At what age are dancers most vulnerable to injuries, and why?

Although young bodies are durable and quick to heal from injuries, the constant repetition of such strenuous movements causes instability in hip sockets and can lead to severe pain in the joints — as well as long-term conditions like deformities, dysplasia, and labral tears, she said.
"That drives us up the wall. We really do not support any reason to do splits," Solomon told Business Insider. "Most young people who are not trained in technique prior to trying to do these kinds of things really are very vulnerable to hip problems especially."
The data appears to agree with Solomon's assessment — the number of dance-related injuries being treated in US emergency rooms annually has been climbing for years, according to one 2013 study by the Nationwide Children's Hospital's Center for Injury Research and Policy.
Between 1991 and 2007, the annual number of injuries in young dancers jumped by 37%, which is likely a wild underestimate, according to the study's lead author, Kristin Roberts. The study only had access to data from US emergency rooms and therefore didn't include injuries that were treated at home, by family doctors, or by private physiotherapists.
The causes of the increasing injury rate are even murkier, but social media trends, reality-TV shows, and video games that have helped popularize dance probably aren't too far off the mark, Roberts said.
Regardless of the root cause of the injuries, the popularity of these tricks defy all logic, Solomon said, especially because the solution is so simple: Stop performing movements the body isn't equipped to handle.
"I have no idea why this phenomenon has spouted up, except that it's a kind of entertainment without proper instruction," she said. "There are so many movements in the world that you could do. Why do something that might be deleterious?"

Athletes in many of the aesthetic sports, including dance, require high level strength AND flexibility to achieve performance goals. Because dancers move through significant ranges of motion in the spine, hips, ankles, and feet, it is important to have adequate strength and flexibility in surrounding muscle groups to reduce risk of injury and maximize performance. Beyond optimizing strength and flexibility, it is important for dancers to develop a fine-tuned balance between activity and rest to allow for proper recovery and restoration in the body.
Most dance injuries, especially in dancers that are still growing, are overuse injuries. These types of injuries occur because of one or a mix of the following reasons:
- Inadequate warm-up before and/or cool-down after activity
- Inadequate rest/recovery time between bouts of activity (another way to say this is high volume of activity and low volume of rest or none at all)
- Poor nutrition
- High levels of stress inside and outside of sport
The most important point to drive home with overuse injuries is the importance of encouraging dancers to listen to their body. Any sign of discomfort is the body’s attempt at throwing a yellow or red flag, suggesting the dancer proceed with caution or stop the immediate activity altogether until further medical assessment is performed. Recognizing and whole-heartedly understanding that athletes do not like to hear that they must step out of their sport for any length of time, it is important to acknowledge warning signs early. When yellow and red flags are honored as soon as they pop up, there may still be time to make modifications and allow for some level of participation before having to withdraw from the activity altogether. From both the athlete and instructor/coach perspective, it is undesirable to have to sit out for one day. But this one day could prevent future sidelining that has the potential to last for multiple days or maybe the entire season.
There are many ways dancers can take accountability for nourishing and treating their body with care. Beyond finding a proper balance between activity and rest, dancers can integrate specific strengthening and flexibility exercises into their daily routine. Important muscle groups for dancers to strengthen include the deep core (including the transverses abdominus), gluteals and deep hip rotators, and foot intrinsic muscles. It is also important for dancers to remain flexible in their hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes, and ankle plantar flexors (gastrocnemius and soleus).

November 2000 https://www.iadms.org/page/1
2) Delegete, A. Health Considerations for the Adolescent Dancer. A webinar through the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries. Accessed September 23, 2018.
3) Steinberg, N., Siev-Ner, I., Peleg, S., Dar, G., Masharawi, Y., Zeev, A., & Hershkovitz, I. (2012). Extrinsic and intrinsic risk factors associated with injuries in young dancers aged 8–16 years. Journal of sports sciences, 30(5), 485-495.
4) Steinberg, N., Siev-Ner, I., Peleg, S., Dar, G., Masharawi, Y., Zeev, A., & Hershkovitz, I. (2013). Injuries in female dancers aged 8 to 16 years. Journal of athletic training, 48(1), 118-123.
The immune system provides protection from seasonal illness such as the common cold as well as other health problems including arthritis, allergies, abnormal cell development and cancers. Dancers are exposed to physical stress from training, which increases susceptibility to illness. Additionally, working in close proximity with other dancers increases exposure to infection. Nutrition plays an important role in maintaining immune function to protect against infection. Learn how to boost your immunity by including these nutrients in your eating plan.
Proteins form many immune cells and transporters. Try to consume a variety of protein foods including seafood, lean meat, poultry, eggs, beans and peas, soy products and unsalted nuts and seeds.
Vitamin A helps regulate immune function and protects from infections by maintaining healthy tissues in skin, mouth, stomach, intestines and respiratory system. Vitamin A is found in foods such as sweet potatoes, carrots, kale, spinach, red bell peppers, apricots, eggs or foods labeled "vitamin A fortified," such as cereal or dairy foods.
Vitamin E works as an antioxidant to neutralize free radicals. Include vitamin E in your diet with fortified cereals, sunflower seeds, almonds, vegetable oils (such as sunflower or safflower oil), hazelnuts and peanut butter.
Vitamin C protects stimulates the formation of antibodies, which are necessary to fight infection.

Knowledge of a sport’s demands, lore, and jargon aids in understanding the athlete’s problems.
Moderate risk. Reports of specific injuries, which include stress fractures of the pars, distal fibula, and base of the second metatarsal; Achilles tendonitis; cuboid subluxation; os trigonum impingement syndrome; and trigger toes. Toes are severely stressed. Delay in puberty and emphasis on slenderness is a problem for girls and can lead to eating disorders. Be aware that the dancer’s self-image is one of an artist, not an athlete, despite the high level of athletic demands.
Moderate risk, depending upon the child’s age. Most acute injuries are associated with sliding, collisions, and ball or bat strikes. Most deaths occur from ball strikes to the head, neck, or chest. Overuse injuries, such as little league elbow, are preventable but potentially serious problems. Unusual injuries include apophysitis of the acromion, distal humeral epiphyseal separation, persistence of the olecranon physis, and avulsion of the iliac crest apophysis while swinging a bat.
Moderate risk. Injuries as compared with other sports occur more often but usually are mild. Injuries in children under age 12 involve mainly contusions, sprains, lacerations, and rarely a fracture. Seldom are there serious injuries. Adolescent injuries are more common and more likely to be serious, such as contusions, sprains, and sometimes fractures. Ankles and knees are affected most. Most serious are ACL injuries. Ankle injuries require rehabilitation to prevent recurrence.
High risk. Most serious accidents are due to collisions with motor vehicles. Prevention is essential through education of children, use of helmets, and avoidance of congested roadways. Potential long-term disability from head injury is significant.
High risk. Most injuries are due to collisions in this most risky sport. Catastrophic injuries can be reduced by using a well-fitting helmet and by avoiding spearing (initial head contact in blocking and tackling). A quarter of American football players are obese. Injury rates increase with maturation. Long-term osteoarthritis of the knee and hip are possible sequela from major injuries of these joints. Most problems result from acute injury and are due to joint and neurological damage.

There are a few causes for this phenomenon:
- Practicing one sport generally leads to one way of moving on the same surface – this stresses the same tissues repetitively and can lead to micro trauma over time
- Repetitive tissue loading in high volumes creates high demands on joints in a young changing body (i.e., during puberty) – this can lead to a breakdown of tissues
A quick tip in preventing overuse injuries: listen to the warning signs and be assessed by an exercise physiologist or strength & conditioning coach (or see an allied health professional if you’re already in pain).
Work with a qualified exercise specialist to incorporate movement variations at an appropriate time in your YTP; test regularly, track growth and development, use a “coach’s eye” to assess daily movement quality, and expose artistic athletes to fundamental movements skills (especially outside of the repetitive movements they may be familiar with).
With longevity at its core, part of a structured supplemental training program should also involve recovery strategies to prime the body and energy systems for the following days’ practice/rehearsal, performance, or competition. Exercise physiologists and strength & conditioning coaches will strategically structure an athlete’s YTP to include (but are not limited to):
- aerobic conditioning within a targeted heart rate zone for a purposeful cool-down
- planned de-load weeks between blocks of training that include general preparatory exercises and circuits to prevent staleness and overtraining
- contralateral circuits to prime movements and energy systems for greater performance outcomes in the following week
- breathing techniques, mindfulness, and meditation
- corrective exercises to balance full-body locomotion and mobility-stability deficits
- re-lengthening through dynamic and/or static stretching and SMR (self-myofascial release)
IMPORTANT TRAINING CONSIDERATIONS
When seeking supplementary strength & conditioning programs, it’s important to work with a certified exercise physiologist and/or a strength & conditioning specialist, preferably with a background in artistic sports performance. The design of any resistance training program must be specific to the artistic sport.
Athletes are much more likely to be passionate about their training if they understand why they are training and what the expected outcomes may be. Motivation to keep training comes from educating athletes about the importance of strength & conditioning. Education should be given in reference to injury prevention and improved performance to create longevity within their athletic career, as well as for an active life after sport.

Young female athletes appear to face a far greater risk for repetitive motion injuries than young males do, new research suggests.
The finding stems from an analysis that looked at overuse injuries among 3,000 male and female high school athletes participating in 20 different sports.
Researchers from Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus report that the highest overuse injury rate was observed among girls who ran track.
This was followed by girls who played field hockey and girls who played lacrosse.
By contrast, among boys the most overuse injuries occurred among swimmers and divers. Their rate of repetitive motion injuries was pegged at only about a third of what investigators saw among female runners.
The study was published recently in the Journal of Pediatrics.
“During this point of their lives, this is when girls are developing bones at the greatest rate,” study author Dr. Thomas Best said in a center news release. He is a professor and chair at OSU’s department of sports medicine.
So “it’s incredibly important that they’re getting the proper amounts of calcium and vitamin D,” he said.
Best and his colleagues pointed out that overuse injuries make up about half of all athletic injuries. They are particularly common among children between the ages of 13 and 17.
Overuse injuries also account for about twice as many visits to sports medicine doctors than incidents of acute trauma, the authors noted.
Overall, most overuse injuries involved the lower leg, the study team noted. This was followed by knee and shoulder injuries.
To limit risk, the researchers advised that all high school athletes play more than just a single sport and make a conscious effort to change up their movements. Parents, they added, should encourage their children to get the rest and foods they need to stay healthy.

Tibial fractures, medial collateral ligament injuries, and thumb and shoulder injuries are common. Collision injuries are the most serious, as head, spine, and extremity injuries may have long-term sequelae. The most common injuries were contusions of the knee in children and sprains of the ulnar ligament of the thumb in adolescents. With increasing age, lower extremity injuries decrease but upper extremity injuries increase.
Moderate risk. Overuse and injuries involving the ankle and knee are common. ACL injuries are 2–3 times greater in girls. Long-term disability risk is low to moderate. The incidence increases with age, and injuries are more common in girls. Seventy percent of the injuries are located in the lower extremities, particularly the knee (26%) and ankle (23%). Back pain occurs in 14% of players. Fractures, which account for 4% of injuries, are more often in the upper extremities. Indoor soccer is the most risky.
Low risk. Overuse injuries of the shoulder, back, and knee are common, but long-term disability risk is low. Good training and modification of swimming strokes are important in preventing and managing these–problems. Shoulder pain is due to impingement or instability. Preparedness for swimming is optimal between ages 5 and 6 years.
Low risk. Acute injuries involving the lower limbs with sprains are the most common injuries. Upper extremity injuries, often due to overuse, are preventable with appropriate training, stroke technique, and equipment. Long-term disability risk is low.
Very high risk. Most injuries occur from falls on hard surfaces to the side of the device. Head and cervical spine injuries are relatively common, and the potential for long-term disability is great. Discourage families from allowing children to play on trampolines.
Low to moderate risk. With proper supervision and low weights, this sport is relatively safe. Overuse is the most common cause of injury. Long-term sequelae are low.
High risk. More injuries occur in large adolescents and more during competition than in practice. The upper limb and knee are the most common sites of injury, and dislocations are more common than fractures. Most injuries are acute sprains.

How You Can Prevent Ballet Injuries
Ballet injuries can be prevented by making sure that you are wearing properly fitted shoes, especially if you are dancing en pointe.
There are professionals you can see who know how to fit you properly for pointe shoes; ask your ballet instructor how to find one. Once you have your shoes, take proper care of them.
Dancers should not try dancing en pointe before the age of 11 or 12. By doing so, they can risk growth-plate injuries, and the bones of their feet may develop improperly.
Indeed, no dancer should ever attempt a feat that he or she is not ready for. As in sports, proper training in dancing is crucial to injury prevention.
- Ensure proper nutrition.
- If you increase your training schedule, take it slowly; don’t suddenly go from once a week to every day.
- If you spend most of one workout en pointe or demi-pointe, focus your next workout on something else.
- Avoid dancing on hard surfaces.
- Avoid dancing on uneven surfaces.
- If you are in pain, STOP!

Injury incidence ranges from 1.4 to 3.7 injuries per 1000 participation hours. The injury rate in competition is two times higher than in practice. However, most injuries occur during practice because the exposure time is greater. Both acute and overuse injuries occur in gymnastics. In both male and female gymnasts, 60% of injuries are acute. The parts of the body that are particularly affected are the shoulder, wrist, elbow, lower back, knee, and ankle. Common injury types are strains, sprains, contusions, and less commonly fractures (acute and stress). Concussions make up 2.3% of injuries in practice and 2.6% of injuries in competition. In one study of elite and subelite female gymnasts from ages 11 to 19 years, 12.3% of injuries were to growth plates.
The lower extremity is the most common area of injury in female gymnasts, accounting for 53% of injuries in practice and 69% of injuries in competitions. In competition, 20% of injuries are internal derangement of the knee (e.g., ACL tear, medial collateral ligament [MCL]/lateral collateral ligament sprain, or meniscal tear), and 16.4% of injuries are ankle sprains. These injuries most often occur during floor routines and dismounts. Chronic injuries of the knee include patellofemoral syndrome, patellar tendonitis, and Osgood-Schlatter disease. Foot injuries include calcaneal apophysitis, foot pad contusion, sesamoiditis, planter fasciitis, and fracture (acute and stress).
Upper extremity injuries are the second most common area of injury in female gymnasts and the most common area of injury in male gymnasts at 54%. In male gymnasts the most common site is the shoulder. Shoulder injuries include rotator cuff impingement, strain, and tendinosis, labral tear, and glenohumeral dislocation. The most common sites of upper extremity injury in female gymnasts are the wrist and elbow. The elbow can be affected by acute injuries (i.e., ulnar collateral ligament sprains, fractures, and dislocations) and chronic injuries (i.e., medial epicondyle apophysitis and osteochondritis dissecans of the capitellum).

