Performing arts often go hand in hand with fitness. In fact you’ll find that many venues that teach performing arts (from ballet and tap to hip hop) offer those classes right alongside more traditional fitness classes such as aerobics or spin classes. The performance arts have become the ‘alternative fitness’ class.

It’s not too hard to see why. It’s a natural progression from straight cardio fitness through cardio to music (aerobics) to learning a specific skill such as ballet. It’s all about making fitness fun, and you certainly can’t deny that the performing arts require a certain level of fitness. To perform at a professional level, you need not only the cardio fitness levels of a long distance runner but often the strength of a decathlete too! Then just look at the levels of fitness required to take a lead role in an action movie – yes, you have stuntmen (who are also super fit), but filming regular action sequences can be very hard work.

So why not make keeping fit and building strength a part of learning something you also enjoy. Start young enough and that skill could even see you become anything from a professional dancer to a circus performer with Cirque du Soleil.

What about your kids? Some kids don’t enjoy the competitiveness of sport. Some kids think they don’t like any physical activity. Expose those kids to something new and cool like learning street dance and suddenly they’re having fun, without even realising they are getting fitter.