Warmups are important for getting your body ready for the task ahead and it will also help prevent the risk of injury and can even help prevent muscle soreness. It might seem unlikely that all this can come from five to ten minutes worth of gentle warm up exercises, but it really does make a difference, just ask anyone who’s tried dancing before doing a warm-up routine. Joints will also be better mobilised with an increase in synovial fluid and it’s the perfect way to prepare yourself both mentally and physically for your dance lesson ahead.
Warm-ups help raise your internal body temperature and will help increase your heart rate and blood flow to the muscles so you can perform better. Whether it’s dancing, running or various sporting activities warm-ups are a universal way to ensure you have a productive and enjoyable session. So now we've examined the ways in which warm-ups can work and how long you’ll have to do them for the question remains why we exactly need to them and why they’re so important? Warmups are important because they prepare the body for the physical exertion you’ll be partaking in later. Some of the more common or standard warm up exercises include movements like neck isolations that help you move more fluidly and increase agility, leg swings that are commonly used in ballet to increase blood flow and fluidity and heel raises that help with balance and ease of movement during dancing. Warm-ups are generally followed with a cool down period at the end of the session, these generally involve slower rhythmic movements and exercises that will help decrease your body temperature and prevent symptoms like light-headedness and dizziness. Typically, warm-ups will be around 5 minutes long but can be much less or more depending on how long or advance your class is. Your instructor might also decide to rehearse some dance moves that you’ll be using later on in the class. Now don’t worry you won’t have to pull off at lot of complex moves or anything like that, in most cases warm-ups are stretching routines or simple rhythmic movements. Every tutor will have their own preferred warm up routines and they will often vary so people don’t get to bored repeating the same movements. You might be surprised by this if it’s your first dance lesson but it’s essential to ensuring you get the best dance experience possible. Yeah it might be annoying especially when you’re pumped up and ready to dance but stretching and warming up exercises are important, and you shouldn't skip them.
Just like taking part in a football match or any other sport, dancing requires you to do a quick warm up before you get started.