4 Home Workouts That Increase Your Agility for Dancing
Pro cheerleading dance choreographies require performers to be nimble and flexible. It’s because these dance routines are explosive, fast-paced, and involve movements that belongs to the gymnastics category.
If you’ve watched TV shows about pro cheerleaders such as DCC: Making the Team, you’ll see some candidates in the boot camp may have extensive dance experiences, but still lack agility as performers.
But first, what is agility and why is it important for dancing? Agility is the ability to move quickly and easily. Pro cheerleaders need to have high levels of agility to be able to dance in sync with their squadmates. Otherwise, a dancer who isn’t agile is more likely to lag behind during a performance.
Therefore, train your body for agility as well so that the judges will be impressed by your prowess. Explore some of the best workouts below that you can incorporate into your daily fitness routine.
1. Warrior balance
Image source: POPSUGAR fitness
The warrior balance exercise is a bodyweight workout that strengthens your lower limbs while increasing the flexibility of your hip joints, improving your sense of balance, and aligning your spine for better posture. This exercise is originally a yoga pose but can also function as an agility workout if done repeatedly instead of holding the position.
2. Plank and arm/leg lift
Core condition is vital to the improvement of a person’s agility, which makes this plank and arm/leg lift workout highly beneficial for you. This simple exercise increases your abdominal strength. As a result, you’ll be able to move faster and jump higher with better control over your limbs for dancing.
3. Transverse lunge to power skip
Image source: Women'sHealth Magazine
Flexibility, speed, control, and balance won’t complete the agility checklist without stamina. Sure, you can dance accurately with vigor but you can’t sustain it if you’re easily out of breath. The transverse lunge to power skip will train both your lower body muscles and your cardiorespiratory endurance.
4. Side shuffles
Among the basic exercises for improving agility are the side shuffles. Yet, only a few people following a fit lifestyle do this workout during their session. The exercise looks simple to follow. But you'll be surprised — after five or four shuffles you’ll start gasping for more air.
Like the transverse lunge, side shuffles are great for improving your stamina. The only difference is that side shuffles improve your footwork a lot — a critical attribute that a dancer must have especially when performing in a group and doing turns.
There are more agility-increasing exercises you can do. But you can start with these home-based workouts. These will help condition your body to get it ready for more difficult agility exercises that involve equipment such as cones, hurdles, and the jump rope.
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Pro cheerleaders stay fit, flexible, and strong so they can give out their best performance in the arena. However, achieving that wow-worthy, toned physique doesn’t happen overnight. You need to arm yourself with the right daily workouts.
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