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Gorging on a diet of dance
Head-to-toe workout: Participants follow the movements of instructors during a six-hour dance marathon at the fitness club chain Celebrity Fitnessâ studios in Jakarta
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span class="inline inline-center">Head-to-toe workout: Participants follow the movements of instructors during a six-hour dance marathon at the fitness club chain Celebrity Fitness' studios in Jakarta. JP/R. Berto Wedhatama
In a mirrored dance hall cast aglow by color-changing strobe lights, numbers of a mixed-gender crowd of ages 20 to 50 are swaying their hips to the thudding bass of Jason Derulo's 'Talk Dirty'.
Some are sweating profusely while others appear only slightly winded, and the six-hour dance marathon has just begun.
When the beat segues into Britney Spears' 'Work B**ch', they shimmy in unison from right to left and back, mimicking the movements of the three dance instructors on the podium wearing flashy sequined tracksuits.
For those born with two left feet, dancing in front of others demands courage, but self-consciousness dissipates when the room is this jam-packed and the objective is a cardio ' not to mention head-to-toe ' workout.
'We incorporate aerobic movements into dance. You can burn a lot of calories ' 500 to 600 in a one-hour session if you do it the right way and with the perfect energy,' says Frans, a dance and fitness instructor at multinational fitness club chain Celebrity Fitness, which recently held the six-hour marathon at its franchise at FX Lifestyle X'nter Jakarta, led by 15 of its most popular instructors.
Dance has increasingly become the go-to fitness regime for toning the body and keeping the heart sprightly, with mounting demand for Celebrity Fitness' five DNA (Dance N Attitude) programs ' 'Raw', 'Seduce', 'Flavor', 'Insanity' and 'Core Motion' ' held multiple times per week that suit various tastes and proficiencies from beginner to advanced.
'DNA Raw' features hip-hop and funk music and choreography while 'DNA Seduce' is a self-touted 'sexy burlesque' routine.
For those who relish nightclub music but rue socializing in smoke-filled lounges, 'Insanity' recreates a 'healthy' nightclub atmosphere with frenzied strobe lights, bass-driven beats, a DJ's up-to-the-minute playlist of airwave-trending tracks and choreography inspired by hit-makers like Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez and Pharrell Williams.
'We put a lot of styles in 'Insanity', like urban dance and hip-hop with contemporary as well,' explained instructor Erick Limans. 'We put on a lot of nice music and when people join the class they love it and switch their minds to a healthy lifestyle.'
Nicki Minaj and cabaret dancing don't float everyone's boat, but when the movements are easy to replicate and the health benefits evident, even conservatives become amenable.
'My work has a lot of pressure and is stressful so I needed to take a class that could provide me with release and relax my mind,' says Ranie Primasarie, 30, a Celebrity Fitness member and senior category manager for a major pharmaceutical retailer, who had never danced prior to joining the fitness club.
'I saw Erick's class at Pondok Indah Mall and suddenly I was interested in taking dance classes.'
She now takes advanced classes at Celebrity Fitness' Dance Academy: an eight-week intensive course that teaches initiates and connoisseurs how to improvise, approximate a dancer's graceful gait and posture while standing or walking, and even make proper eye contact with an audience ('look them in the eye ' but if you aren't brave enough, train your eyes on their forehead', says Ranie).
Dance is as much as a top-to-toe workout as swimming, but certain types of dance can target particular zones.
'Core Motion' ' the most in-demand DNA program ' incorporates lunges and crunch-like dance movements that activate the stomach muscles as potently as performing sit-ups.
'Sometimes people have a strong core but they cannot move because they are used to doing sit-ups. But with this, even people who don't have the capacity to dance can also train their core,' says Jehan, 29, an instructor and former professional dancer who teaches 15 fitness and dance classes at Celebrity Fitness per week.
She demonstrates by linking her fingers behind her head and leaning back, then concaving her upper body toward her waist to clench the stomach muscles.
'When you open like this you stretch the abs and open the ribs, and when you go down you can squeeze [the abdominal muscles] more. Actually the core is not only about the abs, it's also hips, it's also glutes. It's everything from here,' she says, indicating the chest area and right down to the lower back. 'So that's why we also move the quads and do lunges, but we're still dancing.'
Dances' fat-burning potential spikes during 'interval training', says Brazilian dance instructor Guilherme Olivier, who teaches Zumba classes ' an aerobic dance routine developed in the 1990s that uses Latin music and choreography ' in Sao Paulo.
Varying the tempo of the music and the speed of the movements from slow to fast to slow and back by turns increases and decreases the heart rate to extend endurance and maximize calories burned.
'So you take music that is really fast, really intensive, to raise your heart rate and then the recovery with some slow music like belly dance or tango, something like that to recovery and then get ready to go back up again,' explained Olivier, who led Celebrity Fitness' recent Samba Party to herald the FIFA World Cup at Gandaria City shopping mall in Jakarta.
But a dancers' lithe gait comes from toned muscles and athletic stamina, says Jehan, and for those with more than a dabbling interest in dance, weight training or 'functional' full-body training ' using weighted tools while performing aerobics movements and full-body stretches to maximize calorie-burning ' is key.
'Weight training is isolated movements that only work out one muscle group. I don't want only want good biceps or triceps, I want everything proportional. With functional training I can train strength, power, endurance, mobility and many things.'
Aside from beating the monotony of weightlifting or hitting the treadmill, dance as a way to release inhibitions becomes a great icebreaker and makes the gym an even better place to socialize.
'I can burn calories and I get many new friends, from college students to middle-aged men and women. People of different ages, different backgrounds,' says Ranie.
