Dance Like Nobody is Looking

Here’s a choice: You can exercise every day or you can dance every day. Which sounds like more fun?

Dancing, of course! You could spend half an hour on a treadmill for an aerobic workout or get your heart rate up by line dancing. There are few better ways than dancing to get a workout that tones your body and lets your spirit soar. And with so many styles of dance—from tap and ballet to swing and hip-hop—you can explore them all and keep your workouts fresh.

All forms of dance practiced exuberantly and consistently will give you a good cardio workout, and many forms of dance bring additional benefits, including improved balance, flexibility, posture, and muscle tone. Over time, you’ll develop grace, agility, coordination improved range of motion, core
muscle strength, and improved bone health at the same time that tune your brain. A bonus: you’ll ward off stress and exercise boredom and may begin to think of fitness as pure fun. You might even dance your way to a better social life!

You say you have two left feet? You’re too geeky to face the mirrors of the dance studio? Too bashful to go through the moves at a trendy dance club? No problem. Dance exercise requires no partner, no audience, and, perhaps best of all, little or no investment. You can reap the benefits in the privacy of your own home…and no one need ever see you. The following DVDs are among the many on the market that will help you keep the beat, learn the steps, and have fun while getting a serious and challenging workout. Of course, once you’ve learned the steps, you may find yourself wanting to dance while someone is watching.

Crunch: Cardio Go-Go Dance
Gypsy Clark—a fitness and pilates instructor, choreographer, and certified dance master, gives you the moves in three 12-minute dances. www.starzhoment.com/fitness

Bollywood Burn with Hemalayaa
A spicy introduction to Indian dance with yoga-inspired sequences. It’s a spicy, sexy way to get your heart pumping and tone your hips and thighs. www.acacialifestyle.com

Hemalayaa Beautiful Belly
The infectiously confident and sensual yogini Hemelayaa offers another workout with three 12-minute routines that work the core muscles. www.acacialifestyle.com

Dance Off the Inches: Hip Hop Dance Party
Professional dancer/choreographer and ACE-certified fitness expert Jennifer Galardi helps you burn calories and work your abs while learning dance club moves in three dance routines. www.starzhoment.com/fitness

Dance Workout for Dummies
Dance and fitness expert Michele LeMay leads two 20-minute workouts that will rev your metabolism and work all your muscles. www.starzhoment.com/fitness

10 Minute Solution: Fat Blasting Latin Dance Mix
Stella Sandoval’s five 10-minute workouts will let you work up a sweat with saucy salsa steps that will burn calories and tone muscles. www.starzhoment.com/fitness

10 Minute Solution: Dance It Off & Tone it Up
Professional dancer and fitness instructor Jennifer Galardi works your abs, upper body, buns, and thighs in 10-minute dance workout segments. www.starzhoment.com/fitness

Element Ballet Conditioning
Elise Gulan, who was a principal soloist for the Virginia Ballet Company, inspires with grace as she leads a challenging ballet workout designed to give you a sculpted body. www.starzhoment.com/fitness

Dance to Enhance
World dance champion Lisa Nunziella offers cardio, sculpting, and strength training to help you develop a strong and supple dancer’s body. www.trucompany.com

Sidebar

Want to learn more about dance and fitness? Dance, Movement, and Nutrition: Fitness Minutes for a Healthier Life, by Helene Andreu, offers illustrated instructions for a range of sequences and routines, tips for integrating dance into your fitness regimen, and nutrition tips to help you fuel your workout and improve your overall diet. (AuthorHouse, www.authorhouse.com)

Think you can’t dance like the stars? Think again. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Ballroom Dancing, Second Edition, by Jeff Allen, with an exclusive DVD to help you learn the moves—from the Rumba to the Hustle—will ground you in the basics. You and your partner may not look like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but the book’s illustrated lessons and helpful tips will help you glide around a dance floor with confidence, burning calories as you kick up your heels. (Alpha, www.idiotsguide.com)

Another great video guide to basic dance moves is Dance Lessons 101, which takes you through the paces with beginner lessons on Swing, Salsa, Cha-Cha, Two-Step, Waltz, Slow Dancing, West Coast Swing, and Hustle. You can learn the routines from this 2-hour DVD alone or with a partner. Shawn Troutman, who has made 25 dance lesson DVDs, breaks down each dance to its simplest parts and shows that even those of us with two left feet can learn to use them correctly. (Xpress Innovations, Inc. www.shawntrautman.com)