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What is a Zumba Class?




Zumba is the dance fitness craze that is slowly taking the world by storm. The best thing about the Zumba basic workout is the fact that it’s fun! Unlike traditional aerobics, this workout is disguised in the form of a fun dance. Don’t let that fool you though: you will be getting a full body workout in your Zumba class. But what exactly can you expect?

A Zumba class is fun, but don’t expect them to easy. They will require you to work hard! That said, you don’t need to have any experience in dance to join in.

What is a Zumba Class?

What is a Zumba Class

Your Zumba class will usually take place in a traditional dance/ exercise studio with the instructor demonstrating the moves at the front of the class. There are often mirrors to make it easier to see what’s going on. Classes typically last for one hour, with a warm-up at the beginning and cool-down with stretching at the end.

The good news is that it’s nearly impossible for a Zumba class to get boring. The music is a mix of samba, merengue, cumbia and reggaeton. Each track is different from the last one, and a new dance routine comes into effect as the music changes.

Depending on your current fitness levels, you’ll probably start to sweat early on in the class. It helps to wear sweatbands to wipe this away from your face as you dance.

What Are The Zumba Workout Moves Like?

Any Zumba workout will depend on what the instructor is like. Some of the common moves include cha-cha-chas, mambas, side touches and V-steps. It can be difficult to keep up at first, when you have no experience with this kind of dance. However, the more you repeat it then more you’ll find that it sinks in.

What If You Can’t Dance?

Let’s face it, we aren’t all born with the gift of coordination. If you’ve not got the best rhythm, or feel you have “two left feet” when it comes to dancing, can you still benefit from a Zumba basic workout?

Yes, you may find it difficult at first, but this is true with anything new. Just with anything else, however, you’ll find that it gets easier as you go along. The best thing about the Zumba basic workout is that you can start at beginner level. Nobody is scrutinizing your dancing skills here; it’s all about having fun along with the music! As long as you’re moving, even if you don’t get the moves just right, you’re doing it right!

What If I Don’t Enjoy a Zumba Class?

Although few of us associate exercise with fun, Zumba is meant to be just that. The only way you can decide whether or not it’s for you is to try it out! Most people find it a great way to burn calories – a lot more fun than working out at the gym. That said, most instructors will let you test out the Zumba class once before you make a decision to stay or not.

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Weight Loss Exercise

Saboteurs to your health success | saboteurs to success


Saboteurs are people and thoughts that are going to sabotage you when you are at all weak in your bid to better yourself. I can identify many internal and external forces that will try to stop me from what I want on an almost daily basis. Lets start with the outside forces first and then we can start blaming ourselves after that.

External saboteurs

External saboteurs are family, friends and coworkers and can always be identified by their compassion for what you are doing. Lets see if you can pick out any of these terms: ‘Well it’s not like I make cookies every day’ or ‘You have sure been working hard at it, why not take a day off and go shopping?’ or ‘You must be really proud of yourself for the changes, do you even miss chocolate at all?’. These are all examples of the way that people try to be nice but feel like maybe you are sacrificing too much. If you look back now on how your life was a few months ago it probably seemed a lot less exciting, you had a rhythm and schedule you were happy with and that rut was comfortable for you, think about how others around you feel. Almost all people have a rut that they get in that makes their life comfortable and when they see someone either really excel or make a lot of changes at once it makes them uncomfortable it makes them feel that their lives are inadequate and it makes them want to make sure that they are not being left behind. Other people can not be blamed completely for their feelings as you always have an out with them saying that you just felt like making changes and are happy with the way things are going and oh yes of course I miss the chocolate.

Internal Saboteurs

Internal Saboteurs are much more dangerous. Just as others do not want to see things around them change quickly your mind reels from this as well. Every time you give up a bad food your body and mind will ask you why things were some bad and why are you sacrificing again. Every time you try a different kind of workout your body and mind will complain that things were going well before and that you are wasting voluble energy and are still to sore from before to make this change. I always am happy when I make a change in my life as I have fluctuated in the past from being in great control of my level of fitness, my diet and my exercise and have let them slip away easily again this is some times a part of life, when you are not looking your body decides to take a vacation.

There are some really great ways to make sure that your life continues in the right direction and that is with proper goals and with reasons behind these goals. I want to cover this in depth tomorrow so today just look around and see what maybe looming on the horizons for things that are painful to you that may be trying to break the spirit of your change and try to write these things down. I have written down ideas in the past and then when I went back to them months later am shocked to see what I had thought of before. Sometimes I kick myself for not implementing those great ideas I had in the past and forgot about but you can probably see from that statement what one of my problems has always been.

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Back on Schedule

Back on ScheduleWell today I am finally back on schedule. It has been about three weeks since I have had a regular schedule and man it feels good.

In mid-December I had a week of holidays and as we all know the whole Christmas season is running, working, family and anything else that you can jam into the days and weeks.

Well today was my first day back and there are a few things that made me realize that as much as I crave freedom I still like to have a schedule.

Eating – Every workday, including today, I make my breakfast in the morning and have all of my eating and food planned for the day. Over the last few days or weeks that has not been the case at all and I had been eating and snacking anytime that I felt like it.

Working Out – My workouts have been pretty steady even if they have been inconsistent. I have been just doing weights over the last few weeks except for one cardio workout. Well today I was back but at least I will get a chance to get a couple at least cardio workouts in this week. I usually get my workout in just around noon  and today was no exception.

I hope that as the days get longer I can get on my bike again soon as this is probably the best time and exercise that I get, this is the time that I let my mind get quieter, get some consistent rhythm going in my exercise and it is just plain nice to get outside and enjoy the sun.

Sleep – My sleep schedule has been horrible for over a month now. I did not care about my sleep at the beginning of December and hit the wall just as I was starting holidays. Now over the last couple weeks my kids have kept me running and then after they finally crash I am able to get some time in reading. I am reading that book Eat, Pray, Love and it is fun to read but it keeps me up to late.

And to make matters maybe worse I have been sleeping in late. I feel that I always perform best when I get to sleep earlier and wake up early as well.

How about you? How do you like the year and the days getting back into a schedule? Are you running into the same as me? I know that I miss my wife and kids more going back to work today but this SCHEDULE is exactly what I needed.

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edit: My wife saw the pic of us in this post and got mad. The choice that she liked better is the pic that I put in here now… so much for editorial immunity but my wife always gets final say