Breakdance has potential to turn your life into creative and lively one, borrowing the words from the 67 year old break dancer. But it is not only psychology. There is a side benefit in break dancing to our physical body through muscle building.
It turns out that breakdance is a natural fit to some of the workout methods, and train the specific parts of your muscle.
Today, I will introduce the different parts of muscles that are affected by break dancing. If you are someone who goes to work out already, you can use this to your advantage in how to use dancing as your complimentary strategy.
Muscle and Health Benefit
First I want to touch on what it means to build your muscle and its potential benefits to your health.
Benefit 1: Dieting
The anaerobic nature of muscle building exercise releases human growth hormone called anabolic peptide. That in turn increases your metabolism energy, which helps burn your body fat.
Compared to aerobic exercise like running, this anaerobic workout burns energy even while sleeping. It will be more effective while you are on a diet.
Benefit 2: Mood Maintenance
Other than the growth hormone, your body releases various chemicals, including serotonin, endorphins, dopamine, etc. They are responsible for your pleasure and happiness.
Benefit 3: Attractive
Of course, muscle has big impacts on your appearance. For men, the larger muscle around pectoralis major, that pumps up your chest. The activity itself also releases testosterone, which boosts your attractiveness. For women, upper arms would be shaped. It also helps in keeping your posture straight, where you to look more confident.
Breakdance and Muscle
Breakdance's Natural Fit
While most dance genres involve stand up position, breakdance takes advantage of 4 areas. First it starts at the top just like any other dance. Then they transition into the floor move. Power move is used as an accent. Finally they finish the session with a freeze. People can move back and forth between the four, but this is the most common breakdance flow.
Compared to standing, the floor move, power move, and freezes are way more demanding of your physical strength. It will build solid muscle as you train those techniques.
Examples
You build your muscle by applying pressure in an anaerobic mode. That workout condition fits naturally to break dancing. I want to demonstrate it from the 2 of the basic moves: six steps and chair freeze.
Six steps puts your weight on your knees. When you swap in and out, your weight will lie on one of your knees. That requires strength. Depending on the style, you might persuade six steps that are more dynamics and far reaching. In that case, you will be relying more on your forearms and fingertips to support your whole body.
Chair freeze requires holding your entire body on one your. It is not only that. It also asks your back and inner muscle to pull your legs up in the air.
Advancement in Breakin = Stronger Muscle
The above examples are basic moves that are relatively easy. As long as you are physically fit, it is possible to do it even without prior breakin experience.
But there are more advanced techniques like windmill, thomas, air flare, etc. They require complex body coordination, fullying utilizing inner muscle, arm strength and leg control.
The higher levels of breakdance skills you master through, the stronger your muscle becomes.
Affected Muscle
Here is a list of muscles that are affected the most in technical terms.
- Floor Move: quadriceps muscle
- Power Move: triceps brachii muscle, adductor muscle
- Freeze: abdominal oblique muscle, latissimus dorsi muscle
Breakdance and Long Term Health
Muscle is correlated with long term health regulating your metabolism and hormone balance. You can achieve those health benefits through breakdancing.
If you already do a workout, it will be complementary to your training. Break dancing gives you not only joy and excitement but also the buildup in your muscle. Let's spice up your life with break dancing.