As dancers return to the studio, it is important to gradually introduce jumps to prevent lower leg injuries. Foot and ankle injuries are often incurred during dynamic movements like jumping, and improper flooring, poor technique, and fatigue can increase the risk of injury.
Here are some important tips to lessen the likelihood of sustaining injury during jumps:
Russell J. A. (2013). Preventing dance injuries: current perspectives. Open access journal of sports medicine, 4, 199–210. https://doi.org/10.2147/OAJSM.S36529

Many preventive programs are targeted toward athletes aged from 15 to early twenties. It is possible that the implementation of injury prevention programs would be more beneficial at an earlier age; according to some authors we should put most effort into prevention from 12-14 years. From a motor learning aspect even age 6-12 might be important in relation to develop ‘‘good habits'' (good warm-up routines and movement patters) and to establish correct playing technique.
For more detailed information you can download the fact sheet "Preventing injuries in Basketball" here
1. Abernethy L, Bleakley C. Strategies to prevent injury in adolescent sport: a systematic review. Br J Sports Med 2007 41: 627-638
2. Fong DTP, Chan YY, Mok KM, Yung PSH, Chan KM. Understanding acute ankle ligamentous sprain injury in sports. Sports Medicine, Arthroscopy, Rehabilitation, Therapy & Technology 2009, 1:14
3. Stasinopoulos D. Comparison of three preventive methods in order to reduce the incidence of ankle inversion sprains among female volleyball players. Br J Sports Med 2004 38: 182-185
4. Cumps E, Verhagen E, Meeusen R. Prospective epidemiological study of basketball injuries during one competitive season: Ankle sprains and overuse knee injuries J Sports Sci and Med 2007; 6: 204-211
5. Cumps E, Verhagen E, Meeusen R. Efficacy of a sports specific balance training programme on the incidence of ankle sprains in basketball. J Sports Sci Med 2007;6:212-219
6. Myklebust G, Steffen K. Prevention of ACL injuries: how, when and who? Grethe. Knee Surg Sports Traumatol Arthrosc 2009;17:857-858
7. Caine DJ, Harnmer PA,Shiff M. Epidemiology of injuries in Olympic sports. 2010. Blackwell Publishing Ltd
8. Starkey C. Injuries and Illnesses in the National Basketball Association: A 10-Year Perspective Journal of Athletic Training 2000;35(2):161-167
9. McKay GD, Goldie PA, Payne WR, Oakes BW.

Flexibility and Age
A very interesting study was done with 4,500 children ages 5-18 years. 100% of the 5-year-olds could sit with legs straight and touch their toes. By age 12 only 30% could do so but by age 18 flexibility increased to 60% could touch their toes. The low point in flexibility was age 12 for boys and 13 for girls.
Why is there a loss of flexibility? This age coincides with the skeletal growth spurt, so muscle tissues are shorter relative to bone length until muscle growth catches up to bone growth. Be aware that their is also an increased chance of injury to muscles during this time.
At the other end of the spectrum, aged adults become less flexible with the passing years because the connective tissue loses elasticity.

The judging is fierce and the competition makes the dancer want to strive even harder to become an amazing artist. Dance is strenuous. In fact, dancers have one of the highest rates of non-fatal on the-job injury. ” The causes of most dance injuries are pushing for perfection so hard that muscles are strained, shin splints occur, plantar fasciitis happens, and stress fractures are created. When dancers have this the best way to cure it is stretching before and after dancing. If any serious injury occurs like breaking bones landing a move wrong it could ruin the dancer’s career.
Most dancers retire around the age of 30 if an injury happens early the dancers career they will usually retire a teacher. Recovering could take a few weeks to years. A lot of dancers have permanent damage to their body after a vigorous career of muscles being strained and the body being pushed to its limit. Becoming a professional dancer is risky but rewarding. To become a professional dancer it takes hours of practice in a studio and the acceptance of not becoming a huge star with a lot of money.
To embark on the journey to become a professional dancer the first decision to make is what style of dance, after the decision is made the next step is to find a dance studio, during the training in the studio cross training will be needed to become stronger and more flexible, the finance, competitions and injuries are all ideas to consider before committing to a vigorous but rewarding schedule. Every dancer has a different opinion of this profession but the ones who love to dance and have the passion that no one could ever take away from them are the ones who are happy and loving every second of it.

There was no difference in the frequency of reported injuries between subjects with vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency ( 2.1 ± 0.6 injuries ) and those with normal vitamin D levels ( 1.4 ± 0.6 injuries ). This pilot study showed that more than half of highly-trained young male ballet dancers presented with low levels of vitamin D in winter. Further investigations in larger samples of adolescent athletes are needed to determine if this could negatively impact bone growth and place them at higher risk for musculoskeletal injuries.
Access may be restricted.

Contrary, if an orthopedic condition is not taken into consideration, the work on Pointe in some cases can lead to the end of the dance career.
In our clinic, we evaluate dancers for postural dysfunctions in order to prevent injuries and allow a smooth transition from the Tennis shoes to the Pointe shoes.

Dancers with limited hip flexors, coupled with weak abdominals, lead to extreme pelvic tilt and improved disk compression inside the spinal column.
The SuperiorBand® and SuperiorBand® Extremely allow you to stretch farther any time you incorporate it for your heat-up stretching positions. Use it in advance of every single practice to raise your stretching motion. The SuperiorBand® and SuperiorBand® Ultra do the job for equally static (keep) and dynamic (relocating) stretching.
Ligament Sprains and Meniscal Tears from the Knee: these accidents normally stem from constrained hip rotation. Dancers with “tight” hips have a tendency to compensate with their knees and ankles, Therefore placing irregular forces on these joints, leading to injury.
Deal with exhaustion and tension: It is just a recognized actuality that almost all athletes and dancers accomplish very best when rested and comfortable. Tiredness and stress result in muscle tightness and deficiency of aim, check here Therefore drastically expanding the chance of acute injuries.
The earliest method of ballet was done in huge chambers with viewers seated on galleries to make sure that the floor sample might be visible from higher than to look at the choreography.

Even when they don’t have the natural knack for it, they learn the vocabulary.” He feels almost everyone can learn dance enough to enjoy it.
Injury and Sacrifice
Professional dance is pure artistic movement and while often graceful, it requires athleticism and strength of both body and mind. It seems for professionals it is a life of give and take, with dancers giving their all artistically and dance itself taking its toll physically. I ask Jahrel about injury. He talks first about dancers hurting themselves trying to do moves to quickly without first slowly building on learning technique. Like anything else, you have to put in the hours. He explains, “The longevity of a dancer’s life usually depends how injured they’ve been through their life and how much the pain out weighs the joy.” He has dealt with pain. “Well, I went through two or three years where I was just dealing with constant pain, and in the beginning I was like, pain is just a part of dancing, you just keep doing it. But when you walk down the street after you rehearse and you go home and [holding right his foot] it’s throbbing and you wake up and you step on it and it hurts day after day after day... like it eats at your brain and just takes away from everything.” Jahrel also suffered a freak performance related injury aboard a cruise ship where after three weeks of hard rehearsals to prepare for four one hour shows, his solo at the end would have him exiting the stage in the dark. What wasn’t properly communicated is during the end of his solo, an elevated movable stage would be dropping and creating a 16 foot deep pit behind him. So, after a bunch of split leaps and landing, he turned and his dark exit was straight down! “I was happy I finished it right and was leaving and suddenly there was no ground underneath me, and I guess somebody screamed pit!! and I was gone, that was it, it was over. It hurt, a lot.”
I feel it’s important to tell this part of a dancer’s story and life, because if you enjoy and celebrate the arts, in this case dance, it’s good to also appreciate the sacrifices artists go through away from the lights of the stage. I think it brings a greater appreciation for the arts overall. It’s what you don’t see in the price of admission that is often the most valuable.

More severe common injuries include ACL tears and stress fractures.
Definitely! For male dancers most injuries occur in the back, knee, and upper body due to difficult partnering and jumps. For female dancers, foot and ankle injuries are pretty common due to the amount of pointe work they’re required to do.
The most difficult injury I’ve ever had to overcome was my Lisfranc Ligament Tear in my right foot. In December of 2015, I was overworking myself with shows of Nutcracker, working out intensely to build more muscle, and rehearsing variations to record to send out for auditions. Because I was putting so much stress on my body, my muscles and ligaments were more prone to being inactive and unstable. So after one Nutcracker show, on my way home, I misjudged stepping off the sidewalk and at that moment the ligament connecting both my first and second metatarsal suddenly snapped. It was one of the worst pains I’ve ever felt and would never wish it upon anyone. After three weeks of believing it was a sprained foot after a misdiagnosis, I was taken to an orthopedist by my mom who is an RN. X-rays showed that my ligament had in fact torn completely and my metatarsals had slowly started separating. The doctor told me that if I hadn’t come in and waited another week my career would’ve been done. A few days later I was in a surgery center undergoing a procedure to put hardware in my mid foot to repair my ligament. It took seven months, two surgeries and lots of physical therapy until I could even start doing barre again. I had to relearn how to walk, stabilize, and regain control of all the tiny muscles and ligaments in my foot. When Ashley offered me a contract to dance at Joffrey, I still had two screws in my foot and he told me he had absolute faith that I would come back stronger than I was before. With him, the incredible ballet masters, the support of my Joffrey family, and the help from all the physical therapists who worked with me at the ballet and the Athletico clinic, I was jumping by September and fully dancing by October – just in time for the fall program of Romeo and Juliet in my first season!
During a busy time like Nutcracker when we’re doing so many shows, it’s harder for muscles to activate as quickly when they’re exhausted.

Plantar fasciitis: This is an inflammation of the plantar fascia, a band of tissue running along the bottom of the foot from heel to toes. The injury is related to overuse.
Ankle Impingement: Many variations of this condition exist, but the one that concerns us here is posterior ankle impingement syndrome, also known as os trigonum syndrome, and commonly referred to as “dancer’s heel.” This happens when soft tissue becomes trapped and pinched by bones, which causes painful spurs to form.
Achilles Tendonitis: This condition can be brought on by dancing on a floor that is not properly “sprung,” or in other words is too hard. Overtraining can also cause Achilles tendonitis, especially hard training in a short time after a period of inactivity.
Cuboid Syndrome: Repetitive movement (such as one does when training) or sprains (another common ballet injury) can cause cuboid syndrome, a painful misalignment of the cuboid bone on the outer edge of the mid foot.
Metatarsalgia: This condition generally manifests itself as pain in the ball of the foot, and in dancers it is often brought on by years of overwork and by forcing the foot into extreme positions, leading to instability in the joints of the toes.
What Causes Ballet Injuries?
The particular causes of particular ballet injuries vary, of course, depending on the movement being performed. There are, however, certain techniques and types of footwear used in ballet that are particularly dangerous.
Pointe Technique: Dancing en pointe puts a great deal of stress on various parts of the foot and toes. Poor technique or poorly fitted shoes can make matters worse and increase the chances of injury.
Although dancers who practice this technique wear shoes designed for it, dancing en pointe still causes friction between the toes and the shoes themselves, which can cause chaffing and blistering. En pointe dancing is the culprit in many cases of bunions, hammertoes, sesamoiditis, bursitis, trigger toe, and stress fractures.
What Long-Term Complications Can Result from Ballet Injuries?
The long-term complications associated with ballet injuries are as varied as the injuries themselves, but the outlook for such injuries if they are not treated usually involves chronic pain and possibly antalgic gait (or in layman’s terms, a limp).

As a dance teacher and physiotherapist, something my students have often asked me is, “what can I do to avoid getting injured while dancing?” Although dance isn’t often considered a “sport” in the traditional sense, many genres of dance are highly athletic, and just like athletes, dancers are at risk of “sports” injuries. Join me in a five-part series as I discuss some important aspects of preventative care, including 1) warm-ups and cool downs 2) physical conditioning 3) adequate rest and recovery 4) footwear and floors, and 5) self-care and management.
*As my current area of focus within the dance world is primarily partner dances, many of my examples will be based on this style of dance, but the themes I will be discussing are broadly applicable to other forms of dance.
Do I really need to do a warm-up?
How many of us would head to the gym for a workout and immediately hit the treadmill in a full sprint without a warm-up? Yet, how many dancers have showed up to a social dance where the first song playing is so good that they just have to dance, regardless of how fast and energetic the song may be?
Properly warming up your body before hitting the dance floor can reduce your risk of such injuries as, muscle strains, tendonitis, and overuse injuries. Every dance practice, performance, and social dance evening should begin with a warm-up to prepare your body for exercise, and end with a cool-down to kick-start your post-dance recovery.
How does a warm-up help?
Warming up with light aerobic exercise not only improves performance, but may also reduce the risk of injury. Warm-ups lead to a number of physiological changes in your body that are necessary to prepare you mentally as well as physically, including:
- increased rate and depth of breathing, which increases the intake of oxygen and release of carbon dioxide
- increased heart rate, which allows more oxygen and fuel to be delivered to working muscles
- increased elasticity of muscles and tendons, which increases range of motion of joints and reduces risk of tearing
- improved proprioception (joint position sense) which improves not only balance and stability, but also awareness of body position which can help with aesthetic aspect of your movements
- improved signalling of nerves, which improves reaction time and your ability to generate a muscle contraction
How do I warm up?

Common Ballet Injuries – Prevention Tips
When it comes to ballet there aren’t a whole lot of dancers out there who can honestly say that they have never had an injury. Whether it’s an injury as major or career ending as an Achilles tendon rupture or an injury as minor as a shin splint, it is imperative that the root of the problem be discovered.
Luckily today there are preventative measures being taken by ballet companies and schools lead by younger artistic staffs to keep dancers fine tuned. In the past there were ballet teachers and company artistic directors who were not educated on injury prevention for dancers, thus indirectly encouraging dancers to continue through injuries shortening the life of their career.
Common injuries for dancing include (but are not limited to);
Lower back pain
Check out a complete list on the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries website. It’s very helpful.
Of course there are ways to prevent some of these injuries through core conditioning, pilates, strength training, and ballet cross training. Most ballet companies have on site physical therapists who work with dancers daily aches and pains and can prescribe a correct physical therapy routine. There is also the Ballet Strength DVD which has a library of exercises that you can do to prevent injury and improve strength.
As dancers today, there is no excuse to allow the body to be plagued by injury and pain. With all of the helpful resources available dancers are extending their careers well into their 30’s. Don’t wait to address your injury prone areas…you don’t want to wait until it’s too late!
Posted on February 19, 2011, in Ballet, Ballet Strength, Injury Prevention, Strength Training for Dancers, Technique Tips and tagged achilles tendonitis, ankle pain, ballet cross training, ballet injuries, ballet injury, ballet injury prevention, ballet pain, ballet strength, ballet strength training, common ballet injuries, dance injuries, dance injury, dance injury prevention, dance recovery, dancer rehabilitation, harkness center for dance injuries, pilates for dancers. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.

Did you know that among Dr. Lee’s many accomplishments, including being able to remember AC/DC lyrics till this day and besides being a Harford County Chiropractor extraordinaire; he is a member of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Sciences and will soon become a NYU Medical School recognized dance injury specialist? Like they say, if you can’t do it, might as well treat the ones who can when they get injured. Or something like that.
The root of all dance injuries is Energy Intake. This is not exclusive to dancers. Gymnasts and all female athletes would qualify. Female athletes do not consume enough calories. The average adolescent female dancer/athlete needs 2500 calories per day. However, most female athletes will actually only consume 60-80% of that, and dancers/gymnasts another 15% less. Why? Dancers and gymnasts usually have a fear of weight and how it looks and affects their performance. All athletes it’s because of lack of education.
The body considers dance and athletic performance to be discretionary calories. Not only do the girls not eat enough, they usually don’t eat the right stuff. The body uses all the consumed calories to fuel physical and pubescent growth first. Fueling for Dance and other athletic activity comes second. Imagine this: you have 3, 1-gallon buckets and only a 2 gallon pitcher. You can’t fill them all. From here a downward spiral ensues with puberty, growth and athleticism all draining from each other, not only robbing the athlete of her ability and potential, but making her more and more disposed to injury.
What should the girls be eating? Not the 5 C’s of the single girl diet (Coffee, Cigarettes, Chocolate, diet Coke and Cheese). There is a popular myth that salads are healthy. While they are a better choice than a big Mac, a ”salad “is not always the healthy choice. Iceberg lettuce with ranch is about as healthy as notebook paper with fatty wax. A salad made from leafy greens, spinach, other veggies, and a protein, with little or no dressing is a great choice. Protein tends to be the most deficient in the female athlete and should be the number one priority when choosing foods. Protein runs dual purpose, fuel and structure.

