Exercise and Motivation

Sometimes it's tricky to get motivated. Whether it's to get out of bed in the morning*, popping to the corner shop for some tomato sauce**, to exercise for that beach body*** or even to sit down and write a blog post****! For the past 3 months or so, I'm sure it's been difficult for the majority of people (writing blog posts excluded). What has been your motivation? What has been getting you up and out of bed each morning? Especially if you've not had a job to go to, errands to run or people to go and see...

Now that the lockdown restrictions are being eased, it should be giving a lot more people the motivation to do something. More people are now being able to go back to work; we can meet up with a few friends and family and even Primark is open. Definitely something to motivate you to get out of bed and get on with the day!

Without a goal or a reason, it's easy to get stuck in a rut and I'm sure there are many people through-out this pandemic who have become a bit stuck. Business owners, GCSE students, competitive athletes, the old lady at number 58... Each person is different and has their own motivation for each day, but without their normal activities or structure it's easy to become aimless and lost.

Physical exercise has been proved to help mental health and overall wellbeing, and whilst it can be very tiring mentally, to even begin attempting something active, the rewards are great. And the best thing about it? Anything goes! Get out for a walk or run. If you can't do that, go up and down your stairs at home 20 times. Live in a bungalow or flat? Then get up and out of a chair 30, 40 or 50 times! You'll soon get your heart rate up, and even break into a sweat. Exercise is so important and we should all try and do something, regularly.

For quite a number of our followers, dance is their fitness fix. Obviously this has been a bit of a problem to satisfy for the past few months. Soon after the lockdown was put in place and people were told to stay in their homes, we devised a simple exercise routine, based around dance moves and performed to dance music, that can be done in the home. Now it's not supposed to replace dance at all - I mean, what is there that can possibly replace dance? - but it goes a long way to giving people some much needed exercise that is similar in style to the dances they would normally do in a class or lesson. Not only that, but it works on the base moves and important muscle groups so that when finally, we're able to dance again, those that have been regularly doing it, should be feel better, stronger and fitter! Perfect. It doesn't however address those dodgy foot faults...

The response from this workout has been overwhelming, with so much positive feedback.

I am really enjoying the daily workouts and find I have better posture, my daughter said I had toned up and I am definitely more flexible.

An excellent workout as ever - really feeling the stretch.

Great class - My favourite is the stretch in the Waltz.

320 cals on my Fitbit excellent start to each day.

Thank you so much for the daily workouts... they have certainly been beneficial, especially when following the teaching points - Kelly, my sternum has never been more lifted! Being able to have a ballroom influenced workout with appropriate music is a bit of escapism while improving on each move.

These are just a few of the lovely comments and feedback we've received. Since the 1st April we've been broadcasting our workout live, 6 days a week, only resting on Sunday. Both Kelly and I know that this isn't a replacement for our dance classes, but it sure does go a long way to burning off a similar amount of calories! You may ask what our motivation is? Well, that's easy! It's getting YOU motivated to grab a couple of tins of beans of a morning and have a good sweat along with us!

So, our daily workout continues whilst we're still unable to bring you dance classes in the flesh. Who knows what the future holds though? Maybe this will become part of the Dizzyfeet timetable in the future! Want to join us? Then tune in to our Facebook page every day at 10.30am. We promise to motivate you to a heathier, fitter future! Check out the video below for a little preview of what we get up to....

* To answer the door to the Amazon delivery driver

** Because your Deliveroo order forgot the ketchup

*** Sigh.... beach.....

**** I'll read yours if you read mine