Zumba® Fitness workouts: are they an appropriate alternative to running or cycling?

A sedentary lifestyle (i.e., physically inactive) has been associated with a variety of diseases such as: obesity, type II diabetes, and heart disease. Chronic aerobic exercise can be used as a prophylactic against these diseases. However, the challenges for individuals, prior to engaging in a training program for disease prevention, include the selection of an appropriate aerobic exercise as well as longterm compliance. Running or cycling is the traditional modes of aerobic exercise used to minimize the risk of disease and maintain a healthy body weight. In this regard, the American College of Sports Medicine recommends a caloric expenditure of 300 kcal per exercise session [1]. Numerous studies examining running and cycling have reported caloric expenditures well above 300 kcal per exercise session [4– 8]. Running and cycling have also been reported to elicit increases in plasma beta (b) endorphin levels [4–8, 12, 13]. b endorphin can be released by the pituitary gland in response to exercise of sufficient intensity and duration and has been associated with euphoria and exercise addiction in what has been referred to by the fitness community as ‘‘runner’s high’’ [2, 10]. An exercise-induced elevation in b endorphin would provide additional support for the efficacy of the aerobic activity (in the prevention of disease) by increasing the likelihood of long-term compliance. While running and cycling have been the traditional activities to engage in aerobic activity, fitness classes and home exercise DVDs have become an attractive alternative. In this regard, dance fitness DVDs, as employed by Zumba Fitness, have become extremely popular. Originating in Columbia, South America, Zumba Fitness was created as a Latin-inspired dance fitness program that combines various types of dance elements (e.g. hip-hop, samba, etc.) to music as a method to engage in aerobic exercise as an alternative to running or cycling. To date, only one study has specifically examined the efficacy of Zumba Fitness as an appropriate workout for health benefits. Luettgen et al. [9] used exercise heart rates to predict the oxygen consumption expended during a Zumba class that lasted an average of 39 min. Specifically, with use of an incremental treadmill test, they employed a linear regression equation between heart rate and oxygen consumption (VO2). Based upon a subject’s heart rate during a Zumba class, they estimated the oxygen consumption to determine caloric expenditure [9]. They reported an average exercise heart rate of 154 bpm (79 % of HR max) and an average caloric expenditure of 370 kcal per class [9] suggesting that a Zumba Fitness workout may be an appropriate alternative to running or cycling. Estimates of VO2 via exercise heart rates and the subsequent determination of caloric expenditure, as employed by Luettgen et al. [9], would seem appropriate given the difficulty in measuring VO2 during aerobic dance exercises. Given the differences in movements between running on a treadmill and dance, there may be limitations with the use of treadmill heart rates to predict VO2 during a dance workout. Currently, no one has actually measured oxygen consumption during dance exercises to substantiate the E. Sternlicht Department of Kinesiology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041, USA