In case you were unaware, there are a number of sensitive parts to the neck. Considering dancers tend to use this area more than most, it’s perhaps not surprising that injuries in this area are so common. With overuse and stress, the pain can often radiate to the back and into the head in the form of migraines and headaches.
As well as dancing, neck pain can also be caused by poor posture, previous injuries, and long periods of sitting. Fortunately, spinal alignments can relieve some of the tension and relieve pain in the neck. As a dancer, this will allow you more freedom and the full range of motion for performances.
Moving down the spine a little, we have the leading cause of disability for those aged between 18 and 46. Again, this is a problem that can be caused by poor posture. Additionally, dancers may have the incorrect lifting technique when dancing with others and overuse can cause stress on the area. In addition to the initial problem of back pain, it’s often made worse by the fact that most people avoid medical treatment.
For some, it gets to the point where their dancing ability deteriorates, and they’re forced to retire. If it still isn’t treated, back pain can really impact one’s day-to-day routines. Eventually, there will be no other option but to operate.
Luckily, chiropractic care is centered around holistic treatment which means focusing on the whole body, staying away from medication, and trying to prevent surgery at all costs. Instead of the short-term solution of drugs, we look for ways to reduce the pain for good.
Lower Back Pain
Towards the bottom of the spine, this is where problems occur for the majority of Americans. After a long day at work, we can expect some level of aching, but it should never stick around for long periods or affect simple tasks in life.
When it comes to performers, lower back pain is even more dangerous because the body is forced to adjust. To alleviate pain, the body will compensate, and this negatively impacts muscular strength, balance, and coordination (three skills that are essential to dance!).
When left without medical attention, this is where it really gets serious because it can limit mobility. Suddenly, you may find it hard to stand or even sit comfortably. If you’ve been experiencing lower back pain in recent times, we urge you to get in touch because the problem will only get worse (it’s not something that can heal itself!).

So does Barbara Harris, a trainer and rehabilitation specialist for the Boston Ballet.
A normally curved spine acts like a spring, absorbing impact from dance movements, Harris said. But dancers think a straight spine is better - ``it makes them look very lifted and very long,'' she said.
The ``lifted'' look, with a straight back and neck, and pelvis tucked under the back, makes dancers seem to float as they move, Harris said. However, dancers can get the same look with less risk to their backs simply by keeping the pelvis in a neutral position, neither tilted forward nor back, she said.
Those who don't prepare their backs properly may wind up at the sports medicine clinic and at rehab. At the clinic, they may get X-rays and bone scans. The scans have the advantage of picking up tiny tears before they get big enough for X-ray spotting, when the injuries are harder to heal, Micheli said.
At rehab, Harris works with a Pilates-based system of flexibility and strengthening - a method that often is familiar to dancers. She also focuses on teaching them how to recognize and foster good back alignment.
Almost all dancers can dance after treatment, Micheli said. But older dancers may not heal as easily, he said - like older athletes, they may return to their activity, but must recognize they will have to play with pain. Research thousands of health terms, drugs, and diseases

My name is Judith, and I am a dance-a-holic. There. It’s out. Hardly a weekend goes by that I’m not travelling to some seemingly random point in the UK to dance until the early hours of the morning. There is nothing, nothing, quite like dancing. Suede-soled shoes gliding effortlessly over the smooth wooden floors, heart soaring, on another plane of being altogether. . .and then BANG! You injure yourself. It’s happened to most of us at some point. The shoulder niggle that never seemed serious so you never had it checked out. The insidious knee or hip pain. The back pain following an ill-advised aerial move. Or the ever-popular sprained ankle.
Here are a few tips that could help you to prevent the injury from the outset.
1. Warm up before you start dancing.
You’d warm up before training for a football match, or running a marathon, right? So why don’t you warm up before dancing intensively for 4-8 hours? I’m not talking about doing a load of passive or static stretching in your pretty dance frock, but how about easing yourself in with a couple of gentle dances instead of leaping onto that dance floor subjecting your body to an intense workout whilst still cold? It’s worth considering. . .
2. Wear comfortable footwear to and from the venue.
Ladies (and some gents!) I know how we can be about shoes. I get it. You want to look good at all times, but at what cost? Do you have any idea what those heels are doing to your entire body, not just to your feet but to your knees, hips, lower back and neck? If you alter the height of your heels, there’s an immediate knock-on effect throughout the entire body. For more information, take a look at this page: http://erikdalton.com/media/newsletters-online/high-heels-and-back-pain/. Now I’m not suggesting that we all start dancing in flats – I for one can ONLY dance in heels, so to change my dance shoes to flat shoes would be counter-productive. What I’m suggesting is that maybe you could consider wearing comfortable, well-cushioned flat shoes to travel to and from the venue, giving your body some rest and relief after a heavy night of dancing!
3.

Some people say that a dancers feet is the most uglyest part of the body. They say this because a dancers feet is one of the
most important part of the body to a dancer. It is were all the dancing really begins. The feet allow the dancer to move about
freely when needed to. They are the most abused part of the body when doing ballet. Great strength is used with the arch so
there is alot of pointing involved. Before a dancer may even go on pointe they must have to get calluses to protect themselves
from from pointe.
Not only do ballet dancers get calluses but when they were pointe shoes they intend have worked there feet so much that the
skin that rubs against the shoe is raw. Not only that but endure crooked toes for the pounding and strain involved.This is
why dancers do many things to there feet and shoes to make it more comfortable for wear. No matter what they use to make it
better they can still feel the pain when dancing on pointe Even though ballet is very beautiful it can turn out bad at an
older age, from all the technique the hip becomes and injury from it. In all is ballet worth it all?

What dance injuries have you had?
We can help prevent them!
The flooring should be suitable for all the types of dancing you wish to do, not only to have enough cushion support, it should also be suitable for pointe work and tap dancing.
Are your Barres and Brackets set at the correct height from the floor, for what dancing your doing. Having them set at the correct height helps to making sure you don't over or under stretch.
Is the Barre your holding too big for your hands to hold? And is it circular? Having a Barre too big/small or with a flat back, may cause strain on your hands and arms
Do your mirrors give the correct image reflection?
Poor mirror reflection may make you over bend trying to see what your doing.
Always make sure your reflection is correct to get the correct posture.
Your studio is an important place, make sure it has great equipment!

Ducher, G., Kukuljan, S., Hill, B., Garnham, A. P, Nowson, C. A, Kimlin, M. G & Cook, J. (2011). Vitamin D status and musculoskeletal health in adolescent male ballet dancers a pilot study. Journal of Dance Medicine and Science,15(3), 99-107. United States: J.Michael Ryan Publishing Inc..
Adequate vitamin D levels during growth are critical to ensuring optimal bone development. Vitamin D synthesis requires sun exposure; thus, athletes engaged in indoor activities such as ballet dancing may be at relatively high risk of vitamin D insufficiency. The objective of this study was to investigate the prevalence of low vitamin D levels in young male ballet dancers and its impact on musculoskeletal health. Eighteen male ballet dancers, aged 10 to 19 years and training for at least 6 hours per week, were recruited from the Australian Ballet School, Melbourne, Australia. Serum 25( OH )D and intact PTH were measured in winter ( July ) from a non-fasting blood sample. Pubertal stage was determined using self- assessed Tanner criteria. Body composition and areal bone mineral density ( aBMD ) at the whole body and lumbar spine were measured using dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry ( DXA ). Injury history and physical activity levels were assessed by questionnaire. Blood samples were obtained from 16 participants. Serum 25( OH )D levels ranged from 20.8 to 94.3 nmol/L, with a group mean of 50.5 nmol/L. Two participants ( 12.5% ) showed vitamin D deficiency [serum 25( OH )D level < 25 nmol/L], seven dancers ( 44% ) had vitamin D insufficiency ( 25 to 50 nmol/L ), and the remaining seven dancers ( 44% ) had normal levels ( > 50 nmol/L ). No relationship was found between vitamin D status, PTH levels, body composition, and aBMD. The most commonly reported injuries were muscle tears and back pain. The average number of injuries reported by each dancer was 1.9 ± 0.4 ( range: 0 to 5 ).

Introducing Strength & Flexibility Training for Young Dancers and Athletes at TAB Fitness—our program to help create stronger, safer, and more confident, captivating dancers.
Rhonda is obsessed with the strength, efficiency and beauty of dance movement. Her two-decade career as a performer, an instructor at the University of Toronto, certified trainer and ultimately designer of dance-inspired classes at her own studio, TAB has led her to create Strength Conditioning for Young Dancers. We use very light weights, stability balls, one’s own body weight, and other appropriate techniques. The goal is strengthening muscle not creating bulk. With this program, she wants to help young dancers deliver on what their choreographers want.
We focus on improving upper body strength, core and stabilizing musculature —which most young dancers lack, and creating a deep understanding of the muscles that allow for particular movements. This lets a dancer execute more confidently and drastically mitigates injury. Our goal is to provide the best chance for a long, enjoyable, dance career and later a life as an active and able adult with no regrets.

Constant training, without enough rest, puts stress on a body’s ability to adapt which can lead to fatigue, muscular weakness and frequent injuries—burnout. Burnout is a complex clinical condition with no single cause. Symptoms and signs vary from person to person, but tend to occur mainly in dancers whose daily schedules produce an imbalance between physical activity and time for recovery. Burnout can occur as a result of a few days or weeks of fatigue, by long-term exhaustion and by psychological stress.
Burnout can affect both male and female dancers of all ages and levels of competence. Those most likely to reach the stage of burnout are usually the ones who set very high standards for themselves. Relative levels of physical fitness also relate to burnout—i.e. for the same workload, fit dancers are less likely to suffer than their unfit counterparts.
Who is most vulnerable to burnout?
We know that adolescents are particularly vulnerable to injuries. Apart from periodic growth spurts that decrease muscle strength and flexibility, a teenager's musculoskeletal system is less resistant to repetitive loads during development. According to the 2003 Proceedings from the Annual Meeting of the International Association for Dance Medicine & Science (IADMS), students who work more than 8.5 hours a week at age 14 increase the risk of overuse injuries. The same is true for 15-year-old dancers who work more than 10 hours a week.
When do I need to be careful?
Unfortunately, the drive to exceed personal limits is ingrained in dancers of all ages, regardless of the toll. Tony Geeves’s research for the Safe Dance Project Report (Ausdance, 1990) found that 52% of dancers in Australia had chronic injury by age 18.
In a study conducted by the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries (UK), 79% of 500 injuries happened at the end of the day, occurring after five or more hours of work. 1 Safe Dance ll research reported that 28% of surveyed dancer’s incurred injuries within three weeks of returning to training after a holiday. 2
Fatigue is the number one indicator of burnout. Dancers could learn from athletes who use periodisation (hard workouts are alternated with easier routines that have rest built into them) to prevent overload. Burned-out dancers need to let themselves do less without labelling themselves as ‘lazy’.

“We were rehearsing a piece that was very lift-heavy,” Granville recalls. “I ran from off stage and jumped into a girl’s arms, like a cartwheel over her head. Something went wrong in the lift causing me to come off too fast and land on the top of my foot. I’d never broken a bone, so I went home, wrapped [my foot] and nursed it in an ice bucket. I knew something was wrong, but I figured I had danced on other injuries before, so I could perform that night.”
Like Roberts, Granville refused to quit and performed the entire opening show on a broken foot. Examination by Brenner a few days later revealed a broken fifth metatarsal, otherwise known as a dancer’s fracture. Granville spent 12 weeks in a cast, two weeks on crutches and another six weeks in a boot.
Thankfully, Granville had Pilates and TheraBanding to turn to as a means of maintaining her physique and warding off negative thoughts caused by inactivity. She also expressed great appreciation for Brenner, who unlike other physicians she had seen, understood the complexities of dancers’ injuries. “As a dancer, it can be very frustrating to work with physical therapists because dance knowledge is really hard and the steps we do are strange, [as are] the ways we get injured,” Granville says. “So when you do go in to talk to a doctor, they don’t fully understand what you’re talking about.”
Brenner, on the other hand, has first-hand experience with dance as well as 22 years of experience treating their unique injuries. “A few years ago I decided to take beginner’s ballet. The next year I took modern so I could experience what my dancers do on a daily basis,” says Brenner. “It’s important as a [physician] to know what our athletes are going through.”
The frustrations voiced by Granville also ring true for the CrossFit community. Smith voices his irritations about what he sees as the myths surrounding CrossFit. “You hear, ‘The deadlift is dangerous. You shouldn’t squat below parallel because it’s bad for your knees.’ These myths are perpetuated by the average person going into a gym and performing a movement, such as the deadlift, that they have limited knowledge about or don’t have proper supervision like you do in a CrossFit gym,” he says.

In 2012, more than 1.3 million kids went to the ER with sports injuries in the United States. Football injuries were in the lead, followed by basketball, soccer, and baseball, with the most injured body parts being the ankle, head, finger, and face. Here in Canada, sports injuries are a leading cause of injuries requiring medical attention amongst adolescents. Sports injuries account for 50% of all injuries for high school students (age 14-18) and 30-40% of junior high students (age 11-14) with ankle and knee accounting for 35-40% of injuries.
Physical activity is a key element to a child’s enjoyment, growth and health. As children increase their involvement in competitive sports and participate in multiple sport activities, more time is spent training, and as a result sports-related injuries have increased.
A CHILD'S GROWING BODY
It is important to understand what happens to a child’s musculoskeletal (muscle and bone) system as a child grows. Naturally a key area of concern that differs from adults is the epiphyseal plates, also known as growth plates. Because the plates are weaker and less elastic than the tendons and ligaments that attach to the bone, children often break bones instead of injure ligaments. Because bones in a child are continually growing, children heal faster. The statement that you may have heard or found yourself saying, “I don’t heal as fast the older I get,” is true!
TYPES OF INJURIES
Types of injuries are generally acute or repetitive in nature. Overuse injuries occur from repetitive application of repeated stress to normal tissue. This is common in organized sports when overtraining occurs. Excessive levels of physical activity can increase the risk of injury, which, if not treated properly, can affect normal growth and maturation, including limb length discrepancy, angular deformity, and altered joint mechanics.
When dealing with potential injuries prevention is key! It is important to identify risks early and modify the training program to prevent injuries, which can minimize time lost from a sport.
Risk factors that contribute to injuries include the following:
- Anatomical misalignments = abnormal stresses
- Strength imbalances = muscle strain risk
- Growth spurts = skeleton grows fast but muscles/tendons do not grow as fast; causing tight (slower to grow) musculotendinous units
Stretching can both prevent and protect from these risks.

