Dance cardio is taking the fitness world by storm; but can it jazz up your Pilates practice?
As a Pilates instructor who also performs with the avant-garde Eryc Taylor dance company in New York City, Nicole Baker felt she had a full and well-balanced fitness program. But earlier this year, while wandering around Manhattan’s Union Square, she happened upon the The Movement, a popular boutique fitness studio that offers intense cutting-edge dance-cardio classes called MOVE—and her interest was sparked.
“The music was blasting, the lights were down low, and the patterns were so fun,” she says. She quickly became addicted. “It was a perfect way to relieve stress and relax my brain after a long day.”
What’s more, by adding dance cardio to her regimen, her body began to change. “Pilates lengthens my body and takes out the bulge," she explains, “but the dance classes helped me burn fat. Before I knew it, I’d lost the five pounds I was dying to get rid of.”
SWEATBANDS AND LEG WARMERS
While the pulsating club-like atmosphere of today’s rhythmic cardio classes are drawing new followers by the thousands, dance workouts got their start back in the 1970s with a military wife named Jacki Sorensen, who first combined music and dance with aerobic exercise classes in a program for Air Force spouses. Through spin-off classes and a bestselling book, Sorensen spawned a new fitness craze called dance aerobics, a phenomenon that then morphed into Jazzercise and Freedanse. With the release of Jane Fonda’s first video in 1982, dance aerobics—and spandex and leg warmers!—were catapulted into worldwide popularity.
This story is from the September - October 2016 edition of Pilates Style.
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This story is from the September - October 2016 edition of Pilates Style.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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