[UPDATED] Footsteps for Fitness with FitSteps
[UPDATE] Votes were cast, guesses were made and the final total of steps by Antony over the exam session was 4,700 (well 4,699 to be exact but he took one more step just to round up). The winning guesser will be contacted and we hope they enjoy their free FitSteps sessions.
As many of our dance students know, a while ago Antony invested in a smart watch. Not one of those all-singing, all-dancing (forgive the pun) colour screen, take a photo and talk to it watches but rather a simple but powerful Pebble.
What’s the point of a smart watch you may ask, why not just check your phone? For most working situations that’s probably true – is it more rude to look at your phone or your watch? But what if you’re teaching a class full of people and your phone goes off, it could be someone trying to find the class, looking to book lessons, or just your mate calling for a catch up. That’s where Antony finds it useful, plus it does wonders for battery life!
One of the updates his watch recently received was the ability to track ‘fitness’ using its built in technology and the UP for Pebble app by Jawbone. All day whilst it’s on his wrist it is tracking the steps he takes as well as providing an estimation of the calories burned.
Coupled with the UP app on his phone, Antony is able to get a daily view broken down by time slots.
Now I’m sure no one is surprised to learn that our dance fitness class FitSteps (created by Natalie Lowe and Ian Waite from Strictly, and Olympic swimmer Mark Foster) is responsible for a large chunk of Antony’s steps over the course of a day.
According to the app Antony did 14,250 steps on Wednesday 22 October (almost a quarter of a marathon!!!), for an estimated 2,895cal burned. FitSteps accounted for 2,924 of those steps in the morning.
By our calculations that equates to roughly 585 calories for a 45 minute class or 13 calories per minute. That’s more than cycling, swimming, cross country skiing or professional basketball (according to this summary of calorie burning activities).
It’s estimated that you can burn up to 600 calories in a FitSteps class and it’s so much more enjoyable than going to the gym (unless you like that sort of thing!).
If you’ve not tried our FitSteps classes yet you can book online for a free trial, or go one better and enter our competition to win a month’s FitSteps sessions.
This Sunday (26th October) Learn To Dance students will be taking their exams. Antony is partnering for 45 dances over 25 exams and we’re looking for your guesses as to how many steps (as measured by the UP app on Antony’s phone) Antony will dance over the approx. 2 hour exam session.
We have students taking Bronze, Silver and Gold exams as well as our kids Rainbow awards and Antony will be dancing both Ballroom and Latin American dances.
You have until 2pm on Sunday 26th October to send us your guesses either via email to info@want-to-dance.co.uk, or via any of our social media channels. Only one entry per person. The prize consists of 4 FitSteps sessions to be used by 31st December 2014.
About LearnToDance
LearnToDance is a Ballroom and Latin American Dance School run by husband and wife team Antony & Emma-Louise Holeksa and has been running since 2006. Classes for all levels and ages, and personal tuition, take place throughout the week, as well as dance breaks and private events.
