Salsa San Francisco, Salsa Concord, Salsa Mountain View, Bay Area Salsa Dance Lessons

I am going to argue that salsa dancing is actually the best exercise for good health, better any other form of exercise like aerobics, weight lifting, walking, yoga, jogging, basketball, running, Pilates, Tai-chi, Tango dancing, swimming, badminton, or any other sport or exercise method.

So you say, well don’t you think that it a little bit too bold of a claim, Mikko? I don’t. Here is why.

Before I start, let’s explore how I do I measure good health and how I plan to determine one exercise method being better than another one. For the purposes of this article I am going to judge the exercise methods in terms of their effect on improving your brain and bodily functions, optimizing your brain chemistry, oxygenating your body, burning fat, and generally helping you to live a longer and happier life.

But before I start, I want to make it very clear that I think all of the exercises that I mention here can be healthy for you and often some exercise is much better than no exercise at all.

So with that said let’s get started.

First, it’s important to understand that good health and being physically fit is not the same thing. A person can be very fit and in good shape, yet not necessarily healthy.

As a short side story to sort of illustrate this point, I ironically once met a pediatrician in a gym in Louisiana and I asked him: “You look like you are really fit (he was muscular and toned and appeared to be in good shape) so do you explain the children and their parents how important nutrition and good exercise plan is for their health or do you just subscribe them drugs?). He looked at me seriously and little puzzled and said: “Well, actually no, I am not in good health, I have a serious heart problem, and no I am a doctor, we don’t deal with nutrition or exercise”.

Although you probably also see the sad irony in his statement, my point is this, just because some one looks fit or is muscular and toned it does not mean that they are healthy.

However, one the other hand, one does not exclude the other either. You can be physically fit and be healthy also, to a point.

Which brings me to my first point. For an average person, many forms of common exercise methods or sports like basketball, running, jogging, heavy weight lifting, soccer, is not necessarily the best form of exercise for optimal health. And in some cases starting these types of exercises can actually be bad or potentially even harmful to you. Not only can many sports expose you to injuries, but also more importantly if you are not already physically fit these sports are not necessarily ideal way for you to begin to improve your health.

Here is what I mean. In terms of health benefits, one of the primary reasons any exercise is good for you is because moving your body forces you to breath deeper thus assisting you to oxygenate your body. When you move your body and oxygenate your body, you potentially begin to use fat as an energy source.

One of the best criteria for determining the healthiest form of exercise is its ability to help you burn fat. Let me explain why.

When you use fat as an energy source (as supposed to the carbohydrates/sugars you eat or the proteins from your muscles) three amazing things happen. First, burning fat gives you 20 times more energy (ATP) than burning carbohydrates/sugar or your muscles, thus you will experience unlimited energy and focus. Secondly, by-product of burning fat is water, which assists your body to hydrate and to cleanse itself, which is very important for good health. And thirdly, another by-product of burning fat is CO2, which assists your body to relax your involuntary large muscles such as your heart and organs resulting lowering your stress (as measured by your blood cortisol levels).

The unfortunate reality is that most of us in our modern society are too stressed out to condition our bodies to burn fat as an energy source. Instead most of us get our energy from eating sugars or carbohydrates. This also shows in the way most of us exercise. Most of us exercise to use sugar as an energy source. To burn fat, you cannot exercise too hard. As soon as you exercise too hard (meaning that your heart rate goes above 120) your muscles begin to use carbohydrates/sugars as an energy source.

Even worse if you have not eaten in a long time your body begins to break down your muscles to produce energy. The problem with this is burning sugar/carbohydrates or your muscles as an energy source will produce lactic acid to in your body which actually only produces adverse effects in your body in terms of your health. Lactic acid is simply another toxic by-product that your body has to try to eliminate.

Evolutionary speaking burning sugar or carbohydrates as an energy source was developed as your body’s emergency response to danger. In the past when a tiger or a wild animal was chasing you, your body responded by shutting down all of your other bodily functions and used sugars or carbohydrates to provide your body fast energy to escape the danger. But this way of exercising or much less living is not the way to achieve optimal health and longevity.

So rather than helping your body to become healthier, by working out or exercising too hard for too long you only increase the toxic and stress load of your body. This ultimately only elevates your stress levels (as measured by cortisol) often resulting in vicious cycle of more intense exercise, followed by more intense lifestyle and increased consumption of coffee and energy drinks to keep you stimulated.

And while you may even lose weight or become fit, it does not mean that your body is necessarily becoming healthier. Furthermore, intense sports like basketball and running can also very jarring to your ligaments, bones, and joints ultimately resulting in injuries.

Many people who swear by intense exercise are simply addicted to the endorphin high that they receive after abusing their body pass its pain threshold. This does not make intense exercise any healthier. Salsa dancing, however, is very easy to do much more gently and at your own pace.

Next, let me explain why I think Salsa dancing is also better form of exercise for optimal health than Yoga, Pilates, or Tai-Chi. As I said before, in order for you to burn fat, you have to keep your heart rate at the steady 110 – 130 for at least 30 minutes. So while Yoga, Tai-Chi, and Pilates are all great forms of exercise, and I highly recommend them especially to keep your spine flexible, the problem with these types of exercise methods are that they often tend not to be intense enough to elicit the fat burning response in your body. Or even if they are intense enough most classes are only from 30 – 60 minutes in length. This often does not give you enough time to fully activate your body’s fat burning response.

