Whether you dance Zumba or ballet, doing proper warm-up exercises prepares your body for the cardiovascular work and stretches you do as you dance. Warming up before dancing gets your blood flowing, which delivers oxygen to your muscles. You protect yourself from potential injuries and are better prepared to engage your whole body and do steps with a full range of motion.
Aerobic Movements
Begin your dance warm-up with aerobic movements rather than stretching. Try a moderately intense cardiovascular movement that raises your heart rate. Small hops or gentle prances engage your muscles and increase the temperature of your tendons and ligaments. Even a brisk walk, jumping rope or marching in place suffices, as long as you warm up at a rate that speeds up your respiration.
Lubricating the Joints
Once you have warmed up your body, you can try the stretches, bends and flexibility work that many people associate with warming up for dance. Make a priority of lubricating the joints that receive the most stress during dance — typically, your knees and ankles. A series of squats and lunges targets the knees. Rolling the ankles in circles addresses that area. Lubricate your upper-body joints by bending your arms, rolling your shoulders, turning your wrists and circling your arms. Warm up with vertical, horizontal, lateral and sagital — front-and-back — movements, "Dance Magazine" recommends.
Engaging the Core
Steady yourself for all of those jumps, spins and turns by focusing on your core muscles. If you engage your abdominal muscles prior to dance, you have a stronger base. Practice deep abdominal breathing. Do some Pilates moves that work the upper and lower abdominal muscles. Abdominal crunches, both forward and lateral, will also warm up your core.
Isolations
A staple of jazz dance class, isolations serve as good warm-up activities for any type of dance. The point of isolation exercises, the FitDay website explains, is to focus on a single joint or movement and to do the exercise slowly and steadily. Neck isolations get you looking from side to side, holding your head for a beat at each side. Hip swings consist of shifting your hips from side to side while keeping the rest of your body still. Heel raises, in which you go on tip-toe then slowly lower your heels, target your hamstrings and calves. Leg swings, moving from in front of you to behind you, work the entire leg. Exercise your lower body muscles with lunge stretches, making sure you do not extend your knee past your toes.
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