Dance is an incredibly diverse activity. There are so many different styles of dance, many of them completely different from each other. Take, for example, Bollywood and Belly Dancing, urban and street dance, ballroom, ballet and salsa. With that number of styles out there, there’s surely one you’ll enjoy. But aside from being a lot of fun, dance is also great for your health.

For anyone looking to lose weight or maintain a weight loss, dance is a great way to burn off those pesky calories. Ballroom dance, for example, can burn off between 150 and 400 calories every half hour, depending on the style and vigour with which it is performed! In fact, so effective is dance in weight loss, that it has been incorporated into school PE lessons in the UK as a means of combating the childhood obesity issues. It’s hard to imagine that something so fun could be such great exercise, isn’t it. But in one US study, researchers used pedometers on dancers and found they covered around five miles in an evening’s dancing!

Dance is incredible for cardiovascular conditioning. It can reduce your blood pressure, slow your heart rate and improve your cholesterol profile. Now that’s a good thing whoever you are and whatever your state of health, surely?

Dancing also offers the added benefit of strengthening bones. This is a particularly excellent benefit for ageing dancers, especially given the diversity of dance enabling older people to find a style of dance that suits them and that they can manage.

There’s social benefits too, as well as the health ones. Dance can be a great way to make friends! With these benefits added to the health ones it’s surprising that we’re not all amateur movers! Fortunately, it really can be cheap as well! You just need a class aimed at your ability level, a pair of comfortable pants and some trainers! Then if you get really into it, you might want to think about investing in dancewear and shoes later on!

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