Dancers demonstrated the distinct ability to sense the differences of the different floors. This suggests that dancers do know what they’re talking about when it comes to dance floors. Further research is now being conducted investigating dancers’ opinions of the most important aspects of floors and how these factors may affect performance and injury.
Implications of the research
Injury occurrence is all too common in dance. Dancers will always push their bodies to the limit to get the most out of their training. It is therefore very important that safe dance environments are created by reducing any unnecessary injury risks.
This research has reported that dancers can be required to perform on substandard floors which were shown to affect ankle joint stress during dance movements. Dancers also demonstrated the distinct ability to sense changes in dance floor properties. Dance institutions are now able use this information and work with dancers in creating dance environments with the aims of helping dancers to dance better, stronger and for longer.
About the researcher
As an ex-dancer, Luke Hopper is well aware of the demands of dance training and the associated injury risks. Since finishing dance training, Luke has studied sport science at the University of Western Australia and is currently completing his PhD investigating the effects of dance floors on dancers. As the recipient of the IADMS student research award in both 2007 and 2009, Luke’s work has been internationally commended for the contribution of his research into dance injury mechanisms in conjunction with several international ballet companies. Luke is now employed as a lecturer of exercise and clinical biomechanics at the University of Notre Dame, Fremantle, Australia, and is continuing his research applying principles of sport science in the interests of improving dancer health and well being.
Our summary White Paper - Specifying Dance Floors can be viewed here.

Many of the arts in America are young arts and so have do not have generations of experienced, aged practitioners that have seen the negative effects of the arts’ training system on the body. As an art gets older, the practitioners become more aware of what the typical injury patterns are simply because there is enough repetition to see those injury patterns over time.
Arts with a very sharp peak in the twenties usually spend less time on technical study and immediately favor application. The start up time for such approaches have the advantage of being very short and requiring low rep numbers to be useful, but the injury rate is high and the assumed level of physical fitness is high.
As a result of the physical strain, the drop out rate is usually also very high.
Combative sports typically use this model, where it is tolerated because many competitors are in poverty. They are looking to find a way out of poverty and are willing to sacrifice the body in order to establish wealth. Many, many people that start the training in combative sports will injure out, but it is worth both the fame, reputation, and money-in the-pocket to take the initial risk.
Competitors also realize that they have only a limited shelf-life as a fighter before the body becomes unusable in the sport. For them, it’s the ticking clock.
As an older adult, you need to be concerned about being in an art that was not designed to fit your needs, or that was designed to fit a much more resilient body than yours.
Make sure you want what comes out of training!
Things A Martial Arts Teacher Should Know for Older Adults
Many times an average martial arts instructor will not know the peak of the art. While he or she can be an excellent martial artist, he or she will have never actually contemplated the art as a training system for a population group.
This often happens when you get a person of technical skill that believes he can simply start coaching, because he knows the techniques. Even if your potential instructor isn’t able to tell you anything, you can get a general idea of where an art has its peak placement by asking the following:
- What age are the students at their physical best?
- How many senior practitioners or teachers are there that actively practice? (At the age of 30, most are unofficially retired).
- Was the art designed for sport or quickie self-defense?
Questions you should ask yourself:
- How good of shape do your joints need to be in?
- Why are you taking the art?

By addressing variance and competency in supplemental training, better programs are designed to challenge athletes that promote injury prevention without adversely affecting sport specific movements and artistry. Studies have shown that artistic athletes that supplement their artistic training with strength & conditioning programs, and have subsequently improved their fitness levels, scored significantly higher in aesthetic competency assessments and generally perform and compete at higher levels10.
4. Psychology & Body Image
As a past dancer and current exercise physiologist & strength coach, I’ve experienced and seen the varying aesthetic needs of artistic athletes. The constant worry about body image is an awful and overbearing threat to an artistic athlete’s health, both physically and psychologically.
As it pertains to strength & conditioning, the myth that supplemental training will make an artistic athlete “bulky” is well inflated. There are countless training platforms, each one yielding different neurological and physiological adaptations.
An exercise physiologist and/or strength & conditioning coach will specifically program to the desired adaption (e.g., strength, speed, power, etc.), which may or may not include lean muscle mass goals depending on sport needs. They will work with the athlete, coach, sport organization, and parents to communicate mutual interests and to involve everyone in the decision making process.
5. Joint Integrity: Mobility and Stability
Artistic athletes can be known for their extreme ranges of motion. Having supple muscles gives athletes that specific aesthetic stretch needed for artistic presentation.
When having difficulty reaching the end range of some of these positions, artistic athletes might choose movement strategies that are not ideal for joint health. Strength and conditioning sessions will incorporate proper mobility and stability work to improve end range of motion strength and joint integrity, all while preventing injuries and keeping the aesthetic nature of artistic sports.
As mentioned above, injury risk is typically higher in early specialized sports, such as most artistic sports. Participating in a single sport for more than eight months per year appears to be an important factor in the increased injury risk observed in highly specialized athletes.

A combination of strengthening and stretching is essential for promoting strong and pliable muscle tissues that are the most resilient to injury.
The entire musculoskeletal system (bones and soft tissues in the body) is a connected unit. Many muscle groups and joints work together to perform a desired motion. If one member of the team isn’t working properly (perhaps because of decreased strength/flexibility or improper alignment), another member of the team will be forced to pick up the slack. This can result in compensatory strategies that place excessive load through a joint and/or the surrounding tissues. As a result, risk of injury is high. In the case of dancers, let’s consider turnout. A dancer’s turnout requires a significant amount of motion at the hip. If hip external rotation strength or available range of motion is limited, many dancers begin to compensate in their knees or feet to force a greater turnout. As a result, increased torque is placed through the knee and ankle joint as well as joints in the foot, which leads to a higher risk of injury. So how might dancers be able to improve upon this?
Becoming educated on specific ways to strengthen and improve flexibility in areas of the body specific to dancers is a great place to begin. It can also be hugely beneficial to be screened by a physical therapist who will be able to identify impaired movement mechanics and biomechanical limitations that could increase injury risk and/or impact performance.
At Hands On Physical Therapy, we are passionate about reducing risk of injuries before they occur. We are also excited about educating and empowering all dancers, their peers, and their instructors to practice injury risk reduction strategies routinely. If you’re interested in being screened by our dance medicine expert, call us today at 541-312-2252 to set up an appointment with Jen Wardyga, PT, DPT. Keep an eye out for her in the studio, too!
Hands On Physical Therapy
147 SW Shevlin Hixon Dr. Ste 104
Bend, OR 97702

There is nothing more satisfying for a young dancer (male or female) than the moment when the teacher announces that you can get on your Pointe shoes; and many of those kids are expecting for this to happen, sometimes too soon.
The answer should not be according to the "right time" (based on how long is the dancer practicing or how good is the teacher). The timing depends only on the physical preparation and development of the body.
What conditions should be accomplished to get the right decision? The most important thing is the physical ability of the person to stand in such "abnormal" position. The skeleton gets ready for that as long as we "teach" the joints, bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons and nerves to work right to maintain the posture and being able to perform different elements on ballet regardless the time we are learning how to dance. Another component that should be carefully evaluated is the coordination, balance and the movement control of the dancer.
Getting to the decision of working on pointe is not a one side decision and is not a one-way decision either. Working on Pointe is a process, another stage in the dancer's education and it can - or it should be a personalized progression. The decision should be taken with the dancer, their parents (if they are kids) and a professional on dancers medicine.
What should we expect to be the physical condition optimal for Pointe? The physical factors to be evaluated include: 1. Lower limb strengthening and flexibility, and the right balance between these two 2. Core control 3. Fast reaction to sudden positional changes 4. Plyometric skills 5. Body composition (here needs to be remarked that the body composition is critical for everything in life especially for professional dancers). 6. General balance and coordination
All these factors are generally beeing developed for dancing between the age of 3-4 years old until 12 years old. These ages are a gross average and - as said before - this is a very personal progress and the young dancer might be developed these skills before or sometimes later of this age.
Do orthopedic conditions affect the timing? Absolutely. Previous orthopedic dysfunctions or conditions do not necessarily become an obstacle for life in any situation. It just needs to be evaluated and adjusted to the dancer and a specific set of exercises can sometimes improve the performance and lead to the next step, including working on Pointe.

Specialized Care for Dancers
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
NICHOLAS T. GATES, MD
When classical, competition and team dancers get hurt, they are more likely to push through pain than other athletes. Such reluctance to seek help is due to several unique factors, yet all of these challenges are addressed by the health care offered by orthopaedic foot and ankle specialist Nicholas T. Gates, M.D.
Ballet dancers are prone to positional and over-use injuries. Os Trigonum Syndrome (The Nutcracker Syndrome) is a common ankle injury caused by flexing the foot downward en pointe, or standing on tiptoes. "Certain dancers will pinch a bone in the back of the ankle repetitively... They are cracking a small piece of bone as a nutcracker would crack a walnut," explains Dr. Gates. This repetitive movement may break the bone.
Dance team athletes and those engaged in competitive cheerleading may also experience positional issues and are at increased risk for ankle sprains and injuries from tumbling and gymnastics.
Nicholas T. Gates, M.D., is a board-certified foot and ankle orthopaedic surgeon and sports medicine speclalist. He serves as team physician for Highlands High School and treats both athletes and nonathletes.
Hand & Wrist
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06/02/2014 - Learn About Plantar Fasciitis

Questions and Answers
How old does my child need to be to start dance lessons?
Preference is for children to start at age 5 and above. The age for entrance into classes or program varies from student and from class. This is based not only on age, but the student’s developmental level and skill
How do I know that my child is in the right class level?
Students should feel pushed in class but not overwhelmed. Most dancers will be in a class level for 2-3 years before moving to the next level. We are a small school so many classes are designed with that in mind.
You are a small school is my dancer receiving proper training?
Yes, because we are smaller we can focus on your child more than other places with large class sizes. This also allows us to make sure proper technique is being practiced. Our focus is on developing dancers that can perform their dance art cleanly, with ease and great skill.
Who makes the final decision where the student is placed?
Our teachers are well skilled to asses dancers ability and will make decisions about class placement.
May students start classes in the middle of the year?
Yes, students may enroll at any time; but preference is for the Fall in order to be ready to participate in the Spring recital.
This is my child’s first class, what do I need to purchase?
We offer shoes, tights, leotards and many other items for sale at the hall. Please see the teacher first for dress code info before making purchases.
We don’t have a lot of money to spend on dance attire?
Our pricing for dance attire is very reasonably priced. We also offer shoes and leotards that can be borrowed or exchanged as your dancer grows.
My child has special needs or has an injury, can they take class?
All are welcome to take class. We will train and work with any student to develop the proper technique for their own body and needs. Many injures are from improper technique, over stretching and over use. Many times fixing these will result in dancers that are pain free.

Okk
I found the answers provided by the Dr. Vivek A to be sensible. ok
Dr. Vivek A provides answers that are knowledgeable. Helpful
An average person experiences two fractures during his or her lifetime and same holds true for joint related injuries. The severity of this condition depends on a number of factors, ranging from the forces responsible for injury and location to the damage done to the nearby tissues and bones.
How age plays a role in your chances of getting a fracture?
Your risk and severity of developing a fracture, depends, to a certain extent on your age.
A very common occurrence during childhood is crippling joint related injuries, the fractures that you tend to have during this time are generally less complex than the broken bone instances that you stand to experience when you enter adulthood.
With time, your bones become fragile and you become prone to broken bones sustained from falls, which you wouldn't when you were young. Furthermore, as you step into your 50th year, you can get struck by the bone condition osteoporosis, a leading cause of bone fractures during this time. For women, menopause makes them more susceptible to osteoporosis (as infrequent periods and hormonal changes at this time lead to loss of bone mass) and subsequently broken bones.
Preventing crippling joint injuries need many steps in younger generation known as prehab especially for sporting population and adult population involved in day to day activities requiring your body getting subjected to physical stress.
Simple steps to get your joints back to normal in case you do get into injuries.
- Having a calcium and vitamin d rich diet to strengthen bones
- Exercising to strengthen bone and muscle health as well as your balance
- Taking relevant medicines to make your bones strong
- Going for timely bone mineral density test to determine the health of your bone
- Exposing yourself to the sun for about 20 minutes everyday
- Having a requisite calcium intake of 1000 mg and 1200 mg for pre- and postmenopausal women respectively
- Preventing a fracture by modification in your household furniture, extra clothing, sometimes addition of simple orthotic devices, improving your muscle reaction time etc go in long way to help prevent falls. If you wish to discuss about any specific problem, you can consult an Orthopedist.
Have you undergone cartilage damage recently and are seeking ideal treatment measures? Cartilage damage is a common form of injury that involves your knees.

I have already outlined above that the type of sport can have an impact on the incidence of injury when compare to younger athletes – but interestingly, it can also impact the type of injuries you are likely to see as an older athlete (Baker, 2015).
There is a growing body of evidence clearly showing that those older athletes who compete in more explosive sports (think team sports, sprinting, or jumping) are going to be at a higher risk of an acute injury occurring.
This could come in the form of a muscle tear, or an ankle sprain.
Conversely, those older athletes who participate in endurance type events (such as distance running, cycling, or even orienteering) generally appear to be at an increased risk of incurring an overuse injury.
This might come in the form of a tendinopathy, plantar fasciitis, or even chronic joint pain and irritation.
What sport has the highest injury incidence in older athletes?
With all this in mind, you might be wondering what sport has the highest injury rate – and it will probably come as no surprise, but it seems to be those sports that involve a lot of explosive type movements that have the highest injury risk (Ganse, 2014).
This means either team sports, or sprinting are arguably the most likely of incurring an injury – both of which are more likely to cause an acute muscle injury.
I should note that this doesn’t necessarily mean that you should shy away from these sports as an aging athlete. In fact, in my opinion, it simply means that you need to appropriately prepare your body for the rigours of that sport prior to competing.
But more on that later!
Women vs men and the aging athlete
The last thing I wanted to touch on is the considerations around gender, and how it can impact injury risk – and it really comes down to how women and men athletes age differently.
As a rule of thumb, women tend to have lower levels of muscle mass than men across the entirety of their lifespan. This means that as they enter their golden years, they are going to demonstrate less strength and power than their male counterparts.
As a result, their ability to stabilise their joints is going to be significantly lower, which can increase their risk of experiencing a lower limb overuse injury – which is why foot and knee injures are so common in older female athletes.
What are the best competitive sports for the aging athlete?
Taking all this information into consideration, what are the best sports for older athletes?

