Whether you’re looking to lose a few pounds to improve your health, to improve your mobility, the improve your health, or a little of everything, you certainly don’t need us to tell you how difficult weight loss can be. People are quick to talk about how easy it is, and sure, on paper, it is. It simply comes down to calories in versus calories out. Everybody knows, however, that in life, nothing is ever that black and white.

For people trying to lose weight, along with a healthy and balanced diet, exercise and physical activity can be hugely beneficial for burning fat, not to mention the various other health benefits that go with it. The problem is finding a form of exercise that you enjoy. You see, not everybody enjoys jogging, or working out in the gym, so finding an alternative is vital. This is where dance can be useful.

Dancing isn’t just a great way to let loose, express yourself, and have fun, it’s also a great form of exercise. But is dance a good workout for weight loss? Here’s what the science says.

Is Dance a Good Workout for Fat Loss?

First and foremost, before we can answer this question, we need to clear a few things up. While dance, and indeed, any exercise in general, is hugely beneficial for the mind and the body, if you want to lose weight, diet is just as important.

There’s a common saying in the fitness world, which goes something along the lines of ‘you can’t out-exercise a bad diet’. What this basically means is that, no matter how much you exercise, or how hard you dance, if you are eating too many calories, and not getting enough nutrients, you aren’t going to see, feel, or enjoy the benefits. If you want to lose weight, you need to be in a caloric deficit.

With that said, when it comes to exercise for fat loss, yes, dancing can be incredibly beneficial as it burns off a significant amount of calories.

Health and Weight Loss Benefits of Dancing

If you are looking to burn fat and lose weight, dancing is a great pastime to consider. Here are just a few of the main health and weight loss benefits associated with dancing.

Dancing Burns Calories

When you strip away all the science and get down to the basics, dancing burns calories and can therefore help to promote fat loss in numerous ways.

Weight loss is down to calories in versus calories out, so if you burn off more calories than your body requires and is able to store, and create a slight deficit, you will gradually burn fat and lose weight.

The number of calories you burn when dancing will depend on many factors, including the type of dancing you’re performing, how long you’re dancing for, and the intensity in which you are dancing.

Burning calories is a fundamental part of losing weight however, and with dancing you will certainly burn calories (more on that later).

Dancing is Great Cardiovascular Exercise

Not only is dancing a great way to burn calories, it is also a great form of cardiovascular exercise, which makes it incredibly beneficial from a health perspective.

Cardiovascular exercise helps to strengthen your heat and cardiovascular system. This can help you to avoid cardiovascular health issues including heart disease, hypertension, heart attacks, atherosclerosis, risk of stroke, and more besides.

Dancing Improves Mobility

For people who are lacking mobility, whether this is through age, lifestyle, or a combination of both, dancing could be very useful.

Dancing can help to loosen up your limbs, muscles, and joints, and improve mobility in a variety of different ways. The more frequently you do it, the more mobile you’ll become. It can also help you to avoid joint and mobility issues later on in life as well.

Dancing Improves Coordination

Because of the footwork, hip work, and timing involved in most forms of dance, you’ll also find that it can significantly help to improve things like coordination and balance. While this is beneficial regardless of age, later on in life it can be especially useful.

How Many Calories Does Dancing Burn?

Because there are so many different types of dance out there to choose from, in this next section we’re going to look in more detail at how many calories some of the different forms of dancing can typically burn off.

Zumba

Zumba, which has a distinctly Latin feel to it, became incredibly popular amongst people looking to lose weight.

Zumba, which alternatives between slow and steady movements, and fast-paced, rhythmic, high energy movements, is a full body dance that has the potential to burn off a significant number of calories.

A typical Zumba class can potentially burn off as many as 600 calories in one hour, depending upon the person and the intensity.

Hip Hop

Hip hop is another fast-paced, high energy exercise that is a form of street dance. It involves fast, full body movements, quick steps, core movements, and a lot of leg work.

Because of how intense hip hop dancing can be, with one hour of hip hop dancing you can potentially burn off between 400 and 650 calories per hour.

Ballet

Ballet may be viewed as a slow, refined, and sophisticated form of dance, but don’t let this fool you, it’s still very physically demanding and if you want to burn calories and lose weight, it can be very effective.

Ballet is not as fast-paced as the other dances we’ve looked at, but it is still very physically demanding. It requires a lot of body strength, it helps improve coordination and mobility, and it can strengthen and tone the muscles.

One hour of ballet dancing can potentially burn between 300 – 500 calories on average.

Ballroom

Ballroom dances such as Salsa, Rumba, and the Foxtrot can all also burn off a surprising number of calories. These fiery, passionate, sexy dances provide cardiovascular exercise, they tone the muscles, they improve balance, and they can work on your posture.

It will depend upon the type of ballroom dancing you take up, but potentially, you can burn between 200 – 600 calories in a one-hour class.

How Effective is Dance for Weight Loss?

So, as you can see, dancing offers a wide range of health and fitness benefits and is very effective when it comes to burning calories. But just how effective is it?

Well, according to scientific studies, dance is extremely effective for overweight and obese individuals trying to lose weight, as well as younger participants. Research also shows that, long-term, it offers up a variety of other body composition benefits, not to mention the fact that it is very enjoyable.

So, in summary, if used in conjunction with a healthy, balanced, calorie controlled diet and healthy lifestyle, yes, the many different forms of dancing are indeed very beneficial for people trying to lose weight