Dance Fitness and Health

Aerobics

Even thought the aerobics craze seem to have passed and that today is very different to what has swept the world of its feel and got it into working out the aerobics way, the current times offer the exerciser an abundance of tools and information about aerobics that has never before existed.

This kind of exercise was very fashionable some years ago, at one time you could find many of your friends and family in you local gym doing aerobics, but after this health workout fashion changed into many different streams of physical exercise, like the oriental disciplines and many diverse international workouts.

But aerobics didn’t go away, with time this has become on of the most researched and developed forms of losing weight and getting fit again, many different machines have been invented and researched, and many experts have been working in the field of aerobics.

There are great advantages of aerobics exercise, first it is a special and very wide way to work out and keep your body in good shape, lose weight and maintain a regular workout schedule, but there are many other advantages to aerobics exercise some of them very surprising. Working out and doing aerobics will also effect you mood, improve many aspects of you body and spirit and make you stronger not only physically. The effect of working out is that you body will release a lot of positive things into your blood, making you happier and stronger, this alone can make a huge change in anyone’s personality, and the good news is that if you never worked out you will feel this significant change.

Bellydancing

Belly dancing is arguably the oldest form of dance in the world, originally a ritual to celebrate fertility and the female form.

But what you may not realise is that it is also a total body workout which uses around 600 muscles.

Belly dancing has become the new trendy exercise for people wanting to keep fit and de-stress. The immediate thing you feel is a release of tension, so a great time to do it is straight after work. By the time the class has finished and you've had some relaxation, the tension is gone.

Anyone can belly dance — any size, age, skill level — and men are also welcome. Once you get over the initial embarrassment, it's really good fun and there are real health benefits too.

Juliet took up belly dancing to help strengthen her weak back from years of sitting in an office. After nine years of belly dancing she hasn't seen the chiropractor for at least five.

The key to belly dancing is the rhythmical tightening of the abdominal and pelvic muscles, which in turn strengthen the back and thighs. Not surprisingly, some women find the gentle rotating and rocking movements help tone the body during pregnancy. Belly dancing is also a healthy alternative for losing weight.

It is excellent for people with a poor body image and low self-esteem or those who just hate exercising. You don't have to dress up in a fancy costume, sarongs or loose clothing are perfect, and at around $12 a class it is relatively inexpensive.

Diet

For whatever reasons to go on diet, one should take note that a healthy diet is the key to weight loss and not the type of diet. This is the finding of a one-year study released in 2005 by the researchers in Boston to assess the adherence rates and the effectiveness of four popular diets for weight loss and cardiac risk factor reduction.

The four diets are Weight Watchers (restriction of portion sizes and calories); Atkins (minimize carbohydrate intake without fat restriction); Zone (modulate macronutrient balance and glycaemic load), and Ornish (fat restriction).

A total of 160 overweight or obese adults, aged 22 to 72 years old, with known high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or high blood sugar, were randomly assigned to each of the four diets. After 2 months of maximum effort, participants were told to select their own levels of dietary adherence.

Results showed that while each diet was modestly effective in reducing weight and several cardiac risk factors, increased self-reported adherence level (although overall rate was low) was associated with greater weight loss and cardiac risk factor reductions for each diet group.

The study may provide some evidence that the key of losing weight may not lie with the type of diet, but rather sticking to the chosen diet.

The best treatment of obesity is still prevention. People should monitor their diet carefully, change their lifestyle if necessary, and exercise regularly. This is by far the most effective measure rather than find ways to lose weight when they become obese.

Yoga

The health benefits of yoga are so much that it may be hard to see which exact one is the most important.

Nonetheless, the main benefit of doing Yoga may lie in the fact that it works not only one part of the body, for example the physical, but the spiritual as well. All the while making sure that the body is trained as a unit not necessarily isolating one muscle group

Here are some other health benefits one can derive from a regular yoga practice.

1. Improvement in Sleep Patterns

2. Decrease in Joint aches and pains

3. Posture Improvement

4. Weight normalization

5. Increase in Muscular flexibility

6. Increase in Energy Levels

To really understand the main benefit of doing yoga, one must realise that all its limbs and components (Diet, meditation, breathing exercises, and postures) when applied properly, work together to make the body fit, healthy and strong both mentally and physically.