Zumba® Fitness workouts: are they an appropriate alternative to running or cycling?

[...]the challenges for individuals, prior to engaging in a training program for disease prevention, include the selection of an appropriate aerobic exercise as well as long-term compliance. Currently, no one has actually measured oxygen consumption during dance exercises to substantiate the caloric expenditure. [...]the purpose of the current study was to determine whether the use of two Zumba® Fitness workouts that differed in aerobic training goals were sufficient to evoke high amounts of caloric expenditure via the measurement of oxygen consumption. Upon reporting to the laboratory, the subject’s age, height, body mass, body mass index (BMI), body composition, and waking heart rates were either reported (i.e., age and heart rate) or measured (i.e., height, body mass, BMI, and body composition). The average heart rate response to the Zumba® Fitness Exhilarate workout was 79.7 ± 9.1 % of HRR as calculated using the Karvonen formula and the average caloric expenditure was 817 ± 168 kcal/h (Table 1).