It’s as if the animated dancers in the movie “Madagascar” meet their wild, hip and funky Latin cousins.
It’s Zumba, baby!
At lunchtime for 40 minutes each week, a few of the straight-laced downtown crowd shed their business attire, PDAs and cell phones to cut lose at the St. Louis Marquette YMCA. The latest aerobic dance/workout craze has made its way into the corporate fitness culture near the Arch.
The Zumba phenomena started in the mid 1990s by celebrity fitness trainer “Beto” Perez in his native country, Columbia, South America. Perez brought his class to the U.S. in 1999, where he teamed with two developers to market Zumba worldwide.
“It’s relatively new in St. Louis,” said Sherry Brown, program director at the Y. “There are only a few instructors in the area.”
One of them is Cynthia Rush, a high-energy St. Louis area Zumba instructor who can shake and shimmy so effortlessly that you too may want to try a few moves.
“It is amazing fun and it’s worth it to get to the gym, change clothes, have a fun work out, take a quick shower and go back to work energized and in a good mood,” Rush said.
It’s a little salsa, a little merengue, some cumbia and even has a few moves that may be derivatives of African dance. The “feel-happy workout” website describes Zumba as utilizing “the principles of fitness interval training and resistance-training to maximize caloric output, fat burning and total body toning. It is a mixture of body sculpting movements with easy to follow dance steps.”
“With Zumba, seventy percent of your movements have to be Latin based. You are doing an interval workout and Reggaeton, which is
Latin hip hop,” Rush said. “With Latin dance, there’s so much work with the abs and the core—you strengthen your core muscles as well.”
Even if your arms, legs and torso haven’t quite caught up to the fast pace, Zumba is a lot of fun, and you are actually participating in a total body workout.
“All Zumba classes are a blend of international rhythms and Latin dance styles for the general fitness populations so that everyone can follow,” Rush said. “The main reason people tell me they come back is because it’s so much fun.”
After a few Zumba classes, Steve Veatch is hooked, so much that he is planning to become a certified Zumba instructor himself.
“In December, I’m going to Dayton, Ohio for a weekend of training by Beto,” he said.
For those with more bounce to the ounce and jiggle in the middle who are looking for a midday cardio fix, Zumba may be the thing to do.
“I think it’s a healthy, fantastic way to take care of yourself during a hectic workday,” Rush said. For busy multitaskers who spend their waking hours attending to everyone else’s needs, Rush said
“It’s one of the few things they do for themselves.”
For those who need to slow their roll, Rush said there is also a Zumba Gold version.
“Zumba gold (not taught yet at the Y) is for people who have an injury or a condition. It’s the same music, but at a slower pace,” Rush explained.
Zumba aficionados are dropping pounds, feeling more energized, and based on personal intensity, working up a sweat.
“This is so good!” said one lady to another as they headed to the locker room.
“There is a lot of hip shaking and shoulder shaking—we shake it all. We get silly, we laugh. We have fun!” she said.
Remember, attitude is everything—for 40 minutes, think Zumba, be Zumba, then clean up, change clothes and go back to work.
And, as always, check with your doctor before beginning a new strenuous exercise.