The hip is a common site of pain and injury in dancers. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships between leg power, leg strength, knee valgus and trunk endurance with anteriolateral hip pain. Nine collegiate-aged dancers currently in a university dance program (age = 20±1 yrs, height = 64.8±4.5 in, weight = 131.2±12.8 lbs) reported, on a Visual Analog Scale, their level of pain at rest and while dancing. The dancers’ countermovement jump (CMJ), squat jump (SJ) and anterior, posterior and bi-lateral trunk endurance were then assessed. The CMJ and SJ assessments, as measures of lower body power and strength, respectively, were conducted on a contact mat (Just Jump, Probotics, Huntsville, AL). During the CMJ, knee valgus was evaluated by filming the participant (120 fps) from the frontal view. The CMJ with the highest jump score was used to measure the greatest amount of knee valgus collapse, defined as the angle from the ASIS, middle of the patella and center of the tibiotalar joint. Moderate Pearson’s product-moment correlations were observed between age (r = 0.48), posterior trunk endurance (r = -0.48) and the ratio between right lateral and anterior trunk endurance (r = 0.42) with hip pain while resting. Moderate correlations were found between leg power (r = -0.43), leg strength (r = -0.54), the ratio between right and left lateral trunk endurance (r = -0.46), and the ratio between left lateral and posterior trunk endurance (r = 0.46) with hip pain while dancing. Increasing leg power and strength as well as addressing asymmetries, particularly in the trunk musculature, may decrease the pain associated with dancing; further research is needed to explore these relationships.
Agre, Elizabeth M.; Rasmussen, Heather; and Miller, Jason
"Relationships between Leg Power, Leg Strength, Knee Valgus and Trunk Endurance with Hip Pain in Dancers,"
International Journal of Exercise Science: Conference Proceedings:
7, Article 1.
Available at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/ijesab/vol2/iss7/1

November 07, 1999 12:02pm
Dancers Sports Injuries
by: IRA DREYFUSS
(WASHINGTON, DC) -- For many dancers, swanlike grace comes at a price - painful back injuries that could have been avoided if they had worked out right.
And it may take a new type of specialist - someone who combines sports medicine and the arts - to treat them, a study said.
``Dancers spend a lot of time building up their leg muscles, but much less time building up their trunk,'' said Dr. Lyle J. Micheli. He treats dancers of the Boston Ballet at the Sports Medicine Clinic in Children's Hospital in Boston. He also was lead author of an overview article on dancers' back injuries in the medical Web site MedScape.
Like young gymnasts, dancers risk microtears to the vertebrae in the lower spine, the article said. The injuries result largely from repeating dance positions that bend the spine far backward, Micheli said.
One such position is the arabesque, in which the dancer balances on one leg while extending the other high to the rear. It can produce excessive arching of the low back, Micheli said.
Choreographers are not going to give up the arabesque or similar positions just to make life easier for dancers, however. So dancers will have to adjust, said coauthor Ruth Solomon, a professor of theater arts and dance at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
And adjusting is within their power, Solomon said: ``A body is very capable of doing things if it is trained well.''
Training will require dancers to pay more attention to their pelvic girdles, Solomon said. Stronger trunk muscles can take some of the workload off the muscles that control the rear of the spine, she said. ``The back and the pelvis move as a unit, so there is no excessive force right at the base of the spine,'' she said.
Solomon focuses on strengthening muscles such as the psoas, which stretch between the front of the lower spine and the upper leg at the front of the hip. To do this, she has dancers do leg lifts, bringing their legs to their chests while lying on their backs with their weight balanced just above their tailbones.
The spine is in a curved position during this exercise, and enhancing the curve is something that Solomon wants dancers to focus more on.

Look carefully at the images below, and you can see that the shape of the hip socket has actually shifted due to the aggressive stretching that she was doing at her dance school. This has now calcified and so will remain this way for the rest of her life.
Notice how the hip socket is not yet fully formed, and there is a gap in the pelvic bones at the level of the hip socket. This is not a fracture, but a normal part of the development of the pelvis. The issue is that the two parts of the bone are no longer aligned due to the stretching exercises she was doing.
She was still complaining of hip pain at 13, so more X rays were ordered. It is easy to see the damage in the hip socket in the following images.
The black line indicates major issues with the surface of the hip socket and there is evidence of excessive movement across both of the growth plates of the femur. The head of the femur is no longer nicely rounded and has been flattened due to excessive loading.
At 14, the student was still complaining of sore hips, so another set of images were taken. She was also told by a friend to come and see us at Perfect Form Physio for treatment for her ongoing hip pain.
In these images the pelvis has begun to fuse (as it should), however the head of the femur (thigh bone) is flattened and the shape of the socket is shallow. There is also development of a "pincer type deformity" at the top of the hip socket that was not present in previous x-rays that will contribute to anterior hip impingement. Bone develops in response to load, so it is probable that this developed in response to repeated compression after kicking her right leg up repeatedly...
This dancer will continue to struggle with pain in her hips due to anterior hip impingement and the bony changes in the hip socket. She will most likely be requiring an early total hip replacement due to this. With very careful rehab we were able to drop her pain levels, but she will need to be extremely diligent in maintaining these in order to be able to continue to dance.
Unfortunately, there are still many teachers still advocating this type of aggressive stretching in young students, who seem to have little awareness of the long term consequences it can have. This type of training IS NOT NECESSARY in developing good turnout range in dancers.
There are actually six different ranges of turnout in the hip.

Dance Injury Prevention Training
Also known as: injury prevention and training programs for dancers.
What is dance injury prevention training?
A training program designed to improve strength, range of motion, balance and neuromuscular control to
enhance performance and reduce the risk of dance related injuries.
What happens during the procedure?
A Dance Medicine professional works with the dancer to improve muscular strength, range of motion, balance and neuromuscular control through specific exercise prescription.
Is any special preparation needed?
No special preparation is needed for the training. The dancer should wear dance attire.
What are the risk factors?
There is still a potential risk of injury occurring even after a patient has undergone dance injury prevention training.
Reviewed by: Lauren Butler, PT, DPT, SCS
This page was last updated on: 8/7/2018 10:48:17 AM
From the Newsdesk
An Athletic Trainer (ATC) is a licensed healthcare provider responsible for injury prevention, emergency care, clinical diagnosis, therapeutic intervention and rehabilitation of injuries as well as medical conditions.

I count among them dancers in ballet and contemporary companies, commercial dancers, and those on Broadway and television. There are even those who became physical therapists and kinesiologists that specialize in dance. As I consider their careers, I am both humbled and honored to have influenced the direction of their lives.
My Mentees Share Similar Characteristics
There are certain qualities I look for when deciding if I will mentor a dancer and all of those qualities are critical to the success of our partnership:
- Aptitude and Physical Characteristics: I notice high levels of interest, excitement, and aptitudes in children as young as 5 years old. I do not approach them at that age, but instead wait to see if they have sufficient enough interest in dance to move forward (with their teacher’s affirmation).
When dancers are 7 to 9 years old, I begin to track their progress a little more closely without becoming too aggressive. Oftentimes, a teacher will notify me of the child’s passion and progress in the classroom. Sometimes the dancers are already participating in our JumpStart Teams, which are a primer to competition and performance teams.
Most proteges have some level of identifiable talent, but many do not have an “ideal” dancer body. Some are all arms or legs, and some struggle with weight issues. The students I most desire to work with, however, are more than just talent combined with physical attributes.
- Maturity Level: When dancers are 10 to 12 years old, I assess their maturity and begin a conversation about potential, work ethic, and the future. I am often pleased and surprised to hear dancers at 12 years old already expressing their dreams of a future in dance. It’s at this point that the real adventure begins!
- The ‘it’ Factor: The best candidates have the “it factor” combined with personal drive. They are truly committed to learning and bring a different type of energy to classes and rehearsals. These dancers prepare before class, and remain consistent and determined during class. They persist through frustration until the movement is clear, demonstrating a superior work ethic.
- A Hunger to Learn: The hunger in these dancers is something I can see and feel – it’s almost tangible. They arrive early and stay late for rehearsals. They take risks that make them vulnerable, even if there’s a chance of feeling foolish. These students are generous with others in class, encouraging and helping them accomplish a particular movement or combination.

The chart below tracks attrition rate at different ages throughout a pitcher's career.
Even for a successful, established pitcher, the risk of catastrophic injury is meaningfully high throughout his career, almost certainly at least 10 percent in any given season. However, the risk does appear to be to some degree dependent on a pitcher's age. For the very young pitchers in our study--ages 21 and 22--the risk of injury is significantly higher, in excess of 20 percent. Injury rate then drops dramatically as a pitcher matures physically, reaching its lowest point at roughly age 24, while rising gradually throughout the remainder of his career. (Although pitchers aged 37 and up appear in the chart to be as vulnerable to injury as very young ones, that is also the age at which pitchers will begin to retire voluntarily. The uptick in injury risk at the tail end of a pitcher's career is probably not as substantial as what is implied here).
Discussion of Physiological Risk Factors
From the scientific data collected by Dr. Mike Marshall and Dr. James Andrews, to the years of wisdom accumulated by Dr. Frank Jobe, there is a general acceptance as to what factors lead to pitcher injuries. The three major factors are the underlying physical system, degree of use, and biomechanical efficiency.
The physical system includes the bones, muscles, ligaments, and tendons involved in the pitching process. These are centered in the shoulder and elbow of the pitching arm. Most significant are the muscles of the rotator cuff, the glenoid labrum, and the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL). Most pitchers will experience some degree of damage in their pitching arm. A 1999 study on members of the Toronto Blue Jays showed that 23 of 28 pitchers had tendonitis, while 22 had some extent of cartilage damage. Yet most of these pitchers were asymptomatic, and many were pitching effectively in the major leagues.
As an athlete matures, his bones calcify and harden, his growth plates close, and his ligaments reach full strength. Since no athlete matures on the same schedule as another, it is important to note that chronological age does not always directly correlate to physical age. However, as Dr. Jobe and others have noted, a pitcher is generally most vulnerable at a young age, before the bones and muscles of his upper body have fully developed.

For many dancers, swanlike grace comes at a price - painful back injuries that could have been avoided if they had worked out right.
And it may take a new type of specialist - someone who combines sports medicine and the arts - to treat them, a study said.
"Dancers spend a lot of time building up their leg muscles, but much less time building up their trunk," said Dr. Lyle J. Micheli.
He treats dancers of the Boston Ballet at the Sports Medicine Clinic in Children's Hospital in Boston. He also was lead author of an overview article on dancers' back injuries in the medical Web site MedScape.
Like young gymnasts, dancers risk microtears to the vertebrae in the lower spine, the article said. The injuries result largely from repeating dance positions that bend the spine far backward, Micheli said.
One such position is the arabesque, in which the dancer balances on one leg while extending the other high to the rear. It can produce excessive arching of the low back, Micheli said.
Choreographers are not going to give up the arabesque or similar positions just to make life easier for dancers, however. So dancers will have to adjust, said co-author Ruth Solomon, a professor of theater arts and dance at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
And adjusting is within their power, Solomon said: "A body is very capable of doing things if it is trained well."
Training will require dancers to pay more attention to their pelvic girdles, Solomon said. Stronger trunk muscles can take some of the workload off the muscles that control the rear of the spine, she said.
"The back and the pelvis move as a unit, so there is no excessive force right at the base of the spine," she said.
Solomon focuses on strengthening muscles such as the psoas, which stretch between the front of the lower spine and the upper leg at the front of the hip. To do this, she has dancers do leg lifts, bringing their legs to their chests while lying on their backs with their weight balanced just above their tailbones.
Amarillo dance instructor Anne Lankford agrees that strengthening exercises are key to preventing injuries.
"Strengthening abdominals and the lower back with lots of warm-ups will go a long way," said Lankford, director of the dance academy for the Amarillo Little Theatre.

The Age Equation
When it comes to dance, the general rule of thumb is that the younger you begin training, the better. Serious ballet dancers, for example, are often expected to be career-ready by 16. But what if you didn't start dancing at age 2? Is there room in the professional dance world for late starters?
The short answer: Yes! Read on to hear from six dancers who started dancing later than their peers—and still became pros.
Misty Copeland with Herman Cornejo in Alexei Ratmansky's Firebird (Gene Schiavone)
Misty Copeland, soloist
at American Ballet Theatre
Age she started dancing: 13
How did you get started? I auditioned for the dance team at my junior high school, and the coach told me my potential as a dancer went beyond that local team.
When did a professional career start to feel possible? When I discovered American Ballet Theatre. I memorized every company member's background and studied videos.
What kept you going through the tough times? The encouragement I got from the people around me. And ABT was the light at the end of the tunnel. Watching videos and seeing live performances kept me motivated.
Were there benefits to starting late? I didn't feel burnt out at the age of, say, 15. Everything was so new that I was always eager for more.
Do you have advice for other late starters? Be mindful of how you treat your body, especially early on. You're in a different place physically than a 7-year-old beginner. Consider cross-training to help develop your technique more quickly.
Richard Riaz Yoder in Duke Ellington's Sophisticated Ladies (Scott Suchman)
Richard Riaz Yoder, Broadway performer
Age he started dancing: 17
How did you get started? I saw a couple of my high school show choir friends doing a time step and got them to teach me. When I showed my mom, she took me to a teacher who owned a studio for adults. At 17, I was actually the youngest person in my first class by 20 years!
Did you ever doubt yourself? I was weird in that I wasn't self-conscious at all in those early classes. Even if I didn't know what the heck I was doing, I was going to do it as best I could.
What obstacles did you encounter?

Find out why oral anesthetic and dental floss are must-haves as you pack your dance bag for performance week or a summer intensive. Their uses might surprise you!
Proper alignment of the body is at the base of all good dance technique. Take this trip around the torso as a refresher for you or your dance students on how to assess and correct placement.
Find out the best way to avoid lower leg and achilles tendon injury, plus learn how to properly stretch the achilles to promote tendon health.
The difference between a strain and a sprain; a ligament and a tendon. Take a closer look at injuries and how to cope throughout the recovery process.
Muscle fatigue is good but not when dancers push themselves (or are pushed by directors) to injury. We’re ignoring a crucial part of the formula for increasing endurance and enhancing performance. What is that element and why is it important for dancers to learn when enough is enough?

Learning dance terminology was hard. I had a teacher early on in college who asked us what dance steps we knew—and I didn't know any. So I went home and memorized the name of every tap step. I wasn't sure what they were, but I knew the names of every one.
Were there benefits to starting late? I was able to make sure I got high-quality training from the beginning. I've seen dancers who, early on, had bad habits thanks to poor training.
Janette Manrara with Robbie Kmetoni in Burn the Floor (David Wyatt)
Janette Manrara, Burn the Floor
Age she started training seriously: 19
How did you get started? My family is from Cuba, so salsa dancing was always a part of my life. I started studying musical theater at 12. Then the dance teacher at my musical theater school opened his own studio, and I started taking dance classes every day.
What obstacles did you have to conquer? The worst was seeing parents or other students look at me with confused faces. They didn't understand why a girl in her 20s was taking ballet with 12-year-olds.
When did you know you wanted to dance
professionally? As soon as I set foot outside of “So You Think You Can Dance"! Being on the show during Season 5 opened so many doors for me.
Phillip Chbeeb, hip-hop dancer
Age he started dancing: 16
How did you get started? I was a jack-of-all-trades kid—I did everything from basketball and track to theater. After a (now) comical incident when I took a line drive to my face playing baseball, I had to ease off sports for a while. That's when I took my first dance class.
What obstacles did you encounter? I had to learn when to incorporate my own natural tendencies into someone else's choreography—and when not to. I had to figure out how to break movements down into pieces: the bounce, the pivot. That helped me become more aware of my body and its subtleties.
Were there any benefits to starting late? In a way it's good that dance isn't “my life." I'm inspired by things outside of dance, and I think that helps me better express myself.

With a vast number of various pointe shoes and styles, finding the right balance between shoe flexibility, correct fit, and support can be challenging. The shoes must have enough movement to allow the dancer to get fully onto the toe box in order achieve full plantar flexion. They must also have adequate support to allow the dancer to put full weight through the tips of the toes without collapsing. Without adequate support, the dancer will place excess load on the muscles, ligaments, and joints of the foot/ankle.
Since pointe shoes have poor shock absorption, dancers must rely on good core stability and lower body strength to reduce the impact on the foot/ankle. Poor technique, fatigue, and improper fitting pointe shoes can increase the risk for injury. For example, the vamp of the shoe must match the foot shape. If the vamp is too low, the foot spills out of the shoe and loses stability. This can increase the risk for fracture at the midfoot or second metatarsal. If the vamp is too high, the dancer won’t be able to point the foot. Improper length of a pointe shoe can result in adverse consequences for a dancer: excess length of a shoe leads to instability and a short-fitting shoe can cause compression of the toes. The vamp/platform of the shoe loses its stability when the shoes have excess wear and tear, and dancing on dead shoes can increase the risk of stress fractures, ankle sprains, metatarsal/tarsometatarsal sprains, Achilles tendinitis, Flexor Hallucis Longus tendinitis, and injuries to the knees, hips, and spine.
Next month’s post will feature Josephine from The Pointe Shop. She will provide more tips on finding the right pointe shoe.
1) “Principles of Dance Medicine, Functional Tests to Assess Pointe Readiness.” A webinar through the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries. Accessed Feb 23, 2017.
2)Shah S. Determining a Young Dancer’s Readiness for Dancing on Pointe. Curr. Sports Med. Rep., Vol 8, No. 6, pp. 295-299, 2009.
3) “Matching the shoe to the dancer.” A webinar through the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries. Accessed Nov 20, 2019.

