A training plan, not a dance teacher
Smash Coach is a training app for adults who do sport, and dance is in its sport list. With Pro or during your trial, its coach plans your training around your dancing, as set out further down this page. The coach is AI, not a person.
It does not teach dance: no steps, technique, choreography or feedback on your turns. Your class stays exactly what it is, and your teacher stays the person for technique. What Smash Coach adds is the training that dance class tends to leave out, which is what the rest of this page is about. Every other sport is on the sports page.
Does dance class keep you fit?
Less than it feels like. A 2004 review in Sports Medicine by Yiannis Koutedakis and Athanasios Jamurtas concluded that performing dance gives only limited stimuli for fitness gains. It named aerobic power and muscular strength among dancers' weak points, and found that professional dancers often post values similar to healthy sedentary people of the same age on key fitness measures. Most of the research behind it was on ballet, as the authors say themselves.
A 2026 trial points the same way in a different style. Thirty women aged 18 and over who competed in DanceSport, the competitive form of ballroom and Latin, at city level or above in China were split at random. Over 12 weeks, the 15 who only kept up their regular dance training made no lasting gain in knee strength, and the judges' scores did not change significantly. The authors conclude that regular dance training alone “failed to produce meaningful gains in knee strength or dance performance”.
None of this means dancing is not exercise. In 22 non-professional adult Latin dancers, a salsa routine demanded about 46% of heart-rate reserve, which the researchers class as moderate to vigorous activity. Our view: dance keeps you active, but it trains the steps rather than a load that keeps rising, so the strength and the aerobic engine underneath have no reason to keep growing.
Will lifting make you dance worse?
This is the worry that keeps some dancers out of the gym, and the evidence points the other way. One test is a 2012 randomised trial by Manuela Angioi and colleagues. Twenty-four women who danced contemporary, students and professionals aged about 27, were split at random: half added two one-hour sessions a week of circuit and vibration training to their normal dancing for six weeks, and half carried on as usual. Three dropped out, so 21 finished. In the group that trained:
- Lower-body power rose 11%.
- Upper-body muscular endurance rose 22%.
- Aerobic fitness rose 11%.
- Aesthetic competence, a rating of the dancing itself, rose 12%. In the group that carried on as usual it fell 7%, and so did every fitness measure except aerobic fitness.
The 2026 DanceSport trial found the same direction, with blinded judges. The 15 women who added three one-hour strength sessions a week, with bodyweight and free weights, got stronger at the knee and scored higher for technical quality and movement to music on a 90-second solo routine. The five judges did not know who had trained. Because they danced solo, partnering was not tested.
The 2004 review, looking across the studies of its time, concluded that supplementary training can improve dancers' fitness “without interfering with key artistic and aesthetic requirements”, while warning that any change to traditional training should be made cautiously, so that the aesthetic content of the dance is not affected. A 2024 review of 36 studies and 890 dancers aged 16 to 47 (so some were 16 or 17), across ballet, contemporary, modern, jazz and ballroom, found strength and conditioning raised lower-body power and upper and lower-body strength. Only three of those studies rated the dancing itself, too differently to pool. Four measured flexibility, and it went up rather than down, though with a wide margin of uncertainty.
Every trial here was small, most of the dancers were women, and the 2024 review scored several of its studies low for quality, often for small samples or no randomisation. So this is not proof that lifting will make you a better dancer. It is consistent evidence that adding strength work did not make the dancers studied dance worse, and in two trials the dancers who trained were rated higher afterwards.
Do ballroom, contemporary and pole need different training?
Our view is yes, because the styles ask different things of you. A 2011 video analysis of 93 performances, 48 ballet and 45 contemporary, found ballet had more rest, about 38 seconds in every minute, broken by bursts of high to very high effort, with about five jumps and two lifts a minute. Contemporary was steadier, with about 27 seconds of every minute at moderate intensity. The authors suggest ballet may tax the anaerobic system more, and that its jumps and lifts can cause local muscle damage, particularly in relatively weaker dancers.
Ballroom and Latin are partnered, and pole mixes dance with acrobatic moves on a vertical pole. A 2019 study of 14 advanced amateur pole dancers, all women, measured a standard 60-minute class as moderate-intensity cardio by American College of Sports Medicine guidelines, with an average heart rate of 131 beats a minute and the routine parts harder than the skill practice.
