Dancing to Your Heart's Content

Dancing is an aerobic activity that your body will love you for. When you invite it to dance your blood gets pumping and your muscles get a workout. This includes your heart muscle, which just loves jumping for joy.

Dancing improves your:

• Functional Fitness
• Body Image
• Well-being

So polka down that hallway or "bust a move" at the bus stop. Start incorporating dance into your life today!

Dance Fever Self-challenges Dance fever is one of the few kinds of fever your body loves to catch. Get it by deciding with your teacher which of these activities to complete:

1. Choreograph and perform a dance from a musical such as Grease, Rent, Cats, Stomp, or Lord of the Dance. Teach this dance to a younger student or students. Now ask yourself a few questions: are you using more energy and brain power when you perform the dance, or when you perform and teach it at the same time? Do you think dancing will help you improve your fitness level? How?
2. Attend a local dance club or dance classes. Talk to other dancers about the benefits they get from dancing. What do you think are the pros and cons of dancing?
3. Put together a Step Stomp routine to music. This means performing rhythmic activities while using various sources of percussion like garbage cans, pop bottles, or plastic bags. Your routine should incorporate the fitness components of strength, endurance, flexibility, and cardio-respiratory activity. Did you find a way to bring together all these components? Can you repeat this dance more than once?
4. At the end of a long dance session use music with a slower tempo to relax and cool down while you stretch and focus on breathing. How do you feel when you've done this? Are you relaxed? How are your energy levels? Do you feel better now that you've had some activity?
5. Dance is an aerobic activity that gets your heart and lungs in gear. Get up and turn on some fast music. It can be multicultural music, rock, or country just as long as it's going to get you moving. Take your pulse for ten seconds before you begin to move and write it down. Now set a timer and dance your heart out for 15 minutes. Shake it out and have fun! Now take your pulse for another ten seconds. See any difference? Are you sweating? How does dancing make you feel physically and emotionally? Do this every day for two weeks, or every second day all year. Are your heart rate measures different compared to the first time you did this activity?

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