Zumba burns more calories than boot camp and can improve your sex life!

One of my personal training clients today told me her husband ribbed her a little about training with me — given that I’m a Zumba teacher and all. You know, what with that Zumba prostitution thing going on in southern Maine. She joked that maybe that would get him into the gym — perhaps now he would come in for a workout.

If that’s what it takes, I guess?

That was just one of the continuing series of wink-wink jokes I’ve encountered so far this week, and it’s only Monday. The jokesters might like to think there’s a “special” kind of party going on Zumba classes. And come to think of it, I guess it IS a special kind of party — a fitness party. And, ironically enough, fitness parties — or fitness in general — can have a positive effect on the other “special” parties the jokesters are making their joking jokes about. As in: exercise appears to help stave off problems with erectile dysfunction.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, despite the recent scandal involving the Kennebunk Zumba studio, Zumba is a real workout, even though (or maybe because) it does include a fair amount of hip shaking and shoulder shimmying.

Last month the American Council on Exercise released a study done by the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse’s Department of Exercise and Sport Science showing that you can burn more calories in Zumba class than during a fitness boot camp, step aerobics or cardio kickboxing class, because of the sequencing of the class. You burn calories for hours after a properly designed class because of the easy-hard pacing of the choreography.

Check out this chart, and click here for the full details:

“The surprising thing is that it doesn’t matter what fitness level you’re at — our research shows that in Zumba classes everyone is working out at the zone that’s recommended for improving cardio health,” one of the study researchers noted. “Both fit people and less-fit people are going to get an equally good workout.”

And if the recent titillation about Zumba gets more people (i.e., the middle-aged men who have been my biggest jokesters) busy in the gym, they can improve their chances of getting busy in other areas of their lives, if you catch my drift. Another study released by ACE shows that exercise can help them maintain their sex lives as it appears that regular, vigorous exercise can be effective at lowering impotence risk. Researchers studied more than 600 middle-aged men who hadn’t reported any problems with impotence. After eight years, the men who exercised regularly were less likely to have problems. Check out the details here.

So come on down and join the party! (Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

Wendy Watkins

About Wendy Watkins

Wendy Watkins is a Bangor-based personal trainer, fitness coach, studio owner, and writer/editor. She is the author of The Complete Idiots Guide to Losing 20 Pounds in 2 Months. Visit her website at thrivebangor.com.