Sure, there are a billion different ways to work out at home: Youtube, Peleton, Tonal, etc. For wallflowers and individualists, working out alone at home is a great way to jumpstart a new day or cap off a stressful one.

The drawback of at home workouts is, obviously, no external accountability and no sense of community. Part of the reason we’re such advocates for Zumba and other small group training is that having a community with you, cheering you on and holding you accountable may be just the additional element some of us need to stick with an exercise regimen.

Do you ever work out really hard, feel great, sweat out toxins, and push your body to its limits – only to wake up the next day unable to walk or sit or get up comfortably? The after-exercise soreness is, for some people, part of the benefit of working out, and for others, too limiting to encourage the next exercise.

Some of the ways I get through this muscle soreness follow:

1. Make sure you drink enough water before, during and after working out. Exercising causes you to sweat, which means you’re losing hydration. Dehydration can cause its own muscle soreness and add to what you’re feeling from exercising.
2. A bath with epsom salts when you start feeling soreness can be relaxing, comforting, and release some of the muscle tightness from your body.
3. If you have hyper-localized soreness, use a tennis ball to rub out the knot or tightness. It may hurt while you’re doing it, but keep at it until you feel that muscle release.
4. Don’t take a day off, but take a rest day. So instead of doing a high intensity training two days in a row, do one day of high intensity strength training followed by a day of cardio, followed by a day of restorative stretching or yoga. Switch up what you’re doing to allow certain parts to recover while you focus elsewhere.

Boxing against a bag is a great cardiovascular exercise, a great energy purge, improves agility and strength, and can help express some rage. Whether you box against a bag, or against a sparring partner, this is a great way to increase coordination too. Boxing is basically aggressive dancing, if you do it right and have the right playlist.

Whether your day job is with Ralph Lauren or Side Bet Sport Fishing Charters, work stress is hard to release. So many of us take our work stress straight home with us and let it live in our homes and bodies. Exercising before going home is my approach to leaving my stress out of my house and getting it out of my body. Boxing allows for an energy release as well as an emotional one.

We also understand that you may do all the working out, exercise, running, stretching, lifting, and flexing that you can manage and still not see the results you want. For this reason, we are proud to offer Nutrition Support for all of our members.  

During your first visit, we will work with you to establish goals and then we’ll follow up with you to provide some nutrition options. You can choose from those what works best for you. We will never ask you to starve yourself or over-exercise, but small manageable and inexpensive changes may help you reach your goals. 

We have a partnership with an organic and local grocer nextdoor. They offer 25% off memberships for all Ultimate Dance Members. So while it may be a little more expensive to eat healthy than to eat fast food, our partnership with Nomad’s Market is aimed to mitigate some of this! 

For those of you looking for a more meditative and strength-focused fitness approach, Barre is a great option. We respect that many of you like to handle cardio on your own – running, swimming, etc – but need some help with your strength training. Barre is specially designed for people like you as it is slow, steady, controlled, strength training.  

Barre is derived from classic ballet stretches and moves. It is designed for people who want to be strong and long as it develops strength in small muscles over time. You will use a floor mat, a ballet bar, and small handweights as I, or one of my colleagues, walks you through the stretches and exercises to get you where you want to be. 

You won’t leave this class too sweaty or exhausted, but you will leave feeling stronger. And you’ll definitely wake up sore the next day. And for those of you who like a small group setting for both cardio and strength training, we offer a Zumba dance class either directly before or after every Barre class. Both clocking in at 45 minutes, you can get a lot of exercise into an hour and a half! 

And finally, we have ZUMBA COMPETITION – our most intense, difficult, challenging Zumba Class. This class is offered at dance studios throughout the city. For this one, attendees are involved in the choreography development. It includes gymnastics, tricks, cheerleading pyramids, etc. And at the end of each year, there’s a literal Zumba Competition at the Recreation Center downtown. The winning team takes the crown for the year to follow. We are looking for six new dancers for our current Zumba Competition Team. We still have the crown from winning last year (!!!!!) and we want to bring on some new ideas and bodies to help us keep the crown next year!  

Specifically, we are looking for dancers with design/costuming experience and music background. 

Zumba Intro: The Zumba Intro class is great for people who are a little less confident with dance terms and choreography. This is more of a training for the class than a fitness class itself. In this class, we teach proper technique and positioning, terminology and how to interpret that, and the most common class structures. Taking this class first may improve your experience in the other classes so you can focus on your mental and physical health rather than memorizing moves and interpreting dance terms.  

Zumba Special: If you have special fitness needs, like you have a funny hip and you’re not sure how to exercise without hurting it, or you are attending physical rehabilitation after an injury and you want to supplement that with a dance fitness class, etc. Whatever the case may be, if you have special needs but still want to explore our dance fitness options, take a Zumba Special class when beginning and we’ll incorporate replacements for common moves, ideas for your own dance, and guidance as to how you can stay fit but respecting your body’s healing timeline.  

Zumba Gold: Zumba Gold is perfect for older folks looking to be fit. The moves are broken down more, the cardio is more manageable, and corrections/replacements are offered throughout. As we age, our capacities for movement change and we want to help you respect those changes. 

Zumba is a high impact fast moving dance fitness class with a driving Latin beat background. At Ultimate Dance, we offer six different Zumba classes. 

Zumba Fitness: This is our most fitness-centric Zumba dance class. We focus on having an elevated heart rate for as much of the class as possible and incorporate strength training exercises into our dance moves. This is great for the fitness enthusiast who is complementing strength and cardio training with a fun dance class so exciting you’ll forget you’re even exercising!  

Zumba Strength: Zumba Strength is for those of you who have hit your weight or cardio goal but are looking to increase your strength. We aim for an elevated heart rate with floor work breaks for ab and core work. And for much of the dance, you will be holding and moving weights.