“I can’t live without Zumba,’’ 37-year-old Gail Radzikowski of Saugus said after more than an hour of sweaty stepping, shaking, and dancing on a recent weeknight at Latin Beat Fitness Studio in Malden. Never one for exercise, Radzikowski says now she doesn’t feel right if she isn’t at Zumba four or five nights a week. “It’s changed my whole life.’’
Fads are integral to the fitness industry. From Shake Weights to NordicTracks, Jazzercise to pole dancing, they flare and usually fade. But periodically one takes hold.
“They come in and they come out, and some of them you see come around again,’’ said Robert Kenefick, a former associate professor of exercise science at the University of New Hampshire and now a research physiologist.
And Zumba, these days at least, is definitely in — and enduring — with roughly 12 million people taking classes each week at 110,000 locations in 125 countries, according to founding company Zumba Fitness, which licenses instructors around the world.
The California-based American Council on Exercise has identified the Latin-based dance program as one of the most popular workouts for 2011 (a distinction it also gave in 2009), and the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association also noted it as a top trend at fitness clubs this year. On any given day around Boston, dozens of the classes can be found in gyms, dance studios, church halls, nursing homes, schools, and, yes, even nightclubs. This Sunday, Royale nightclub in the Theatre District will host two master Zumba classes.
“Zumba is getting people off the couch,’’ said Leslie Bilosz, a licensed Zumba instructor from Middleton who started Bay State Zumba, now called Move Your Way Fit, about a year ago with just one class — and now hosts roughly a dozen, five days a week, in seven locations.