Editor's note: Art of Movement is CNN's monthly show exploring the latest innovations in art, culture, science and technology.
London, UK (CNN) -- Alina Cojocaru had been one of the Royal Ballet's biggest draws for half a decade by the time her career crashed to a halt.
The minute Prima Ballerina -- praised as "a dancer of seeming fragility, delicacy and radiance" by The New York Times -- was rehearsing in 2008, when she was flipped by her partner, skewed awkwardly and slammed to earth.
She suffered severe whiplash and a prolapsed disc in her spine and was forced to rest for over a year. At 25, doctors told her she would need surgery, and would never dance at the highest level again.
Behind ballet's graceful pirouettes are grueling feats of training and endurance that push dancer's bodies to their extremes.
Rest is a rare luxury. Some dancers perform 200 to 250 days a year, leaving just over 100 days to train and recover. Rehearsals can require 10 hours a day on the floor.
It is hardly surprising that critics often refer to dancers -- especially the hard-worked young apprentices in the corps -- as the "foot soldiers" of ballet.
Four out of five will suffer a severe injury during the course of their dancing career -- and two out of those four will never fully recover.
Injuries, more often than not, are the result of fatigue and repeated strain on muscles and joints, rather than unpredictable accidents. Even in cases like Cojocaru's, fatigue can be the root of the disaster -- as one exhausted dancer's lapse in concentration often translates into another dancer's injury.
Physiotherapy for recovering dancers is well entrenched -- and organizations such as the National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science and the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science have done a lot to advance knowledge of health issues among the big ballet companies and schools that feed them. But, beyond that, dancers benefit from few of the scientific breakthroughs that have so improved the safety record of their athletic counterparts on the sports field.
Patrick Rump is the 33-year-old former karate champion fighting to change all that.
Rump -- a broad-chested, broadly smiling German -- is the subject of "Dance, Sports Science and Patrick Rump," a new short documentary produced by Lady Bernstein and directed by Nigel Wattis.

Before age 10, many dancers recognize that they love dance and set their aspirations to grow up to be “a dancer.” Between the ages 12-14, however, kids become aware that they may not grow up to be a professional dancer, but they do love dance and have a passion for it. It’s important to move these dancers into the mindset that they can turn their love of dance into a variety of future opportunities, and continue their dance training with a future goal in mind.
Usually between ages 12-14, dancers are beginning to think about what decisions to make now as an investment into their young adult life, and they have a hard decision to make: Quit dance training to focus on academics and school activities, or put most of their focus, energy and time into dance in order to focus on being well-rounded, which could serve them in a future dance-related career.
At 3-D Dance, we want to equip dancers to be the most important kind of triple threat: academic strength, dance technique, and life skills. Dancers must be taught to balance the following skills well to truly achieve success:
- Learn to appropriately manage your own emotions.
- Take care of your body.
- Pay attention to your emotional well being.
- Manage your money well.
- Establish genuine relationships and network with colleagues.
- Be a hard worker who goes above and beyond expectations.
- Keep a positive attitude and optimistic perspective.
- Have a confidence and understand of WHO you are and why you are valuable.
Talent can get you a job, but character and work ethic will keep you there and make you valuable. Getting hired is great, but getting re-hired is even better!
There are more great dancers than there are great dancing jobs. However, there are not more jobs than there are great dancers who are also humble, hard working, and professional who demonstrate integrity and hard work with a positive attitude.
There are three general categories of dance related careers: dance jobs, dance-related jobs, and medical/fitness jobs.
Let’s dive into the yellow ring, Dance Jobs, first.
- Dancer: someone who is actively performing in some capacity. These jobs are hardest on your body.

The Alonzo King LINES Ballet blog now features a biweekly column by Dr. Lindsay Stephens called Body Care for Dancers. In her posts she shares her vast knowledge on topics such as injury prevention, treatment and recovery. Read on for her second installment in which she offers tips for reducing injury through stretching.
#1: Breathing! Simple, yet effective. Holding your breath restricts core muscle control, decreasing stability and increasing the risk of injury. If a structure is unstable, supporting structures will take more load and wear down easier. In order to avoid this and maintain stability, one must have full control and movement of the diaphragm with a braced core. An inactive weak core is like running on dry sand: hard to get any traction and the energy expenditure is 10 times that of running on a stable, hard surface. I always tell my patients that if you can breathe through the movement pattern, you can control it. Practice breathing during your warm up so you can translate that to the technique and the choreography.
#2: Be specific! Stretch the muscle groups you need for the type of activity you are doing. It is also important to be well versed in ones limitations: What are your injury risks? Are you hypermobile or hypomobile? Which joints? Do you have muscle asymmetry? Weakness? Instability? These are questions you should be able to answer. If you find you cannot answer these questions, consider being screened by a musculoskeletal specialist to get the information you need. Knowing the answers allows you to cater your warm up to your body and ultimately improve your performance.
#3: Watch your form! It often seems that people are trying so hard to impress everyone else while stretching, that form becomes secondary. They’re so busy stretching the furthest, that they aren’t even stretching the intended muscle groups any more. It’s not how far you go, but how great your form. By pushing yourself without perfecting your form first you are risking injury to your back, knees, ankles, hips, and more. It puts unnecessary strain on the supporting structure and deconditions stabilizing muscle groups. If you are new to dancing, let your instructor know so that you can get the guidance you need – a great teacher will correct form during stretching as well as during class. Protect yourself from day one and injury will be a preventable factor.

How do I transition into the new stage in life?”
And you’re talking about short career, but actually, when you consider that most of the dancers start early on in their life – three, four, five – it’s actually a long span of time, and, it’s their identity. So when they finish dancing, they have lost an identity.
Take for instance an engineer or an architect, they start when they’re perhaps 16 or 18, depending on what exams they take, and that’s when they start. And then they finish a lot later. [But dancers finish] at 30 or less – I think I retired at 29 – you might say that’s a short career, but I’ve been doing it since age six. So that’s 24 years.
And this is the most formative period of your life when you’re young, and as you mentioned before, that your subconscious is recording your experiences and forming your world view and of yourself. This point about the identity is quite a significant because dance is not just a physical challenge of an athlete, although dancers are athletes, they have to perform at peak performance, but also, as you mentioned, it’s an artistry as well. They have to tell stories and it has to look beautiful all the time, and it’s all about presenting this perfection. And this identity must be very hard to change.
Well, yes. We talk about the identity and the loss of identity. So we’re talking about grace and bereavement again, when there is a change. And you know, it’ll be the same for athletes as well, because they get injured, they have to give up. And I think from that point of view, it’s how to deal with it. How to deal with the process of change.
I’m doing university research on neurodiversity. So the neurodiversity includes ADHD — that’s Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and Autism. So, we’re looking at the spectrums and how the training from an early age exacerbates some of those traits to develop ‘black and white thinking’ – the ‘right and wrong’. For example, if you’re not pointing your foot right then you’re wrong – and then there’s the concentration that’s needed, the perfectionism within that, [which can] exacerbate all those traits.
Are the traits leading the dancers or are the dancer able to control those traits?

Dance floor research
Emerging dance scientist and biomechanics expert Luke Hopper outlines his pioneering research investigating the effects of dance floors on dancer performance and injury.
Dance floors are an integral part of the dance environment, yet little information is available for the dance community that concerns how dance floors may affect dancer performance and injury. For the dedicated dancer striving to improve, injury can sadly be an all too common occurrence. By gaining knowledge concerning the relationship between dance floors and dancer performance and injury, the dance environment can be optimized in order to give dancers the best opportunities in their training.
It is common to hear dancers describe a floor with words like ‘sprung’, ‘hard’ or ‘stiff’. But what aspects of the floors are the dancers referring to when they make these statements? And do these elements of the floors really affect performance? These are vital research questions for dance research in the interests of dancer health.
Findings of the research
Did you know that the manufacturing standards in the UK that apply to dance floors are exactly the same standards that apply to basketball and volleyball courts? But unlike in many sports there is no governing body that directly regulates the floors used by dancers. Therefore it is easy to imagine that there are many inappropriate dance floors being used in the UK.
Various floors used by professional dancers in the UK have been tested and it was found that many of the floors did not meet the standards that apply to basketball and volleyball courts. In fact, some of the floors were almost as hard as concrete! It was only the floors that were specifically made for dance that complied to the standards for hardness. Therefore requiring dancers to perform on floors that are not dance specific may present with an unnecessary injury risk.
Using state of the art 3D motion analysis techniques, the movements of dancers were measured performing landings on different dance floors. The results showed that on harder surfaces (like that measured in the previous study), the stress at the dancers’ ankle joints increased. It was only when the floors complied with the standards that the ankle stress was decreased. The greatest ankle stress occurred less than a tenth of a second after the dancers had landed on the floor. Because these changes occurred within such a short time period this may mean that regardless of technical ability, dancers may not be able to reduce this ankle stress.
Professional and student dancers were then asked to give their opinions of the ‘feel’ of different floors.

Our result may be explained by increased sensorial and cognitive disabilities, which are well known to favour falling17 18 33 among participants aged ≥40 years.17 Ageing healthy people have reduced posture control, associated with cognitive and brain structural involution, in unstable stance conditions and with diminished sensory input.22 Posture of 44- to 60-year-old participants is more sensitive to task concentration constraints than that of young participants.23 Older adults display greater body sway than the younger adults, when performing demanding tasks.34 Posture control demands concentration under certain circumstances, especially under dual task conditions,35 and interference occurs between activities of maintaining balance and performing mental tasks.36 Our study reveals that older workers were also subject to a higher injury risk due to collision with/by moving objects or vehicles. This result may be partly explained by a higher prevalence of visual, hearing and cognitive impairments, which steadily increase after 40 years of age18 and which are known to favour injuries.10 16 37 An injury caused by a moving object often results from the subject not being able to avoid the object because he hears neither the object itself nor the warning message related to the moving object. A study has shown a relationship between warning sound and perceived urgency by the subject.38 Our findings are important because lengthening of working life produces more workers aged >55 years, and this age-related risk trend suggests that these older workers are subject to high risk. Physical job performance requirements as well as tasks and environments involving excessive risk should be mitigated for workers aged ≥40 years.
Our study shows that injury risk was highest during the first 2 years of employment and then decreased steadily with increasing length of service (except for workers aged <25 years). This trend was observed for all injury categories. Although some long service staff would be in safer jobs and younger workers may make more difficult tasks than older workers or those with disability when they work in teams, these findings show that gaining job experience represents a long, gradual, personal effort, which will produce maximum benefit after 30 years of employment. Job experience therefore appears to be an endless process of acquiring job knowledge, especially in relation to task performance and occupational hazard assessment. This may be explained by the large number of occupational hazards and their complex injury-causing mechanisms.

"I think that a majority of back injuries probably come from partnering and the lifting involved in that. I work with primarily children and older adults instead of professionals, so I'm not as familiar with back injuries in dancing as others might be."
Bruce Ballard, who formerly danced professionally in four states and Canada, agreed that the majority of back injuries come from coupling. But the person getting injured most often isn't who you might think.
"Men don't usually have back problems, even though they're the ones doing the lifting," said Ballard, who now is a registered respiratory therapist and registered pulmonary function technologist for Baptist St. Anthony's Health System. "I have seen backs hurt of women who are being carried. They have to do a lot of bending at the waist, and they sometimes get tweaks in their backs."
Ballard said that both stretching and massage will help keep vulnerable muscles from being injured.
"Those muscles get worked so hard," he said. "It's important to stretch and have those muscles massaged - especially to protect the ones that don't really grow in size and are hard to strengthen."
Barbara Harris, a trainer and rehabilitation specialist for the Boston Ballet, said that a normally curved spine acts like a spring, absorbing impact from dance movements. But dancers think a straight spine is better - "it makes them look very lifted and very long," she said.
The "lifted" look, with a straight back and neck, and pelvis tucked under the back, makes dancers seem to float as they move, Harris said. However, dancers can get the same look with less risk to their backs simply by keeping the pelvis in a neutral position, neither tilted forward nor back, she said.
Those who don't prepare their backs properly may wind up at a sports medicine clinic and at rehab. At the clinic, they may get X-rays and bone scans. The scans have the advantage of picking up tiny tears before they get big enough for X-ray spotting, when the injuries are harder to heal, Micheli said.
At rehab, Harris works with a Pilates-based system of flexibility and strengthening - a method that often is familiar to dancers. She also focuses on teaching them how to recognize and foster good back alignment.
Almost all dancers can dance after treatment, Micheli said. But older dancers may not heal as easily, he said - like older athletes, they may return to their activity, but must recognize they will have to play with pain.

Absolutely not! In my opinion, 19 is a great age to start training to become a professional ballroom dancer. As a matter of fact, it’s considered to be a little young. Even so, I started at 20 with no previous dance experience. But first, before we get into the reasons that 19 or 20 is the ideal time to start your ballroom dance career, we have to answer this question…
Exactly what is a professional Latin and Ballroom dancer?
A ballroom dancer who gets paid to dance is a professional. It may be as a performer, but in ballroom dancing, especially in the States, you’ll almost certainly start out as a teacher. For some suggestions on how you can become an instructor, check out this Dance Safari post, “How Can Adults Learn to Ballroom Dance Professionally?”
To become an instructor, you must learn three things.
- To begin with, you have to learn to do your part of the dance. As a result, the man will learn to lead and the lady will learn to follow.
- The next step is to learn how to teach ballroom dancing. Specifically, the lady will learn to lead while the gentleman learns to follow.
- Finally, you’ve got to be trained to sell dance lessons. It’s important to be able to explain to your students why they should invest in your services. If you fail to do this, all your dance training will be for nothing because you won’t have anyone to teach.
What’s so good about a younger trainee?
As someone with a fresh face and pleasing personality, younger trainees will find it easier to get their foot in the door.
As recent graduates, most 19-year-olds are considered to be professional students. Learning ballroom dancing is the same as learning any new subject. For this reason, their dance training should be smooth sailing.
Some of the best reasons to begin working towards the goal of becoming a ballroom dancer at the age of 19 are:
Excitement and Enthusiasm
How exciting it is to be preparing for a career in ballroom dancing! Let’s face it, what 19-year-old wouldn’t want to sleep late and get paid to spend the workday dancing? In addition, there are competitions, shows, world travel, and a glamorous lifestyle.
Enthusiasm for dancing comes easily to younger instructors. Furthermore, it’s contagious. A passionate teacher means an eager student.

