Has your exercise routine grown stale lately? Just can’t find the motivation for to burn off carbs in your tedious, routine workout? The smooth, fluid and expressive flow of jazz music might be just the right injection to give yourself that old fire back. Originally created in the late sixties with minimal financial support but a lot of drive from founder Judi Missett, jazzercise has successfully merged music and exercise into a trend and technique that is beloved throughout the world. Jazzercise has an excellent balance of training for both strength and stamina with a fusion of many disparate methods for maximum fun in a workout. Currently there are over seven thousand certified instructors for this school of exercise, and it’s only growing more popular and profitable, which is amazing given the current economic climate.

Jazzercise is a school of exercise that places focus on having fun while getting in shape above all else. Instead of focusing on professional technique or competition, the idea is simply to enjoy yourself so much that you don’t even notice you’re sweating off the pounds until you look at yourself in a mirror. Since the primary enemy of most exercise routines has always been and always will be keeping up consistent motivation to stay fit over the long haul, jazzercise is excellently-designed to attack the problem directly to give you the best workout, not just physically, but emotionally as well.

While jazzercise is flexible enough to be manipulated into many different forms based on the needs of the individuals performing it, the traditional jazzercise class does have a fair amount of structure to it. With a duration span of roughly an hour, the first half is devoted to aerobics-based routines, testing the body’s stamina and getting warmed up. The second half switches to strength training, to emphasize growth of raw power once the body is ready to really exert itself. There are also a number of other formats for jazzercise routines intended for pregnant women, children, or for focusing on more specific goals like creating high muscle definition.

The broad nature of jazzercise means it can be easily tweaked for maximum fun and comfort. But more than that, it also gives the entire body a good generalized workout, so you have the body you want with no noticeable weaknesses or holes in stamina, flexibility or muscle strength. The result is simply a good-looking, well-rounded person, rather than a overly bulging body builder or a person with impressive physical power only within a very narrow, impractical niche. And, of course, all these exercises are done according to upbeat music… it doesn’t necessarily have to be jazz, either! Jazzercise can mold itself to almost any kind of music, based on what you enjoy listening to, although in general fast music works better than slow-paced music.

Because jazzercise requires little in the way of extra equipment and even less in terms of highy-specialized training, classes for it are quite cheap. Most classes are under ten dollars monthly, and extra discounts for new students or bulk purchases are more the rule than the exception. If you’re the do it yourself type, you can even research a little yourself and jazzercise at home without needing an instructor. Give it a go, and with all the fun you’ll be having, you’ll forget you’re doing something healthy!