Can Ballet be used for Fitness and Weight Loss?

When you think of ballet you may not at first think of strength. There has been a revival in ballet recently mostly due to the award-winning movie Black Swan. Ballet has always been associated with a hobby for young girls, something which most people become bored with once they reach adolescence.

However, ballet can provide an excellent workout, and if there is one thing which unites all ballet dancers it is their slim waists and their ability to leap and carry people with seemingly effortless ease.

Now, before you buy a pair of ballet shoes and head to your local dance school please do bear in mind that professional ballet dancers are slim because they do hours of training every day and staying very slim and light is vital for their careers – heavy ballerinas find it much harder to get work. So 60 minutes of ballet dancing once per week is not going to guarantee you a slim waist.

What ballet dancing will teach you is how to hold your body, it will improve your posture, your balance and make you stronger. The exercises that ballerinas perform are designed to improve all the main areas of fitness: strength, endurance, flexibility, agility and balance.

Some of the basic ballet exercises such as toe lifts, plies, lateral leg lifts and passe lifts all work the major muscles of the body in a very similar way to weight training exercises such as calf raises, squats, lunges and single legged deadlifts.

In a ballet class these exercises are performed over and over almost to the point of exhaustion. This is the only way to really improve the form and posture as well as build strength and endurance. In some ways the training for a ballerina is not that far different from martial arts training – exercises are performed over and over until the mind and body is working as one in perfect unison to complete the move in a near effortlessly way.

So if you combine a regular ballet class with a healthy diet then you will certainly tone up and lose weight. Ballet is a great way to get fit and the exercises really will help tone your thighs and butt too.

Although to be a professional ballerina you need to start young and train extremely hard, you can get a lot of health benefits from ballet dance classes without making it a life long commitment. Also ballet classes can be a lot of fun. And remember guys, there is also a demand for more men in classes, even the most amateur classes!

If you decide to take up ballet has a fitness hobby remember that you must combine it with a healthy diet and also train on a regular basis. Getting fit requires that you workout 3-5 times a week. To learn more about fitness and weight loss visit MotleyHealth.com.