Zumba as Cross-training

This Monday evening Jamie, Kyle, and I headed up to the church on the common to check out the Zumba class taught by Rosa, one of our community rowing regulars. For those of you who don’t know, Zumba is a dance fitness class that combines a little of everything, from belly-dancing to kick boxing to the samba. We were expecting to get a workout similar to that of yoga but an hour of booty shaking, shoulder shimmying, and dynamic footwork later we were drenched in sweat and already sore.  So, we decided to take a closer look at the benefits of Zumba as cross-training.

Maximum Heart Rate: 169 I’m pretty sure this was reached during the belly-dancing portion of the class. Rosa conveniently had three extra belly-dancing hip scarves, the kind that jingle when you move, which she had us wear. Yes, Kyle wore one, and yes it was jingling.

Average Heart Rate: 140 but the only reason it wasn’t higher was because we didn’t bring our Zumba hand weights. Some of the dances were a little slower but incorporated rhythmic bicep curls with small dumbbells that doubled as maracas.

Favorite Dance Move: Butt-shake drum-walk. How it’s done: Shimmy your hips in a slight squat as you walk forward while simultaneously playing air bongo drums with your hands. Targeted muscle groups: Glutes, calves, quads, obliques, and deltoids.

Hardest Dance Move: Brazilian Samba. How it’s done: Who knows.

Easiest Dance Move: The “I workout” move. How it’s done: During the song “Sexy and I know it” by LMFAO flex both biceps in a power stance when you hear the words “I workout” followed by a sequence of hip thrusts.

Stretching: The last song was the cool down. This actually was pretty similar to yoga, if you did yoga to the beat of music and strung the poses together with a little interpretive dance.

Conclusion: It’s going in the training log.