Burning Calories on the Dance Floor

As far as exercising in the gym goes, this wasn't a very productive week.  My first day in the gym was Sunday.  For what it’s worth, Sunday’s workout was pretty good.  Instead of doing upper or lower body, I worked everything.  I kept the weight moderate and only did one exercise (three sets of ten reps) per body part / muscle group.  I also threw in some time on the elliptical.

The diet continues to go well.  I think that I'm making better choices.  For snacks, I've increased the amount of fruit and nuts and reduced much of the junk food.

I’d planned on being at the gym more this week, but I wound up spending time with the family and enjoying the weather.

I did get in quite a bit of cardio.  As I mentioned in my last post, this was the week for a big Latin dance event.  I spent some time in the evenings practicing.  I'd forgotten that another Latin band was performing a set in the park on Wednesday evening.  We attended that event and spent the evening dancing.  My legs ached the next day.  We'd danced on grass and uneven ground, not the best surfaces to dance on.  Luckily, I was fine by Friday, the day of the larger function.

Friday night's event was packed!  We got there early, when there was still a fair amount of room to actually dance.  By the end of the evening, we were pretty much shoulder to shoulder.

I know that I talk about dance as a form of cardio exercise, but I was curious to know if any serious studies had been done that might support my hypothesis.  I did some research and came across a recent study on Latin dancing and exercise which had been published in the journal, Human Movement Science.  The researchers concluded that adults seeking to become more physically active could select this particular genre of dance to take part in as engagement over two sessions weekly would mean meeting the physical activity guidelines for physical and psychosocial health maintenance (Garber et al., 2011; WHO, 2005, 2010).

Physiological and perceptual responses to Latin partnered social dance

Pablo A. Domene, Hannah J. Moir, Elizabeth Pummell, Chris Easton

Human Movement Science 37 (2014) 32–41

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.humov.2014.06.009

Perceived benefits of dance were assessed via the Exercise Benefits/Barriers Scale, and measurement of state intrinsic motivation during dance was undertaken using the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory.

I know that I've always felt better after a good evening of dancing!

Finally, on a completely unrelated note...SEE THIS MOVIE!  We enjoyed it immensely!