Can dancing help you lose weight ? Is dancing a substitute to exercising or running? Would dancing burn many calories to help us reduce fat in our body? What form of dance is suitable for weight loss and is there an intensity to dance for weight loss? These are few important question that come up when considering using dancing for weight loss.
Dancing is technical and requires with precise muscular movements to achieve the desired posture. Different dance forms can help develop different kinds of muscles. For eg. salsa requires your lower body to be stronger and muscular. While the famous Spanish dance Flamenco requires a lot of foot work, hands and torso twisting combined with fine motor skills to name a few.
There are different forms of dance like latin, classical, hiphop, jazz, freestyle etc which use a lot of body movement and require performing with right technique and energy. An hour of a dance session can help you burn 200-400 calories. As sometimes the movements are slow, easy or stationary which provide rest in between. Where as running for an hour could burn more calories than 600 calories an hour.
Dancers usually have a flexible body, are lean and have endurance to perform intense acts as demanded by the dance. Though dancing involves a lot of movements which might appear similar to exercise but in reality there is a world of a difference. In fact most professional dancers use some form of exercise to help achieve the level of fitness as well as to improve performance. Most dancers have very defined fitness routines to enhance the performance of the muscles relevant to the particular dance.
If you have not been active for a while and want some light form of exercise to get started then dancing can be a good choice in the form of light physical activity. Dancing can maybe help you lose some weight but only initially. But it does not help you lose serious amount of weight in the short or long term. Human body is very adaptive in nature. It has a tendency to get use to light physical activity like dancing very quickly. Light physical activity provided by dancing fails to provide any resistance or serious challenge to the muscles for them to burn calories while dancing.
In fact you can try it your self. You can weigh yourself before going out dancing to a club and then weigh again once you are back. You wont see any difference between before and after. Another critical aspect of weight loss is managing your diet. You cant only depend on exercise alone to help you lose weight. You need to balance both to get desired results.
Dancing is great but can be included as an activity other than your normal workout which could further enhance your fitness level. You could dance with your friends or partners. Dancing can help you relax and keep the extra fat out when combined with your normal exercise routine. It helps reduce stress and is fun as music accompanies it.