How to Zumba Dance Your Way to Good Health

What is Zumba?

Zumba dance is an aerobic fitness workout. The dance steps are inspired from different styles of Latin American dance.

Zumba dance gained popularity because of its fun and easy movements, that promise weight loss. Weight management is one of the most bothersome issues among young girls and women across all ages.

Alberto "Beto" Perez, a Colombian dancer and choreographer, created the fitness program Zumba and introduced it to the world as an easy and fun way to lose weight and get healthy.

How Does Zumba Work?

Zumba dance exercise mixes both the high-intensity and low-intensity moves in different intervals to melt your calories. Basically, it is not a fitness workout but a dance party!

Zumba, being a combination of Latin and American, is full on energy. The fitness class looks like a party hall and you will be surprised that it is indeed an exercise program.

The Basics: For Zumba Beginners

Here are a few basic “need to knows”, that are required to master Zumba.

• Prepare your mind to dance your way to better health
• Make the right choice in selecting the Zumba clothes. Try to wear shorts, sweat pants, and tank tops. Use dance shoes or sneakers. Feet movement is very important in Zumba, hence you should be comfortable while moving your feet..
• Have a bottle of water close at hand to keep you hydrated.
• Pack a Zumba bag with cotton towels to dry off sweat.

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Zumba Dance Moves

There is no perfect way to dance Zumba. So, you might ask, “What are Zumba classes for?” Zumba classes teach you the basics of the Zumba style to effectively use all your body parts.

• Salsa is the beginning of Zumba. Stand with your feet closed. Move towards your right and bend your knees. Then back to the middle. Repeat the same on the left side. Again come back to the center. Keep doing this on a count of 1-2-3 touch, alternatively, and increase the speed gradually. Let your hands hang naturally and pump them from side to side. While taking the steps, work your hips. This is called the Salsa Travel step. Now, you are dancing the Zumba.
• Next, comes the Merengue March step. Merengue March, is all about the arms. First, keep both your feet together standing straight and then bend one foot at a time restoring back to the middle. Keep both your arms out to the side and then bring them in front of your chest. From this position push your arms up and bring them back to your chest. Doing this, march forward and come back. Repeat the same for the other foot interchanging arms.
• Now, the ever favorite hip-hop energy movement. Stand straight with feet together. Bend the left foot and drop your left arm to the side facing the floors. Place your right arm on your tummy. Come back to position and repeat on the other leg. Once you master this, perform this faster and interchange feet, also pop your shoulders on the move.
• Slowly incorporate all these steps into one routine and keep dancing. This makes the entire body work and makes you lose weight.

Zumba Dance Workout Benefits

Melts Fat

The primary benefit of the Zumba exercise is melting down fat, as the routine is a combination of the Zumba aerobics with resistance training. The oscillation between the fast and slow pace movements makes your cardio system function effectively, improving your metabolism and burning between 300-600 calories in one hour. If you are looking at Zumba for weight loss, then you have taken the right decision.

Flexible Body

Zumba workout not only makes you lose weight, it also offers your body flexibility. Combine salsa, hip-hop, and meringue dance in your daily Zumba routine to work all parts of your body, thereby achieving complete flexibility.

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Improved Coordination

Coordination might be easy during young age, but as we grow older, it is difficult to coordinate the hand, leg and other parts of the body in synchronization. Practicing Zumba fitness dance helps you improve your body’s coordinating ability.

Relieves Stress

Stress, followed by depression is a growing complaint, owing to the fast-paced contemporary lifestyle. Our irregular food and sleeping habits have gifted us with obesity, a major stress-inducing factor. In just a few Zumba weight loss classes, you will start feeling lighter, relaxed and de-stressed. This is due to the release of endorphins and neurotransmitters that elevate your mood and reduce the stress hormones in the body.

Zumba for Good Health

Apart from making you lose weight, Zumba lowers the threat of heart disease and keeps your blood pressure under control. It lowers your low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the bad cholesterol, and increases high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the good cholesterol.

Muscle Toning

Although Zumba dance movements aid weight loss, they are also good for toning targeted muscles. Zumba toning sticks can help in this effort, plus you still have all the fun. It is a good strength training and resistance training exercise.

Confidence Builder

Zumba workout is an excellent confidence builder. Getting back to shape is the first step in re-gaining lost confidence. Zumba promotes weight loss and also tones muscles. This automatically boosts confidence, as you will have better posture and will start feeling good about yourself.

Zumba is a very simple fitness regime and anyone can dance the moves. There are several fitness centers that offer Zumba classes across India and online Zumba training videos that can help you lose weight in a fun way, for a fitter, better you.