Dance With Your Own Stars

For many, their love of ballroom dancing - and its health benefits - was firmly entrenched before shows like “Dancing With the Stars” became a cultural phenomenon.
According to a study conducted by Dr. Hermes Ilarraza, of the National Institute of Cardiology in Mexico, ballroom dancing can give as good an aerobic workout as more conventional forms of exercise.

Ilarazza followed a group of 40 heart disease patients, all of whom committed to 30 minutes of exercise a day, five days a week, for five weeks. Half of the study’s participants got their exercise from a dance routine choreographed by a professional dancer, while the others exercised on stationary bicycles. Ilarraza found that the dance group’s exercise capacity increased by 28 percent, almost as much as the 31 percent increase for the cycling group.
A 140-pound person can burn an average of 350 calories in an hour of fast dancing such as swing, quickstep and salsa, and can burn about 200 calories with slower styles like the tango or traditional ballroom (cha-cha, foxtrot and waltz). Plus, in addition to toning your leg muscles, dancing contributes to good posture and body alignment, it works your core and upper body, encourages gentle stretching, increases your flexibility and stamina, builds up healthy bones and develops your balance.

Setting the physical benefits aside, dancing can also be life changing. It can lift your spirit in a way most other exercise routines cannot. If you are suffering from depression or experiencing a difficult time in your life, heading to the dance studio is one of the best things you can do for yourself.

Not only does your body begin to pump massive amounts of the feel-good hormone serotonin with each movement, the music can ease an aching soul. Dancing also reawakens a nearly forgotten sense of chivalry and graciousness that we all still secretly yearn for from time to time.
Ballroom dancing is not only ideal for the single, lonely or overweight. It can also re-ignite passion within even the longest and mundane of relationships. Just imagine, both you and your mate feeling fit, energized and a whole lot sexier… together. Now that’s worth celebrating.

Excerpt from “Dance with your Own Stars,” an article by Nancy Christie that ran in the Fall 2007 edition of HealthSmart Today