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Home Fitness with Dancing

The recent surge of reality dance shows has led to an explosion in the popularity of the art. The question is, is it really a good workout? The answer is yes. Not only can the celebrity participants on the shows tone up and drop weight, but you can as well. With only a few minutes of dance exercise per day, you can burn calories and drop pounds quickly.

A study performed by the American Council on Exercise found that dancing can burn anywhere from 200 to 400 calories per hour. This is similar to the burn rate of walking, swimming, and cycling. Dancing can also help to lower blood pressure, improve cholesterol, and slower heart rate. Dancing exercise helps to improve your posture, which in turn can help prevent falls. It also tones the entire body while helping to relive stress and tension.

Not only is dance a great workout, but it is fun too. Although we know that exercise is good for us, many times we do not consider it to be fun. One of the best things about dancing is that you can do it at home. So, even if you shy away from dancing in public because you are a little embarrassed, dancing at home frees you to be silly and have fun.

There are several different forms of dance, and dance workouts available. Choreographed dance moves are great for someone who is new to dancing. In this type of routine an instructor demonstrates the moves and then you follow along. There are several great choreographed dance DVD workouts available on the market today.

Ball Room dancing was brought into the spotlight by the reality show, Dancing with the Stars. This is a form of partner dancing that can be both elegant and fun. If you do not have a partner, you can still learn the moves and have a great workout. Dances like the Cha-cha and Salsa are also great for building bone density because they are weight bearing activities.



Line Dancing is also great exercise. There are several types of line dancing, some of which include country western, hip hop, jazz, and disco. There is a dance for almost every era, so no matter what your age may be, you can have fun line dancing.

If you are more on the rebellious side, you can always go free style. This is a great way to get the children involved in exercise as well. If you have little ones around your house, set a time each day to turn on the music and just be silly. Skip, twist, spin, hop, whatever move you feel brave enough to attempt, throw it in there.

Along with all of the benefits that dancing has to offer, studies have found that it can help boost brain power as well. This is especially important as the body ages. It is important to keep both the mind and body active. Dance routines that require you to memorize steps and sequences and help you to keep you brain active.

Article written by Jay Bourne of UltimateFitnessGear, Getinsanity and begin the transformation.