Bhangra workouts...

Having grown up dancing and listening to Bhangra music, it was only natural for me to take my music to the gym with me when I was working out. I am sure countless others have done the same. Today you can go to the gym and find an aerobics class based upon bhangra dance and music. With American artists like Britney Spears and Jay-Z to express interest in Bhangra, it is is becoming increasingly popular with Americans. It is just like any other aerobics class however it combines steps and dance moves taken from the traditional dance form from the state of Punjab which has been divided between northern India and Pakistan.

Here is a recent article published in the CNN about Sarina Jain, dubbed as the "Indian Jane Fonda", and how she is taking this celebratory dance form and combining it with the infectious drum based beats and creating a healthy workout for everyone to enjoy.

Bhangra dance workout is a sweaty fitness celebration

By Elizabeth LeSure
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK — Sarina Jain tells her students to pretend they’re dancing at her wedding. And as her class steps, claps, and sweats to the pulsating sounds of Indian drum-beats, she encourages them to "Celebrate! Celebrate! Celebrate!"

Jain isn’t getting married, and the T-shirts and workout pants worn to her class are nothing like wedding finery. But the moves she is teaching are usually seen in banquet halls and Bollywood films, not New York City gyms.

Jain is the creator of the "Masala Bhangra Workout," a fitness program that blends aerobics with Bhangra, a type of folk music and dance that developed in Punjab, a region now divided between northern India and Pakistan, and has morphed into a modern pop dance sensation.
"Its vigor and vitality just make you move," said Jain, a dark-haired, fit California native whose parents were born in India.

Jain — dubbed the "Indian Jane Fonda" by her students — teaches at several gyms in New York, adding Bhangra to an extensive list of dance-based fitness classes that draw upon genres as diverse as African dance, ballet, hip-hop, belly dancing, salsa, and mambo.
Experts say incorporating music and dance into exercise routines can make people enjoy their workouts more — and stick with them.

Music "helps people to feel more comfortable moving their bodies," said Mary Dedrick, associate director of clinical education in the University of Buffalo’s department of exercise and nutrition sciences.

"I always find that if you have good music, that is a huge motivating factor for people in enjoying a class," she said. Dance, including that done by warriors to prepare for battle, has been a way for people to stay physically fit for thousands of years, according to Janet Hamburg, a professor of dance at the University of Kansas.

In the 1980s, Jain’s fitness idol launched an American aerobics craze with "Jane Fonda’s Workout." Jain’s own series of workout videos and DVDs builds upon Fonda’s success. She recently released her fifth DVD, a Bhangra workout for children.
After years of teaching fitness classes and studying marketing and public relations, Jain took out a loan in 1999 to launch her own company, Masala Dance & Fitness, Inc., which she named for a Hindi word that means spicy.

Last year her program was certified by the Aerobics and Fitness Association of America, and she is developing a training manual for other instructors. Jain infuses her classes with elements of both Indian and American cultures, alternating shouts of "Balle Balle!" — a Punjabi expression of joy — with very American exclamations of "Sexy arms! Sexy arms!" The steady beats of Bhangra and shouts of encouragement from Jain keep the energy level up, even as students’ faces get pink.

Jain’s students — women and one man at a recent session at a Manhattan gym — pulse their arms and follow her footwork as she instructs the class using a headset microphone.
"Her enthusiasm is quite infectious," said Pradyot Dhulipala, a 26-year-old programmer and the only man in the class. Dhulipala said he mentioned Jain in his blog and got 30 to 40 additional hits that day.

Jain is not the only one trying to coax people to exercise through dance. Hamburg has developed a series of programs that set dance movements to specially composed music. Her Motivating Moves workouts have been used with people with Parkinson’s disease.

"What’s been demonstrated is that people stick with them longer," she said. "They actually look forward to doing them." That is certainly the case for 26-year-old Ameeka Ahmed, who said the Masala Bhangra Workout doesn’t feel like exercise. "I love it," she said. "I look forward to it every week."