Name: Sachin Koshal
Age: 28
Profession: Software engineer.
Fitness goals: Weight loss and increased flexibility.
Workout of choice: Zumba, a high-energy class that incorporates Latin rhythm and dance steps, moving a room full of people in unison to tunes by musicians such as Luis Vargas, Marc Anthony, and Aretha Franklin. The class fuses salsa, cumbia, merengue, and other dance moves. “It’s a party in there,” says instructor Dana Warnock.
Location: Club H Fitness, Jersey City (clubhfitness.com).
Frequency/cost: One-hour class three to four times a week. Classes are included in the costs of membership; non-members pay $20 to $35 per visit.
How’s it going? “Incredibly well,” says Koshal, who has lost 35 pounds after a year of taking Zumba as his primary fitness class. Warnock, an elementary phys-ed teacher by day who leads 30 to 40 people of all ages and sizes through the moves every Zumba class, calls Koshal her “rock star.” He says he used to play cricket in India, “and it really made my body rigid. I started doing Zumba, and the dance is so much more fluid, it really challenges my body in a new way.”
Koshal loves the balance of dance and fitness—which, depending on the instructor, is about 70 percent dance and 30 percent fitness. “Some people go 90 percent in one direction, and that changes things,” he says. But there’s no class he’d rather do. “It’s like going out to a party on a Saturday night, it’s so much fun.” In fact, Koshal has become so good at this growing fitness trend (Zumba is taught at more than 40,000 locations in 75 countries) that he became certified to teach the class himself. “It’s the best.”