Yoga, for example, was designed in ancient civilizations at the time where people either walked or physically worked for hours. The problem for most people in our modern societies, however, is not that we don’t sit or lie in poses, but rather that we don’t move our bodies enough.

So while Yoga, Pilates, Tai-Chi are great forms of exercise the low intensity of these exercise methods generally do not elicit fat burning for your body. which is really the path to the holy grail of good health in our modern society. Salsa dancing not only assists you to gently move your body and flex your spine, but it also better elicits the fat burning response in your body, which is really the path to the holy grail of good health. Salsa dancing is also often practiced at least an hour and classes often go for two hours. And furthermore, this is often followed by hours of social dancing after the classes, which makes salsa dance floor the fat burning heaven.

To achieve optimal health our bodies should be gently moving everyday for at least a couple of hours. From a health perspective, the other great thing about moving your body is that by doing so we also stimulate our lymphatic system. Our lymphatic system is responsible for cleansing our bodies and assisting our body’s different processes to deliver nutrients to its cells. By dancing salsa you are really giving your body a great gift.

By the way, a good measure to make sure you are not exercising or dancing too hard is to monitor your ability to speak. You should easily be able to talk and exercise at the same time without getting out of breath. If you are getting out of breath you are not on the fat burning zone and your body is producing lactic acid instead.

So what about swimming? It is not jarring to the body and you can do it gently staying in your fat burn range for long periods of time. Swimming would be one of the perfect methods of exercise except it has two problems. Number one, most swimming pools in the US use chlorine, which is a deadly toxic, to sanitize their pools (In Canada and many countries in Europe swimming pools have stopped using chlorine long time ago). The problem number two is that unless you just happen to love swimming, for most people swimming for a long periods of time is simply too boring to continue to do consistently for longer periods of time.

However, as a side note, if you live close to an ocean or lake, swimming can be one of the healthiest exercises that you can do and I admit that it would be even much better than salsa. Not only is swimming superb exercise but swimming in water as nature intended is healing also in many other ways (I will explain more about this in another blog post). So while, swimming can be great exercise, a great benefit to salsa dancing is that it is also a lot of fun and most people won’t even think of it as exercise while doing it. So why not make exercise fun?

What about weight lifting? Moderate weight lifting is good for your body as it strengthens your bones and helps you to maintain some muscle mass. There is no evidence, however, that having more muscles than it is normal for your body type has anything to do with optimal health. In fact, in order for you to grow muscles you have to eat more food. The more you eat the more you strain your digestive system and your internal organs. Your kidney, for example, is not designed to process large amounts of protein. In fact, there is a lot of evidence that the fever calories you actually consume the better your health will ultimately be and the longer you will live. I equate this mainly to the idea that the less we eat the less toxins we expose our bodies to, but this is yet another blog post altogether as well. The point is that while maintaining a muscle mass is important in helping you to burn calories, weight lifting is not the most ideal form of exercise for your optimal health nor is it the best exercise for fat burning.

Well what about Sex? Sex with a committed partner is actually the ultimate brain chemical producer and one of the healthiest exercises for your brain and gland health. There is nothing more potent and powerful to stimulate the healthy hormones of oxytocin and testosterone and important brain chemicals like dopamine and serotonin (To learn more about why oxytocin and serotonin are so important to women and testosterone and dopamine to men, read Venus On Fire, Mars On Ice: Hormonal Balance: The Key To Life, Love, And Energy). However, I am going to exclude sex as the best form of exercise for two reasons. Number one, for fat burning purposes it is very hard to sustain sex as a practice for over 30 minutes while maintaining the ideal fat burning zone, especially if you are already in pretty good shape ☺. And number two, if you are single for health purposes it would wiser for you come dance salsa than to each week try to find a new partner just for the health benefits that you might get from practicing sex ☺.

So what about other dances? I think every dance that you practice can be extremely healthy for you. The reason I raise salsa dancing as number one above the other dances is for the social aspects of the dance. Let me explain. Many of the ballroom dances, for example, does not really have regular social dance scene in most cities, which makes it harder to consistently practice for longer periods of time. The most popular social dances in the club scene are dances like hip-hop, argentine tango, swing, and salsa. All of these dances can be very healthy.

The added benefit to social couple dances like argentine tango, swing, and salsa is the aspect of leading and following. Whenever a man can be a leader, especially when a man feels confident, his testosterone levels have a chance to rise. It is testosterone that lowers stress in a man’s body (as measured by your cortisol levels). Furthermore, when a woman can relax into the arms of a leader, oxytocin is also being stimulated in her body. It is oxytocin that lowers stress in a woman’s body (as measured by cortisol levels). The more relaxed you are the easier it is for you to also burn fat. So not only are all of these dances incredibly good for your health, the social interaction aspect of these dances also assists you in producing hormones and brain chemicals much like having sex would do.

Argentine tango is a little slower than most and for health purposes would be probably better suited for those who like the slower pace. But I believe that for most people the ideal pace to achieve the desired fat burning response in your body is dances like swing or salsa.

The reason I ultimately pick salsa as the winner of all is because of the music. I believe there is something magical in the way the afro-cuban rhythms have been arranged that put your brain and body in to some sort of harmonious spiritual ecstasy giving you a natural high like no other.

And thus, I believe that salsa dancing is the ultimate exercise for your great health. But don’t take my word for it. Take a look at this young 80 year old salsa dancing lady from UK that I actually got the pleasure to meet in San Francisco once.