Everywhere from your hip-hip to your chin-chin, dance supports a healthy lifestyle. The physical benefits of ballroom dance are include, but are not limited to, the following!
Better Heart Health
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- Cardiovascular exercise supports lower blood pressure, improved blood flow, decreased risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
Stronger Muscles & Bones
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- Dance increases muscle strength and endurance which decreases risk of injury increases blood flow to muscles and bones.
- Did you know bones are living tissues just like organs such as the heart and lungs? This means that they can respond to positive forces placed upon them—they adapt and become denser with dancing, decreasing your risk for broken bones and supporting balance and stability.
- Dance gives attention to the muscles and bones that we forget about...during everyday movement, we usually walk forward—dance movements challenge our body to travel sideways and backwards encouraging engagement of different muscles!
Happier Hips
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- Activities involving significant hip movements, such as dance, engage lower back and hip joints which support total-body range of motion and flexibility.
Improved Posture and Balance
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- Especially with those struggling with balance-related tasks, such as elderly individuals, dance integrates the cognitive and balance systems, which supports better standing balance and dynamic movement.
Increased Flexibility
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- You don’t have to be a professional yogi to indulge in the benefits of a more flexible body! Beginning your practice with dynamic stretching and ending with simple static stretches can support your flexibility even more!
Boosted Coordination
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- How often outside of dance do you practice exactly what your fingers should be doing? Dance challenges us to use small muscles and specific articulations of various portions of our body that we do not experience on a daily basis!
Improved Aerobic Fitness
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- You probably notice that you can move and groove for longer periods of time the more you dance!
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but a few of our favorite ways in which dance supports physical fitness. Fitness spans more than physical health, but mental and emotional health as well. Check out our blog on the Benefits of Ballroom Dance to learn more.
Ready to find out the physical benefits of dance for yourself?
References
https://www.healthlinkbc.ca/physical-activity/muscular-strength-and-endurance
https://www.eehealth.org/blog/2018/05/how-your-heart-benefits-from-exercise/
https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/staying-healthy/exercise-and-bone-health/
