Zumba - a dance workout

Ever danced the salsa or merengue or hiphop or samba or reggaeton? Well, in one class of Zumba, you’re likely do all of them. Daunted?

Don’t be! For as you follow the moves of the instructor, sashay your hips side to side, and lose yourself in the beats of the Latin numbers, you won’t even realise that you’ve grooved in so many styles! All you will realise is that you’re sweating buckets, but still want the class to continue for at least a little while longer. After my first class of Zumba I was overdosing on endorphins and my feet were still itching to dance! So, a week later I was back for another class, after which I pinned down my instructor Krithika Gupta to get the entire picture of this awesome workout.

I’d often heard that one can burn upto 600 calories in the one-hour workout, but I’d figured that must be for the instructors and the students must be burning about 400. But I was wrong, for one of the first things I learnt from Krithika was that we really do burn about 600 calories, while she burns an insane 1000 calories in the hour! “Zumba is a workout in which you use each and every muscle of your body, from your shoulders to your chest to abs, your thighs and glutes. Everything gets toned-up because you move them a lot,” said Krithika. “Through Zumba, you lose a lot of inches. That’s my guarantee,” continued the Zumba instructor.

The signature move in Zumba is the booty shake according to Krithika. “You shake your booty like never before!” laughed Krithika, and continued, “Salsa is the flavour of Zumba.” I personally thought the dance had some pretty sexy moves, and wondered how comfortable the macho men would be in doing them. In the first class I attended, there were about two guys and 15 ladies, but in the next there were about six men. Krithika fought hard to dispel such fears from my mind. “Do you know who invented this workout? It was a man – Beto (Alberto ‘Beto’ Perez). I’ve seen boxers and bodybuilders doing Zumba, and it’s so great to see them doing it!” exclaimed Krithika.

The intensity of the workout during a Zumba class often changes, as the pace changes with the tracks, thus allowing for a variety of moves and leaving no chances of boredom whatsoever! Beto apparently invented Zumba when one day he forgot to bring his music to his aerobics class and so improvised with the tracks he had in his backpack – mostly salsa and merengue music. Today, according to their website, it has become the world’s largest and most successful dance fitness program with more than 12 million doing the Zumba weekly in over 125 countries! Spreading like wildfire in our own country, Zumba is being taught in various clubs and dance studios in several cities. While my rendezvous with Zumba took place at a Fitness First gym, you could locate an instructor near you by logging into www.zumba.com. So let yourself lose and zoom ahead to a fitter, more youthful you with Zumba!