Let’s face it, working out can be healthy, rewarding and beneficial. Working out can be lots of things, but it’s never been known to be an exhilarating experience…UNTIL NOW!

The Zumba® program fuses hypnotic Latin rhythms and easy-to-follow moves to create a one-of-a-kind fitness program that will blow you away. Our goal is simple: We want you to want to work out, to love working out, to get hooked. Zumba® Fanatics achieve long-term benefits while experiencing an absolute blast in one exciting hour of calorie-burning, body-energizing, awe-inspiring movements meant to engage and captivate for life!

The routines feature interval training sessions where fast and slow rhythms and resistance training are combined to tone and sculpt your body while burning fat. Add some Latin flavor and international zest into the mix and you’ve got a Zumba® class!

In the past years, the Zumba® program has become nothing short of a revolution, spreading like wildfire, and positioning itself as the single most influential movement in the industry of fitness.

As of July 2009, the Zumba® program is being taught at over 50,000 locations in 75 countries, has sold millions of DVDs, and has changed the lives of Zumba® Fanatics worldwide with an astonishing six million participants taking Zumba classes every week.

Why? Because it’s the best party around.

History

Celebrity fitness trainer, “Beto” Perez, stumbled upon the concept of Latin-inspired dance-fitness in his native Cali, Colombia in the mid-‘90s.

One day, he walked into his aerobics class and realized he had forgotten his aerobics music. Thinking quickly, he grabbed whatever tapes he had in his backpack. Beto’s tapes were comprised of songs he loved, the traditional Latin salsa and merengue music he listened to all his life. But it was a challenge to improvise a whole class on the spot using non-traditional aerobics music. Beto rose to the challenge and from this last-minute improvisation a revolutionary new concept in fitness was born – the Zumba Fitness-Party™! The class soon became the most popular class at his fitness facility.

I have never had a gym membership in my life but I knew it was important for me to exercise after having WLS.  When I was researching gyms the first thing I looked for was how was their childcare program because if I can’t bring the kids with me to the gym then I just can’t go!  The next thing I looked for was the availability of Zumba classes.  Lots of my friends on Facebook have talked about how much the love Zumba so I figured it would be the easiest thing to start doing.  I walked in a complete beginner and was nervous as hell but I was greeted pleasantly by the instructor and the others in class.  I quickly learned that everyone makes mistakes and no one cares.  Most people don’t look sexy while doing it but they are having fun and no one cares that my fat rolls and loose skin shakes around when I move.  From being overweight for so long I have developed some problems with my knees so I just keep some of workout more low impact than the others.  I love that you can really make it as low or high impact as you want it to be.  My gym even has family Zumba twice a week for parents and kids ages 9 and up so I take my son Zach with me.  He loves it!  My almost 6 year old, Nick (he turns 6 tomorrow) really wants to go and is bummed he isn’t old enough so Zach and I try to teach him some moves at home.  If you are in the area and interested my gym is Four Seasons here in Bloomington/Normal and their Zumba instructors are all awesome!

Here’s an idea of what Zumba classes look like.  These are not the classes here that I go to just some classes on YouTube that are the same routines we do here.  We use the English version of Shakira’s She Wolf (that song has been stuck in my head now for a week) and we don’t use those noisy scarf/skirt things on Boom Boom.  These are two of my favorite routines: