Many are benefiting from dancing these days. This newest, yet oldest, form of exercise can be anything from the most classic ballet to the funkiest funk. Dancing, experts say, revs up your heart and makes your limbs limber until you're as elastic as capellini.

"Dance training is a great complement to any well-rounded fitness program," says Ann Marie Miller, group fitness training manager for Town Sports International in New York.

For the elderly, dance is the type of exercise that can boost your self-esteem. A recent study in the Annals of Behavioural Medicine reports people between 60 and 75 saw big improvements in their sense of self-esteem when they exercised three times a week for six months. The more they exercised, the bigger the improvements, the study found.

Rockin' to the beat will also reduce your chances of a second heart attack, says a recent study in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Dancing and other types of exercise following a heart attack reduce your risk of another attack by 80 percent; you reduce your risk of dying by 89 percent.

For dancing to work, you need to exercise continuously for 20 minutes to 60 minutes with your heart at 50 percent to 80 percent of your target heart rate, Miller says. An aerobics class will do that, with fairly simple, short dance routines that are repeated quickly to keep your heart rate up.

Classic ballet, with its frequent stops for learning new steps and movements and stretching won't push your heart as hard, but it provides other benefits, Miller says. A big one is flexibility; dancers stretch their bodies all kinds of ways. Posture and body alignment can also improve through classic ballet. And the centre section of your body will be strengthened.

"So you can really maintain balance when you're performing those pyrotechnic moves," Miller explains.

Polka and swing dancing will push your heart rate up enough so you can consider the exercise aerobic, Miller says, but also popular today are "hybrid" exercise classes, like funk or Latin dancing that teach relatively simple steps but keep you moving.

An African dance class at Miller's centre uses live drummers and instructors dressed in full theatrical costume.

"It's a lot of fun," Miller says. "It's a very exciting, theatrical atmosphere - like being on stage in The Lion King in class."

Fun is the operative word here.

Physical education courses nationwide are diversifying to include dance classes, largely to encourage kids to see exercise as fun - and something they'll want to pursue on their own once class is over.

For just about everyone, dance adds variety, Miller says, and can be a great way to cross-train.

The whole aerobics movement began in the late '60s and early '70s, Miller says, but even before that people danced for fun and, in the process, exercised. There was ballroom dancing, social dancing, dancing for self-expression, she explains.

"We've kind of come full circle," Miller says, "because historically, people have always been involved in dance - since the beginning of time."

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