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The results showed that all participants reached a reasonable level of physical activity through freestyle dance.
20 minutes of dancing in your kitchen can elevate your heart rate.
After a long day at work, hitting the gym can be difficult for many. To meet their daily fitness goals, many then choose brisk walk or jogging. Now, a new study suggests that dancing in your kitchen for just 20 minutes a day while cooking could be enough to help you stay fit. To support this, researchers at Northeastern University in Boston tested 48 participants, between the ages of 18 and 83, with different dance experiences. The participants danced for five minutes, and the researchers checked how much oxygen they used and how fast their hearts were beating, while also checking the intensity of the exercise. The results showed that all participants reached a reasonable level of physical activity.
Before the study started, the researcher told each participant that they wouldn’t be closely watching them dance. Instead, they would focus on collecting the data during the sessions.
Dr Aston McCullough, who led the study, explained “The main idea was to understand whether the intensity that people would receive from dancing freely on their own be enough to be a health-enhancing physical activity. The answer was ‘Yes’. All adults were able to reach a health-enhancing level of activity without being told what intensity to dance at. They just put on their own music and danced around, and even when they didn’t have music on they were still reaching that level.”
“The main idea for us is that dance is a really accessible form of physical activity that people can do, even in their homes. Most people think of dance as something that is light and really easy, but really if you just tell someone to have a dance they’re going to get to that level of intensity that you would ask them to do if you were a personal trainer,” McCullough added.
According to the National Health Service (NHS), adults should do 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each week. They suggest spreading this for 4 to 5 days or doing some activity every day. It’s also recommended to avoid sitting or lying down for long periods. Many people believe that to stay fit, they need to jog, go to the gym or swim. However, the study showed that dancing can also help them reach their fitness goals as per their needs.
