Add some fun to your fitness routine while you tone up your muscles with the new-age dance fitness, jazzercise
Bored of the mundane gym workout? Drudgery of the gym and the monotony that it can sometimes bring can be a bitter truth for most fitness freaks. But with the right blend of pulse-pounding, beat-pumping fitness programmes that incorporate an energetic dance form jazz with aerobic exercises, you can get faster and effective results. The booty shaking on Shakira’s singles and the pelvic thrusts on the latest Beyonce tracks have become the new age dance-fitness format called Jazzercise. Moves from the Vogue dance forms and waacking are adopted too. This provides a wide range of upper body movements that help tone your arms even faster. Jazzercise basically features the fusion of dance, resistance training, jazz and Latin American movements set to popular music, while you sweat it out without any tedium. The class culminates with intense stretching on the floor and partner stretching or by using the barre. Cooling down is a must to get your heart rate to the normal level, while the muscles are warm you can stretch a little further, beyond your actual levels. This brings in the flexibility along with the weight loss and body toning. So get on your toes and jazzercise your way to a fitter and toned body and have fun while you’re at it.
Benefits: You can burn over 500 calories in an hour. Start the hour of your dancercise with warm-up dance moves — brisk footwork first then move your butt in the air and then stretch from the shoulders for the first five minutes. This also helps in increasing flexibility and concentration.
— The writer is choreographer at On Your Toes with Longinus.
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Développé
- A Développé is to lift your leg and then fully extend outward gradually taking it upwards depending on your flexibility.
- You can hold the leg with the other hand and stretch it higher.
- The supporting leg knee should be locked.
- This can be done with the support of the barre or a partner.
Side or front Split:
- Side or front split, for beginners is advisable to do on the floor first.
- You sit on the floor and then open your legs in a side or a front split, feeling the stretch in your hamstrings and hip flexors.
- Do not slide into it from the standing position as you may tear your hip flexor muscles.
- Splits can be done with a partner or on a ballet barre.
Deep squats or Grande Plié
- Deep squats with the rib isolation helps you tone your quadriceps. It looks aesthetically beautiful and gives an artistic look to the dance form, while you lose those extra kilos during squatting.
- Make sure your knees are above your toes.
- Do not hyper extend your knees, as it may lead to an injury.
Attitude
- Here attitude is not your manner or disposition. It is a posture where your working leg knee is bent at the back.
- The supporting leg knee is locked and firm.
- It helps you in balancing and finding your centre.
- Attitude is a common step in jazz, ballet and attitude turns are popular in ballet and contemporary.
- You can also do calf raises in the attitude position.