If we think about performances, both your nervous system and your brain are working overtime just to keep you upright and following the music. As well as moving your muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the right way, the whole body needs to remain balanced. The stronger your balance and coordination, the more likely you are to make the correct movements (and get a standing ovation at the end!).
We’ve broken down the physical demands below;
- Coordination - Dancers often adhere to choreography that’s always changing, and this means different groups of muscles are required. As movement patterns change, the body develops complex movements. When it comes to technique, coordination is everything.
- Alignment - Even beginners can make the same movements as the professionals, but it’s the effortless nature of moving from one position to the next that makes a dancer so successful. Sometimes known as ‘placement’, alignment describes the efficient movement that’s required of the body.
- Flexibility - Of course, no dancer will be able to make elaborate movements without first having the flexibility in the tissue. Although different types of dancing will have different levels of required flexibility, all dancers need the muscles, ligaments, and tendons to work together to provide flexibility.
- Strength - Next, dancing isn’t just about exerting as much energy as possible in a short amount of time. Instead, it sometimes requires slow and controlled movements. Often, these deliberate movements require bodyweight to be shifted to one leg or in an awkward way and this is where the body requires strength. Elsewhere, you might push yourself from the floor explosively or lift a dance partner.
- Endurance - While there are others, the final physical demand we’ll include in this list is aerobic endurance. If your aerobic capacity is low, you’ll feel fatigued much quicker and this leads to aching and, the one thing dancers dread, injuries. With the right aerobic endurance, everything improves including energy, overall health, stress, injury risk, concentration, and stamina.
As you can see, the body can go through quite a ride during a dance class, lesson, and performance. Fortunately, a chiropractor can improve many of these factors and ensure that your body is in the right place to handle dance classes effectively. Even if you aren’t injured, we can still help at Carpe Diem Chiropractic so don’t wait until the worst happens.

The contributing factors are Coordination, Aerobic activity, Socializing, and Happiness and of course that secret ingredient of feeling young and beautiful no matter what age.
So please pass this on to your young & not so young dancers, mine loved hearing it.
And here's to a long life of dancing and being able to remember our way home after.
Keep well, keep smiling and most of all
Keep dancing. See you on the floor
Till next time,
Samantha – Assistant Secretary

Eat well and take supplements to support your joints.
Most of the dancers I know are out there strutting their stuff on the dance floor 2-3 times a week, usually for 2-4 hours or more. If that’s not intense training I’m not sure what is. You’ve got to look after the health of your joints from the inside if you want to keep up that sort of activity! My top tips would be to eat an anti-inflammatory diet (check out my blog on arthritis for more information on this), take vitamin D, fish oils and some form of glucosamine and chondroitin. It’s all on the arthritis blog, and doesn’t only apply to those with arthritis.
4. Listen to your body!
When you start to feel like your back is about to “go”, get it seen to before you injure yourself. Your body is the most amazing, intelligent, intuitive piece of kit you’ll ever have; learn to listen to it and trust it when it’s telling you there’s a problem. Pain is there for a reason, so don’t just keep popping the ibuprofen without looking into the cause of the pain. I’d recommend seeing a qualified professional such as a sports massage therapist, a chiropractor or an osteopath. I don’t recommend taking all your health advice from the bloke down the pub, or the guy you know on facebook that “had a problem just like this, here try some of my prescription medication. . .” I wish I was joking when I typed that, but it happens more often than I care to mention!
5. Invest in regular massage treatments.
People usually turn up in my clinic with acute or chronic injuries. We work intensively together for a few weeks (time scales vary depending on the extent of the injury) and then the client either says “So long, thanks for fixing me, see you next time I’m broken,” or they say “Can I book in for a maintenance treatment next month?” Which do you think has a higher risk of repeat injury? I can tell you, it’s the former. So after three months of having no massage treatment, they turn up again with the same injury, and spend twice as much on having it sorted out again from scratch as they would have spent on three maintenance treatments. It’s a sad story, but a common one. Sad face :-(.

“Of course, everyone knows their body best, and as a dancer what kind of things might trigger pre-existing injuries and how to ice and heat, and so on. We can call that common sense, but common sense only goes so far when you’re dealing with a detail-oriented issue that involves multiple muscle complexes in the body.”
After repeatedly hurting her left knee, Hannah’s recovery and management techniques were taught to her by medical professionals rather than her dance teachers. “My rehabilitation knowledge came from my physical therapist and their recommendations from their limited understanding of what ballet does to the body. My ballet instructor understood to tread lightly as I progressed back into full time dance, but most of the modification decisions were based on my own intuition. I had to reconstruct my leg and build back the muscle strength to match the demand of the rigor of ballet.”
Both Rolanda and Hannah have found a positive impact in practicing Yoga throughout their dance careers. “I believe yoga is a beneficial practice for dancers,” says Rolanda, who has used Yoga as a method of both injury prevention and recovery. “Every time I lead my dance classes in our warm up and stretch, I always incorporate at least 6 yoga poses.”
“Yoga can be beneficial for injury prevention because you’re tapping into an awareness about your body and how it’s feeling that normally isn’t a focus when you’re drilling out combos or choreography,” Hannah states. “It also works in supplementation for strength training in areas that could be weak, while simultaneously giving you the opportunity to elongate and release places in your body that we may not even realize are carrying tension.”
Dance professionals, especially choreographers and instructors, may benefit from investing time to investigate the effects of Yoga on dance related injuries. While an injury can almost never be anticipated, dancers can be prepared to take care of themselves or those they teach should one arise.
Polsgrove, M.J., Eggleston, B.M., Lockyer, R.J. (2016). Impact of 10-weeks of yoga practice on flexibility and balance of college athletes. International Journal Of Yoga, 9(1), 27–34. Doi: 10.4103/0973-6131.171710

You're never too old to benefit from taking up dancingby Ruth Nichol
When Jackie Scannell hung up her ballet shoes 45 years ago, she assumed her dancing days were behind her.
Scannell, who lives in Central Hawke’s Bay, returned to the barre eight years ago. Since then, she has gradually built up her strength to the point where she is able to go en pointe (dance on her toes), something that even young dancers can find difficult.
As her teacher, Esther Juon, points out: “You have to be incredibly fit to do what Jackie has done.”
Spending four hours a week at ballet classes hasn’t just made Scannell fitter, stronger and more flexible. It has also fixed a long-standing lower back problem, and given her a sense of satisfaction and achievement as well as providing what she describes as a workout for her brain.
“The amount you use your brain is incredible, because you have to think about so many different things as you dance.”
She’s one of a small but growing number of so-called silver swans – mostly women who are returning to (or in some cases taking up) ballet later in life. Although they tend to range in age from their late teens to their early sixties, some are much older; according to a recent BBC report, the oldest ballerina at adult classes run by the Scottish Ballet was 102.
A survey by Dance Aotearoa New Zealand (Danz) last year found there are two main reasons people return to or take up ballet as adults. The first is to improve their physical health and the second is to improve their mental health and sense of well-being.
“It gives me strength and muscle tone,” said one respondent. “It makes my day feel better – I leave feeling good,” said another.
In October, the American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons issued a statement recommending ballet as a way for people of all ages to improve mobility and build strength. Spokesperson Nicholas DiNubile – orthopaedic consultant to the Pennsylvania Ballet – said the artform provides flexibility, strength, core conditioning and agility training.
“The controlled movements produced in ballet, such as demi-plies [knee bends with feet planted to the floor] and releves [toe raises], help to strengthen knees, ankles and feet. Arabesques [leg lifts to the rear] build gluteal and core muscles.

Instruction in proper technique is critical. Dancers ought to pay out very near interest to right posture and alignment: “shoulders in excess of hips, over knees, in excess of ankles” is a crucial notion to recall.
Quite a few dancers also learn that common core strengthening aids develop excellent balance and control, So reducing excessive work by the incorrect muscle teams.
Ballet is a sort of dance which might be traced back to your Italian courts. It happened in massive halls and included other arts.
You will get one hundred thirty five distinct images and 44 movie demonstrations of distinctive stretches for all the foremost muscle groups in your body. In addition, the DVD consists of 3 custom made sets of stretches (8 minutes Just about every) for the Upper Overall body; the Reduce Human body; and also the Neck, Again & Main. And the Handbook will teach you, step-by-stage, the way to accomplish Each and every stretch accurately and properly.
Pacing the instruction: This means, new more challenging movements and combos need to only be introduced if the dancer has produced ample power, flexibility and technological foundation to accomplish the new motion properly and effortlessly. “Pushing” a dancer could be counter successful.
Power instruction: Despite the fact that dancers will not normally use pounds lifting, they can profit greatly from dance specific toughness teaching working with just one’s possess human body bodyweight. Other than a great overall application, Unique attention need to be supplied to balancing the hamstring and quadriceps strength, as imbalances in that space are at the basis of numerous back and lessen human body overuse issues.
The areas that have to have specific notice are classified as the hip flexors, hamstrings and calves in addition to Performing to create a fantastic hip turnout.
Ballet stretches are Probably the most under-used strategies for enhancing athletic performance, blocking athletics injury and thoroughly rehabilitating sprain and strain personal injury. Don’t make the mistake of believing that anything so simple as stretching gained’t be helpful.
Other people can create Achilles tendonitis and tension fracture from the foot. Just about the most frequent injuries is a lateral ligament injury of your ankle as a consequence of inversion. Some ankle trouble stem from muscular and anatomical challenges while in the hips.
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This muscle should be flexible enough to achieve a neutral pelvic position.

Alice Holland, a physical therapist in Portland, Oregon and director of Stride Strong Physical Therapy agrees, but adds that you shouldn't use this as an excuse to shy away from exercise because a sedentary lifestyle is also bad for your back. “Over time, too much sitting deconditions the abdominal and gluteal muscles, which will cause extra pressure on the spinal column—ultimately leading to pain,” says Holland.
2. Knee problems
Achy knees might not take you by surprise if you've been running, skiing, or biking for years, but it can also happen if you're new to exercise. “This is especially true for people who’ve had a long stint of inactivity and then try to lose weight by doing high-intensity workouts,” says Hollalnd. “To prevent knee pain over 40, my recommendation is to focus on conditioning and strengthening workouts that progress slowly.”
Barbara Bergin, MD, a board-certified orthopedic surgeon in Austin, Texas, adds that the knee is particularly susceptible to injury as we age because a weakened, older meniscus in the knee is more likely to tear. “Squats, deep knee bends, and lunges have the potential to cause a painful condition in the knee cap because they put increased pressure on that area,” says Bergin. “And women are more susceptible to this than men because of the physiology of our knees and hips.” (If you have knee pain, this is the best lunge variation you should be doing.)
Here's how to do the perfect lunge:
3. Rotator cuff injuries
“The shoulder is the most mobile joint in the entire body—no other joint can match it in the degrees of freedom it has,” says Champion. “But this mobility reduces the shoulder joint’s stability,” which puts it at greater risk for injury, he adds.
Bergin says rotator cuff strains, tendonitis, bursitis, and tears are very common after 40 because the shoulder is an area that’s particularly susceptible to repetitive strain. “Any exercise program that involves heavy lifting, repetitive lifting, burpees, and push-ups puts older people at risk,” she says. “In fact, orthopedic surgeons often joke that these programs keep us in business.”
4.

“Once the spine and tailbone are in an exact position, then we start turning out from the hips,” says Kremnev. “Otherwise, you have to go back and fix their alignment a few years down the road.”
According to “Turnout for Dancers: Hip Anatomy and Factors Affecting Turnout,” a resource paper written by Virginia Wilmerding and Donna Krasnow and published by the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS), approximately 60 percent of turnout comes from the hip joint and 20 to 30 percent from the ankle. The knee and tibia pick up the rest. In addition, specific muscle groups aid in rotation and help dancers sustain turnout. The lateral rotators—a set of six small muscles located underneath the gluteus maximus near the pelvic floor—help pull the greater trochanter out and back. The sartorius and inner thigh muscles (or adductors) also contribute to external rotation, while the abdominals stabilize the pelvis.
Variables such as the femoral neck’s shape, length, and angle; placement of the hip socket; muscle tightness; and ligament flexibility can help or hinder a dancer’s rotation. Kremnev is sensitive to individual differences, and approaches each student differently to accommodate their physical abilities early on. For those with limited turnout, he implements a gradual, gentle stretching regimen. “We practice extending the muscles and then relaxing so they can reach their maximum,” he says. “As the muscles get longer and looser, we try a little bit more. It’s a step-by-step approach.”
After age 13 or 14, there’s not much a dancer can do to increase their natural range, but strengthening the proper muscles can help. “Many dancers think they don’t have enough turnout,” says Molnar. “But what they really lack is strength at the very end range of motion, so they can’t hold it.” She recommends supplemental strengthening exercises provided on the IADMS website. “If you increase your strength, you improve your ability to reach your maximum.”
Forcing that maximum by torquing the knees and ankles can have damaging results. Wear and tear on the hip joint’s surface can result in arthritic changes and impingements.

Most dancers think more movement is inherently better. It’s not uncommon for a dancer to come in and lament their lack of flexibility, then display 135 degrees of hip flexion. And while more mobility CAN be useful for them, if they’re writing checks with their mobility that they’re stability bank can’t cash… they’re going to run into problems. Even if they avoid injury, they won’t be able to fully realize their potential as artists.
This is obviously interrelated to the point about mobility above, but make sure they have ample core and 1 leg stability. Powerlifters know “you can’t shoot a canon out of a canoe,” but dancers don’t always appreciate how much their core stability will limit their ability to be graceful while jumping or maximize their height. Furthermore, it’s difficult to nail multiple turns (or “pirouettes”) if there’s compromised hip stability. It’s also worth noting since turning is a one leg activity, a highly functioning lateral subsystem is going to be key here, so don’t neglect true one leg work. In other words, split squats are useful as a regression or to build the foundation, but be sure to progress to exercises like box step-ups to balance.
3. Landing Mechanics
In the strength and conditioning world at large, there are often passionate debates as to the appropriate amount of jumping for athletes. Excessive plyometrics can represent a skewed risk to benefit ratio for many coaches.
Unfortunately, since most forms of dancing require ample amounts of jumping, dancers don’t have the luxury of limiting their jumping volume. Therefore it’s super important to make sure their landing mechanics are spot on. Much like in a game, dancers can’t afford to think about their technique while performing or auditioning, so it’s important for their training to hammer in good mechanics.
Certainly addressing mobility and stability as described above will go a long way towards cleaning things up. Even so, taking some dedicated time to work out on the fine points of landing mechanics is a great idea. Many elite dancers will be adept at using their foot musculature to decelerate upon impact, but make sure females in particular cultivate the ability to landing with out caving into valgus collapse. As always, progression is key here; if they’re unable to stabilize in a less dynamic environment, regress as appropriate until they’re ready to handle the increased demands of jumping.

This is the legacy that Golden and I are committed to,” she told us. “To make sure no one who dances gets injured, we have been teaching this technique for 35 years with great success, and those we taught this technique to have never been injured.”
The duo’s method is reportedly simple, yet it is apparently crucial that this technique is properly taught, and in the U.S now only two people – Dame Nadya and Sir Golden – are authorized to teach it.
On “DWTS,” many of the performers have endured tough injuries. “The Bachelor” veteran Melissa Rycroft was diagnosed with a disc herniation on her spine following a rehearsal last year, and in her first “DWTS” run in 2009 she was set back with a hairline rib fracture. Others, including Melissa Gilbert, Maria Menounos, Ralph Macchio, Jennifer Grey and Debi Mazur have all endured rough injuries.
Then there was Gilles Marini, who underwent surgery to treat a separated shoulder. And the series proved too rough for “Jackass” star Steve-O, too. He had to rest after being injured flipping onto his back. Singer Jewel fractured tibia in both legs, and Steve Wozniak fractured his foot and pulled a hamstring.
Even elite athletes aren’t immune. Figure skaters Evan Lysacek and Kristi Yamaguchi were both hurt on the show. Meanwhile, pro dancer Maskim Chmerkovskiy is rumored to be suffering ankle and back issues that could prevent him from returning to the show next season.
So why do so many things go wrong on the popular reality series?
“They seem to be doing more dances and more challenging choreography, which then involves a lot more rehearsing. Thus, overuse of muscle and joint syndrome,” explained former professional dancer and co-founder of the Exhale Core Fusion fitness program, Elisabeth Halfpapp. “If possible, they need to have more time to recover between each dance and rehearsals, or massage and acupuncture daily which will help sore muscles and joints.”
And according to Lani Muelrath, a fitness expert and author of “Fit Quickies,” something has to give to stop so many sprains, strains and snaps going forward.
“’DWTS’ should bring in a specialist in correct movement form and alignment to teach the basics of core stabilization, as well as how to maintain position anchor points as a safe foundation for dance,” she said.

