You can take classes with instructors licensed by Zumba Fitness, a dance exercise program headquartered in Hollywood, Florida, at any of 60,000 health clubs in 105 countries. Fitness centers have found the dance rhythms of Zumba Fitness to be a winner in terms of member participation, making it a mainstay of group instruction classes, notes Ronald Woods of the University of South Florida in "Social Issues in Sport." Instructional DVDs with Latin-inflected and international music routines also walk you through the vigorous one-hour workout.
Tools
Zumba Fitness provides two main avenues to fitness. You may discover a class at a health club, church, dance club or meeting room, or infomercials for the company's DVD set, "Zumba Fitness Exhilarate DVD Experience," released in 2011, can lead you in trying Zumba Fitness at home. A copy of 2009's "Zumba Fitness Total-Body Transformation Guide" offers a similar avenue to this form of exercise, as does the demo CD that accompanies founder Beto Perez's 2009 book, "Zumba: Ditch the Workout Join the Party! The Zumba Weight Loss Program."
Getting Started
If you are elderly, shy, heavyset or lack confidence because you think you have the proverbial two left feet, Zumba Fitness at home can get you started. "Zumba Fitness Exhilarate DVD Experience" provides in-depth descriptions of the individual steps, including cumbia, salsa and calypso. Trainers Tanya Beardsley and Gina Grant conduct a 45-minute class, while Perez leads a live group-fitness party for 45 minutes. Guest instructors also lead a "Mix" workout featuring international tunes, while trainers Kass Martin and Loretta Bates conduct a 20-minute "Rush" workout.
Group Dynamics
Zumba Fitness classes are intended to provide a live-club atmosphere that, with a gifted instructor, achieves liftoff and becomes an hour-long party that doesn't feel like exercise. Gym members bored with traditional group-exercise classes flock to dance-based classes, especially Zumba Fitness, which offers new moves they can use when they go out to dance for fun, write the authors of "Methods of Group Exercise Instruction." The social aspect of dancing with friends and creating a long row of matching moves visible in the studio mirror, resembling a music video, provides a social element that Zumba Fitness DVDs used at home cannot replicate. The group energy level can feed on itself and push individual participants to put more into each move.
Doing Both
Zumba Fitness DVDs continually bring new students to classes -- and they can help experienced students get better. "Students can go back to the DVD to learn a step such as the samba on their own that the instructor may not stop the flow of class to show them," notes Andres Bujanda, a licensed Zumba Fitness instructor in Baltimore, Maryland. The "Step by Step" DVD in the "Exhilarate" set provides slowed-down explanations of tricky moves, such as the body roll, for new dancers.
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