| Style | What dancing trains, and misses | What added training did | Who was measured |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ballroom and Latin | Partnering, posture, footwork and timing. Salsa was moderate to vigorous work, yet in competitive dancers 12 weeks of regular training alone added no lasting knee strength. | Three one-hour strength sessions a week for 12 weeks: more knee strength and higher blinded scores for a solo routine. | 30 women aged 18 and over, about 20, competing in China (2026). Salsa: 22 non-professional adults (2014). |
| Contemporary | Steadier, more continuous moderate effort than ballet. On the 2004 review's reading, mostly of ballet, a limited fitness stimulus on its own. | Two one-hour circuit and vibration sessions a week for six weeks: power and aerobic fitness up 11%, rated dancing up 12%. | 24 women randomised, 21 finished; students and professionals, about 27 (2012). Performance: 93 performances on video (2011). |
| Adult ballet | Technique and control. In performance, long rests, short hard bursts and about five jumps a minute. | 12 weeks of thigh strength training: more knee strength, and a tiring routine no longer sapped it as it did in the others. Those weaker at the start gained more. | 22 full-time professional ballerinas, about 25 (2004). Performance: 93 performances on video (2011). We found no trial in adults who take ballet for fun. |
| Pole | Dance and acrobatic moves on a pole. A 60-minute class measured as moderate-intensity cardio, routines harder than skill practice. | We found no trial of added training. | 14 advanced amateur women in one standard class (2019). |
| Zumba (a class in Smash Coach) | Cardio to music, programmed by the instructor. | Ratings and trials are on classes. | See the classes page. |
| Barre (a class in Smash Coach) | Ballet-inspired exercise at a barre, programmed by the instructor. | What has and has not been tested is on classes. | See the classes page. |
Our reading of the table, not a finding: ballet asks for power and strong legs to land its jumps; contemporary for an aerobic base that lasts a whole piece; ballroom and Latin for leg strength and the stamina to dance well to the end; pole for pulling strength, grip and strong shoulders. Most dance research is on ballet and contemporary, so the other rows rest on less.
What should a dancer add?
Our view, not any trial's design: two things class does not reliably give you.
Strength
Legs first, because most styles ask them to jump, lunge, rise and hold positions: squats, split squats or lunges, step-ups, hip hinges such as Romanian deadlifts, and calf raises. Then the trunk and upper body, more so if you partner, lift or dance on a pole: rows, presses and pulling work such as pull-ups or lat pulldowns. The trials used different tools, circuits with vibration in one, bodyweight and free weights in another, thigh strength work in a third, and all pointed the same way. Our view is that the exact exercise matters less than adding load as the weeks go on.
Aerobic work
If class gives only a limited fitness stimulus, aerobic training outside it is worth adding. Match it to your style if you like: steadier work for long contemporary pieces, shorter hard efforts for ballet's bursts. In the 2012 trial, circuits that mixed muscular endurance and aerobic work raised aerobic fitness 11%, so the two can share a session.
Starting
Start lighter than you think, because new exercise tends to make you sore at first and a dancer's week is already full, then add load gradually. Across 25 randomised trials of 26,610 people in a mix of sports, some of the trials in adolescents, strength training cut sports injuries to under a third: the strongest general evidence for strength work that we know of. If something already hurts, see a physio or a doctor before you add load.
If you also take reformer Pilates, whether that is enough strength work on its own is on reformer Pilates, and how it sits beside lifting in one week is in reformer Pilates and weights.
None of these trials is a prescription. Each measured what a small group gained from one programme, not the least you need or the best way to arrange your week.
What does Smash Coach plan for dancers?
Dance, as a sport
A sport is something you do that your coach supports from the outside. Setting dance up takes two steps:
- On You, under SPORTS STACK, tap + ADD and pick Dance from SPORTS (add a sport).
- Choose Fixed days and tap the weekdays you dance, since each day you pick is one session a week, then set your usual session length. If your dancing moves around, Flexible lets the app pick the days instead, and you set how many sessions a week (sport settings).
Changes are not live until you tap Save. With Pro or during your trial, your coach then plans strength, conditioning and mobility around your dancing and the rest of your week, and when you change the days or the length, saving rebuilds your plan around the new shape of your week. On the free plan, dance's own sessions still go on its days, but your coach is paused, so the rest of your plan stays as it is.
Zumba and Barre, as classes
Zumba and Barre are in the list too, under GROUP CLASSES rather than SPORTS. A class is a session someone else has already programmed: it counts as training you have done, so with Pro or during your trial your coach adjusts what it gives you instead of adding on top. A class starts on Fixed days, because a timetable decides when it happens. How hard each class is, and what the research has tested, is on classes; dance as a sport stays on this page.
Around your classes, in the app
With Pro or during your trial, your coach writes your strength and conditioning sessions around the days you dance and any Zumba or Barre classes you take. If your timetable changes, change Dance's days and save; with Pro or during your trial, your plan is rebuilt around the new days.
Exercises are shown as clean illustrations: the movement on a plain background, with nothing extra, so you see what to do at a glance. The team is exploring video and moving images (exercise illustrations). Your teacher still owns your technique: with Pro or during your trial, Smash Coach plans the training around it.