Are you serious about your fitness and serious about your music? Then Zumba classes could be the answer!

No doubt if you are interested in fitness workouts you will have heard about Zumba, the classes with the great combination of Latin music and moves. You may also have seen lines of moving hips trying to keep pace to the beat, and a lot of laughter and fund. This is totally true. There are a lot of people out there really enjoying their Zumba class and slowly building up their fitness and co-ordination. But Zumba is not only aimed at beginners.

Dancer and choreographer Alberto "Beto" Perez came up with the Zumba concept in Colombia during the 1990s. He used his passion for all types of Latin music to inspire his workout classes and motivate his students to push themselves and their fitness levels. Keeping up with every move the instructor makes, and really perfecting every nuance in each move, is a big challenge. Ultimately, if you can do it exactly as the instructor does, you will be doing a serious workout. Zumba instructors reckon you can burn 600 calories in the 60 minute class and maybe even more. Not bad going! So do you still think this is just another beginners’ dance class?

The Zumba routines are based on interval training sessions. Fast and slow rhythms are combined with resistance training to give your body the best overall workout. This is a serious cardio programme designed to burn calories and work on your heart muscle. It also aims to sculpt and tone as you build up muscles all over the body. We all know that building up good muscles is also good for fat burning. Bigger, stronger muscles take more calories to sustain, so your food intake is needed to feed the muscles. This means that food won’t just lie unused in the body. Calories will be used up in your cardio routines, but the stronger your muscles get, the more calories they too can burn up.

Changing your regular fitness routine and surprising your body with different ways to burn calories always reaps good rewards. A body very quickly gets used to a particular fitness routine, and soon what was initially a high-impact session just becomes another routine for the muscles involved. Shocking your system into action with a different approach to cardio workouts will give you results. The Zumba dance moves will naturally be different to a regular gym workout or aerobics class. In particular you are going to feel the effects in your hips! Anyone who has taken Latin dance classes will know all about the constant movement of the hips and the balance needed to keep the moves nice and tight in the right space.

Zumba classes are taught at different levels, so for those with a fairly high level of fitness perhaps check out a more intense set of classes. This is an aerobic workout, so you’ll need to have good co-ordination along with fitness if you are to keep up. Any lovers of Latin music will get a great rush from Zumba. It’s a fabulous way to feel the great rhythms and use dance moves to tone that body into shape.

So go and check out what Zumba classes are on offer near you. Find out a bit about the instructor and see if you like the way they move. Then get those hips really working and feel the burn!

HelenElizabeth is an Irish writer available for proofreading, editing, and general writing work.