Thursday, 21 April 2016

Dance is the Best Form of Exercise

Dance is the UK's fastest growing art form. More than 4.8 million people regularly attend community dance groups each year in the UK each year. 

We know that dance has many aspects such as Flexibility, Stamina etc. that can help your health but the main question is whether or not it is the best form of exercise for overall fitness and wellbeing

Each and every style of dance such as; Jazz, Ballet, Tap, Pointe, Commercial, etc… they all use up muscles that normal activities wouldn’t. Simple movements in dance such as a kick or a pirouette can use up to more than 8 types of muscle at once. The following diagram shows that just doing small movements such as a simple Pirouette can use up many muscles.
 
A Pirouette requires a remarkable amount of whole-body strength and endurance
 
Dance is the best form of exercise for your health and here are the reasons why…

You are able to choose which style of Dance you do such as Jazz, Hip-Hop, and Ballet etc… This can be very helpful when focusing on your Physical Fitness as you are able to choose which part of your body you focus on, unlike other sports such as Football where you mainly work on your legs dance engages all parts of your body which means you can be equally strong on all bodily muscles and tissues.

Dance is not only great for your physical wellbeing it is also very good for mental health. Whilst using physical aspects in dance you are able to embrace your Core, Stamina, Flexibility, Cardio Respiratory Endurance (CRE,) Strength etc… this can help with physical confidence, health problems and weight management. Whilst using mental aspects in dance you are able to embrace your Timing, Musicality, and Dynamics etc… this can help with cerebral and cognitive thought processes and also brain functioning.

Comparing dance to other types of sport such as: Football, Basketball, Golf etc… you are able to reduce the risk of many health problems, a main example of this can be Dementia. After studying a range of activities, the most frequent prevention to Dementia was Dance:

Cycling = 0% reduced the risk of Dementia

Swimming = 0% reduced the risk of Dementia

Playing golf = 0% reduced the risk of Dementia

Dancing = 76% reduced the risk of Dementia

This is a clear way to show how much dance can help our mental health as well as improving our physical fitness.

Just as dance can help with dementia so too can it help with other Health Risks such as; Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, Cholesterol, Obesity, Joint Pain etc…

Dance encourages you to meet new people, to work with others, to get fit and to concentrate on timing  and breathing, it is definitely the best form of physical activity for your overall health.
 
 
 
by Erin Kerr 

No comments:

Post a Comment