Modern Science

If you've got aching joints and arthritis, dancing can help. It may be hard to believe, but moving your joints helps relieve joint pain.

When you dance, you strengthen the muscles around the joints, which helps take stress off your joints. It also reduces joint stiffness and builds flexibility and endurance. Dancing can improve your mood and self-esteem. It helps you sleep better, keeps weight under control, and gives you more energy.

There's also a certain sense of accomplishment that comes from dancing. After all, pushing yourself to exercise - when your body hurts - isn't easy. In addition to arthritis pain relief, dancing for exercise can offset other health problems, like osteoporosis, diabetes, and heart disease.

Whether you have arthritis or not, a warm-up is a smart place to start.Going into an exercise activity with cold muscles can only cause pain and possibly injury.

Try these warm-up exercises. Do three to five repetitions each:

1. Put hands on hips. Bend from the waist on one side, then come back up. Repeat on the other side.

2. Raise one or both shoulders up toward the ears. Lower and repeat.

3. Extend arms out at both sides. Rotate arms forward, then in reverse.

4. Stand with feet shoulder width apart and toes turned slightly out. Rotate to your left side. Then rotate to your right side.

For any adult, including people that have arthritis, 30 minutes of exercise three times a week is recommended.

Accumulate it in small amounts of movement through out the day...start with 5-10 minutes and increase slowly.

Now put on your favorite music and dance!

Susan Kushner loves to read. She is the editor of http://www.heartandfitness.com, a website devoted to providing weight loss information and the steps to a healthy heart. It also provides you with valuable discounts on fitness gear and apparel along with weekly heart healthy recipes.

90's dance music