs and listening to Latin-influenced music on the radio, and I know that shows like ‘Dancing With the Stars’ have piqued a lot of interest.”

Many fitness classes were based on dance but have moved away from that, says Burrows. “Dance makes your brain think because you’re moving in many different planes, the benefit being flexibility.”

There is no doubt that dance and sports have effects beneficial to the other, but there is some level of natural skill that’s essential for either, according to Ken Alan, a Los Angeles-based fitness instructor and spokesman for the American Council on Exercise, who mostly trains instructors but also has worked with celebrities like Sylvester Stallone, Priscilla Presley and Barbara Streisand.

“It’s different for everyone,” Alan says. “Two people can do the same class, and one person can burn 195 calories, while another burns 395 calories. The whole point of the dance fitness movement that’s been going on since the 1960s is to build programs that work for those who are sports-and-athletics oriented, as opposed to those who are more dance-and-music oriented. Both require coordination and rhythm but in very different ways.”

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