Mumsnet Talk

Completely depends on the instructor and how hard you actually do the routine.

Our instructor is FAB. Her music is not cheesy, it's more R&B, reggae, club music etc than latino. Her routines are great. A bit complicated to learn so it is a challenge and yes you have to jump and move around a LOT. You can do it her away which is very intensitve (she showed us a calorie burner type thing that she had on whilst doing the class and it showed that she burnt off nearly 700 cals in the hour long class) or the lazy way like some people do, just waving arms around and walking rather than jumping.
I sweat like a pig afterwards and I'm quite a fit person. I lost a stone in weight since starting a year ago without eating any less.

But it certainly aint a party and I agree with you OP that I don't get the FB madness about it either!

This is quite an old thread? I personally think its not very good, far too slow and about the same level as old school aerobics. However, anything that gets people to the gym has to be good!

I think the people who like zumba are the type of people who think that Rosemary Conley's tracksuits look trendy.

It's just exercise for people who don't like exercise really.

I started zumba a few weeks ago as an old schoolfriend of mine is an instructor and was always sending me facebook invites to her classes, I wanted to get fitter and healthier this year so went along. I now do two classes a week with two different instructors (my friend doesn't run a class on one of the nights that suits my zumba buddy childcare wise) and one is much higher impact than the other but I enjoy them both. I have lost weight since starting, I've been going to a slimming club so I know I've been steadily losing around a pound a week which means I could get a stone off by the summer if I keep going. I was one of those girls who used to bunk off PE to smoke in the toilets and zumba suits me, although I agree about the whooping thing, they always seem to want you to whoop at random points in the songs but I don't join in because I find it a bit cringy.

I personally think its not very good, far too slow and about the same level as old school aerobics.
Well I personally think it's not! Depends on the instructor, you must have gone to a crappy one.

GetOrf - I don't know anything about Rosemary Conleys tracksuits, I hate home work outs, but I do love exercise. I cycle, run and swim and also do Zumba twice a week and the Zumba class is just as hard as any one of those activities. I guess I'm lucky that I have a good instructor.

Caught up with a friend who is a physio recently. She says she'd like to kiss the person who introduced Zumba to the UK as all the unfit-people-doing-violent-twisting-at-speed injuries have kept her steadily in work for ages.

She's really looking forward to the forthcoming crop of neck injuries, now that aqua-Zumba is taking off...

I think it's good, but I always enjoyed old school aerobics & dance, and latin music, so it's a no brainer for me. I think people get so enthusiastic about it if they thought exercise had to be a boring slog before and have actually found something they like to do.

I do other exercise as well - running, weights and cardio in the gym, and Zumba definitely adds something to this routine - dance uses all your muscles, it makes you use different parts of your brain, and it loosens up my body - other exercise can make it too tense and rigid.

We don't do any whooping, but the instructor and a few ladies do wear jingly bells like belly dancers. Not sure what that's about but if it works for them...

The best thing ever is a homemade pizza and a bottle of wine after the kids have gone to bed. Sod that exercise nonsense

Agree it depends on the instructor. I love the camp one at my gym, you get a comedy routine as well as a workout. Today we did Madonna, Cheryl Cole and Nicki Minaj. Kylie Minogue and Barbara Streisand have previously featured. I throw myself into the routines and get a good workout. Another instructor covered for him last week and did an hour of straight Zumba, it was really boring in comparison.