Dancing With The Stars’ Louis Van Amstel led a fitness session at the Mid Island Y Jewish Community Center in Plainview on Wednesday, Jan. 21, providing people a way to be active while also enjoying the thrill of dance.
Amstel, a three-time world champion ballroom dancer and longtime professional on ABC’s show, created LaBlast Fitness, a partner-free, ballroom-based dance fitness program that blends authentic dance techniques with cardiovascular and strength training.
Created to make exercise fun and accessible, it incorporates elements of traditional ballroom dances such as the rumba, salsa, foxtrot and waltz into a workout format that accommodates all fitness and experience levels. Participants, including the roughly 50 in attendance for Wednesday’s session, move to a wide variety of music genres, including pop, rock, hip-hop and country.
“I believe in leading a physically fit lifestyle,” Alize Margulis said, who has been an instructor at the JCC since 2011. “We are motivators for individuals to become physically fit, reducing the risk of diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.”
She said that exercise and dance boost brain function, strengthen bones and muscles and increase overall energy and longevity.
Margulis said that multiple instructors at the JCC are LaBlast-certified, which is how the world champion made his way to Plainview. Fitness directors from the Mid Island Y JCC and the Suffolk Y JCC were in attendance for the session as well.
Margulis said Amstel’s class was also an opportunity for instructors to learn.
“It was an opportunity to have a check-in with Amstel and learn new routines,” she said. “Amstel is a humble professional who cares about his team and it was a pleasure having him host a masterclass.”
Amstel began teaching dance-fitness classes in 2008 after being encouraged to create a partner-free class. LaBlast Fitness was launched in 2010 and has since expanded into a worldwide instructional program.