Dance tutors are now being encouraged to break the bad habits, pursued since the early days of ballet in the court of Louis XIV, and adopt the lessons of British Olympic sport science, including the study of anatomy and warm-up techniques.
The study Fit to Dance? was supported by Dance UK, the national organisation for Britain's 25,000 professional dancers. It surveyed 658 ballet, contemporary, jazz and tap dancers and dance students, watched 250 performances ,;and conducted fitness and nutrition tests. The researchers concluded that dancers in Britain were less aerobically fit than counterparts in the United States and Russia. The dancers' >own definition of fitness tends to mean flexibility rather than stamina and endurance.
Diets were found to be notoriously unhealthy, with too many still believing the myth that "food is the enemy". One dancer told researchers: "It's chocolate, cigarettes, Kit-Kats . and Coke". They eat more fatty foods than other sportspeople and fewer fruit and vegetables. To replace fluid, they mistakenly drink strong tea, coffee, beer, lager and wine.
Forty per cent of the men and 36 per cent of the women admit to smoking. The report says: "Some begin smoking only upon arriving at school, partly to cope with the unfamiliarity and pressure, partly because it is socially acceptable and partly to suppress appetite."
Professor Christopher Bannerman, one of the report's editorial team, remembers how he was left incapable of tying his shoe-laces for three months because of a back injury with London Contemporary Dance Theatre. He trained with weights in a gym and, when he returned to work, found: he had become much fitter:','! leaped into the air and wondered why everyone else was going down to the ground so soon. I was fit for the first time."
Professor Bannerman, now head of dance at Middlesex University, said: "Some dancers are marginally more fit than the average person in the street in terms of aerobic fitness. They, say: 'I want to express myself and look beautiful — I don't want to jog'."
Half of the dancers surveyed had chronic injuries from early in their careers. The cost can be high. One commercial management spent £38,000 on understudies and extra rehearsals to replace injured dancers.

Whether you’ve been a regular at the gym for years or you’re just starting to up the workout ante now, exercising after 40 can help you fight off age-related weight gain and reduce your risk of chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. The downside: You're more apt to walk away with aches, pains, and even serious injuries than you were when you were in your 20s and 30s.
As you get older, your body just can't bounce back as quickly as it once did, so recovery takes longer. You may also have to contend with the cumulative effects of being very active for many years. Long-time runners, for instance, may find that their knees have endured some serious wear-and-tear. But those new to working out are also at risk, especially if they push too far too fast or don't learn proper form.
(Transform your health with 365 days of slimming secrets, wellness tips, and motivation—get your 2018 Prevention calendar and health planner today!)
“The fact is that exercise-related injuries are more common after age 40, so it’s important to moderate your physical activity—and build up to your optimum workout intensity—if you’re in this demo,” says Liam Champion, a physical therapist at Physiwiz. It’s also helpful to understand which injuries are most common, so you can make an extra effort to avoid them. Here, doctors, physical therapists, and personal trainers share the most common exercise-related injuries they see in their patients and clients who are over 40.
1. Low back pain
Given the fact that the American Chiropractic Association estimates a whopping 31 million Americans experience low back pain at any given time, it’s no surprise that this common hot spot may act up when you’re over 40. Rachel Straub, an exercise physiologist and co-author of Weight Training Without Injury says that age increases the likelihood of low back issues.
“Unfortunately, far too many people hurt their low back during exercise by overextending or arching their low backs, which is common during push-ups, kettle bell swings, and even certain yoga poses,” says Straub. “One solution is to boost core strength, which helps keep your spine in a neutral position as you move through these and all of your exercises.” (Try this 9-minute yoga routine that will help rid your lower back of pain.)

So, I hope that my appreciations about this problematic, from the dancer’s perspective, might be of use for those of you having a similar situation or interested in the subject.
I’m aware of the fact that a neck pain can be caused by too many different reasons, such as injuries or diseases. In the case of dancers, it can often be caused simply by improper placement, coordination or training, which is the dancer’s responsibility to understand.
I had a neck pain crisis at the age of 22. At the moment I was so passionate about dance, that I would have trained 24 hours a day, non stop, if my energy would have allowed it (I’m still so fervent but go wiser now…!). Not only was I passionate, but also anxious about improving my skills and being a better performer.
It seems like this behavior is a common characteristic among many dancers. We are worldwide recognized for the passion to our occupation and there’s also a kind of popular archetype that describes us as perfectionists and compulsive (just have a glimpse at the film “Black Swan” where Natalie Porter plays the role of a dancer, and you’ll find the popular archetype I’m talking about).
Well, this feature of personality helps a lot to deal with the discipline and severity of our job, but when talking about our health it can be highly counterproductive.
RESTING AND CROSS-TRAINING.
One of the things I had to understand, and accept, during my personal recovery process, was that resting is a fundamental part of training. Without the appropriate resting dedication, physical skills worsen, rather than enhancing, no matter how much effort we put on training. And when we push further from our biomechanical limits, we’ll very probably enter the domain of injuries or dysfunctions.
It was very important for me to understand that resting doesn’t mean only to stop classes and sleep. Actually, a dancer’s rest also means to cross-train with practices that emphasize in recovering movement qualities (everything that goes towards relaxation or efficient coordination of tension).
In my case, the study of Tai Chi Chuan, Hatha Yoga and the Bartenieff fundamental exercises was the key. Nowadays there are many methods to search for this and I guess each dancer has to find the one that fits her/him the best.

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One of the most common positions I see young students trying to achieve in order to get more flexible is oversplits in second position, or box splits. Aggressively stretching young hips into this positions can permanently change their structure, so we need to be very, very careful in how this is achieved.
When I have raised my concerns about over stretching in second in the past, many parents and teachers have resisted this, saying that their kids are fine. I had been struggling to find a way to demonstrate the very real risks of this kind of training, as the results are often not visible for several years after the fact.
Then one day, one student came for an appointment, who's history and x-rays demonstrate my point exactly. She has graciously let me use for education purposes and is hopeful that this will help other students avoid the issues that she has had.
Just to clarify - I have no issues with extreme mobility when achieved safely, and with the appropriate control. In fact, much of the work I do with the high level, elite students is focused exactly on this. However we focus on achieving this through educated and intelligent, up to date, smart ways, to avoid any potential issues, and the students are educated to manage their own bodies. This means that they will be able to continue dancing well into adulthood, and be able to live a normal, pain free life when they do decide to stop performing.
Anyone training young students, and the parents of these students need to be very aware of the possible dangers when trying to improve mobility. The students themselves often find it difficult to see the long term consequences of their actions, and for them, achieving a certain position is often their end goal. It is our responsibility to learn the safest possible ways to help them to achieve their goals, as well as educating them on the appropriateness of their goals to their chosen career.
The following images are from a young dancer, now 14, who had started experiencing hip pain at the age of 10. X-rays were taken and they were told that there was nothing wrong. (Her teacher told her it was normal to have hip pain..!) She continued to have hip issues and had X-rays retaken again at ages 13 and again at 14 before she saw me.

The hunger for fame
Longtime dancers say the acrobatics trend in dance has been growing for years in tandem with the rise of social media and reality-TV dance shows. Leslie Scott, a dancer and choreographer who founded the nonprofit Youth Protection Advocates in Dance, has been researching and surveying young dancers about their social media habits for years.
Most young dancers keep up on the daily posts of Instagram dance "celebrities," who have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers through photos and videos of mind-boggling contortions and tricks, Scott told Business Insider. The result is that dancers now strive for fame, not mastery of dance.
Some of the most popular dancers like Maddie Ziegler — originally from the Lifetime show "Dance Moms" and currently a judge on Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance: Next Generation" — have attained a level of stardom that provokes instant reaction among their millions of followers.
When Ziegler posts a photo of an impressive leg lift or a pirouette, she accumulates hundreds of thousands of "likes" along with a slew of wistful comments: "How do you do that?" or "They make it look so easy," or "This hurts my heart."
Scott said she worries about the youngest generation of dancers, who now view these dance celebrities as role models. They may be setting themselves up for careers that are nearly impossible to achieve — both physically and realistically, she said.
"Many of them have shifted aspirations — occupational aspirations — from wanting to maybe go to college for dance or do something in dance therapy to wanting to be a dance celebrity," Scott said.
"They want to be like that, they want to look like that, they want to move like that. And they've also shared at times that they feel depressed and inadequate because they're not able to live up to that level of talent."
The physical consequences
The hunger for fame and eagerness to perform wild stunts hasn't escaped the notice of the medical community. Ruth Solomon, a dance medicine expert and professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, said she frequently treats injuries sustained from ambitious tricks and overstretching and is astounded by the extremes to which young dancers push their bodies.
Even a split can be harmful, she said, and many young dancers push their legs far past the standard 180-degree angle.

- The Nervous System
Over the years, technology has allowed chiropractors to learn more about the body, particularly the spine, than ever before. The reason dancers have taken to chiropractors (and vice versa) is that these medical professionals can assist with the nervous system, spinal positioning and movement, and overall body performance. Many of the elements required for dance directly correlate to the work of a chiropractor.
When the body calls on your balance and coordination, this activates the nervous system at the same time. While we all have the capabilities, the nervous system is forced into working at a higher level than normal. Sadly, the range of motion in the spinal joints can sometimes be restricted and this has a negative impact on the nervous system.
What does all this mean? Your ability to coordinate and balance movements and muscles will depend on your nervous system and effective alignment of the spine. By ensuring your spine is aligned with chiropractic adjustments, you’ll have the full range of motion and your nervous system won’t be restricted as before (in other words, you can dance with freedom!).
By allowing the nervous system optimum conditions, you will also have the optimal body and brain communication. In dancing terms, you can enjoy more fluid movements, you’ll have the strength and endurance, and each session will last longer than normal.
Wouldn’t it be great to be able to dance without restriction? This is essentially what we aim for at Carpe Diem Chiropractic, and it’s a journey you can start while docked in Fort Lauderdale.
- Pain Relief with Chiropractic
Even if you haven’t been injured or hurt from dancing yourself, you probably know somebody that has because it’s common (to say the least!). Recently, specialists have come to realize that the majority of injuries in dancing are a result of overuse in the body. Common injuries include;
- Achilles tendonitis
- Patellofemoral pain syndrome
- Trigger toe
- Labral tears in the hip
- Snapping hip syndrome
- Lumbar spine damage
- Hip bursitis
- Sacroiliac joint dysfunction
- Hip flexor tendonitis
- Various stress fractures
While some injuries are obvious and cause instant pain, others lead to soreness and aching. As we continue to dance on, the injury gets worse until it’s career-threatening.

The fear sets in fast. In the pit of my stomach. Pop. I hear it again in my head. But I wonder if I ever heard it at all—or did I just feel it. Which is worse? I hobble off the stage and change my costume and start back to the wings to prepare for my next entrance. Each step onto that leg sends a searing pain through the outside of my foot and a quiet grunt out of my mouth. My eyes well up, but I don’t know if it is from the dread slowly creeping from the bottom of my stomach into my throat or the searing pain telling me STOP. I take a deep, wobbly breath, steeling myself for the step onto stage, but then a voice in the back of my head says you’re being silly. It is dress rehearsal—listen to your body! Dancers don’t like to listen to that voice. Because there is a stronger voice compelling us to dance, to move, to push through and on and up. If it wasn’t for that voice, how would we find the will to push our bodies as we do? To accept bleeding and bruised feet and aching muscles as normal, everyday occurrences. To jump higher, extend more, turn faster. Our art form is driven by that voice—endurance, discipline, progression. Otherwise we would stand still. Perhaps that is why injury is so devastating to a dancer. Because we feel as if we must betray that voice that has been singing in our souls for as long as we can remember. That voice that drives us to move. To create.
I sit in a heap on the floor, letting the tears drip freely as I remove the shoe from my quickly swelling foot. Eventually I end up on the therapy table, carried by kind arms and encouraging words. I relate the incident to the therapist, my tears drying on my demon-painted face. Maybe it went crack, not pop. Could I have imagined it? The events are a blur, but that dread deep inside is very clear. And the constant throb from the blob at the end of my leg is all too real. Maybe it will be better in the morning. Maybe if I ice the heck out of it and elevate it really high and squeeze my eyes shut and think positive thoughts it will all go away and be a bad memory.

This creates a situation where we have
- The most at risk age group of rapidly developing skeletal systems (8-12 females, 10-14 males)
- Making significant jumps in the amount of force each skill puts on the body (think force jump of kip cast handstands, vs giants, vs blind fulls, vs Jeagers, etc)
- Also making significant jumps in the amount of time they spent training in gymnastics (4x/week at 12 hours total vs 6x/week at 20-25 hours)
- While often times going through large body changes, and not being at their full peak potential strength capacity
Again, this is absolutely not meant to spook people into stopping gymnastics. It’s to illustrate an important point. I have come to call this the “Gymnastics – Talent Crossroads”, where gymnasts are commonly jumping in level during their most at-risk years.
I also openly admit I have not coached a nationally ranked or elite level gymnast. That being said I am fortunate to consult with coaches who do, and have treated quite a few high level gymnasts, and the principle still remains true.
Not monitoring and managing a young gymnast properly can quite quickly lead to the overuse elbow, knee, ankle, and spine issues that plague gymnastics. On the other hand, if we approach this time frame carefully, we may be able to guide a gymnast through their most risk years and in turn get multiple years in return down the road.
Want to Learn More?
I have a ton of more information coming in the next parts of this article series, but if you are interested in learning more about gymnastics specific strength and injury prevention, be sure to check out my new free online PDF guide for Gymnastics Pre-Hab.
Download My New Free
10 Minute Gymnastics Flexibility Circuits
- 4 full hip and shoulder circuits in PDF
- Front splits, straddle splits, handstands and pommel horse/parallel bar flexibility
- Downloadable checklists to use at practice
- Exercise videos for every drill included
All for Part 1
At the risk of not making this too long, I am going to hold it there for this week. In Part 2 and Part 3 I will touch more specifically on shoulder/wrist flexibility, hyper extended elbows, skill technique, and strength training.

Julia, a former professional dancer in her early 30s, sits across from me in a blue wool dress, her legs elegantly crossed, her long blonde hair resting casually on her shoulders.
when did you start dancing
I started dancing when I was 3 years old and it got me so excited that I kept wanting more and more of it. At the age of 9 I started to train dance at the SBBS (Swiss Ballet School, today the Zhdk).
And your dance direction?
I enjoyed classical ballet training, as you would imagine, with tight tights, pointe shoes and a tight bun in my hair. But of course I also trained in other styles such as jazz, contemporary dance, character dance and so on. . .
And after you graduate?
Well, I've never danced in a purely classical company.
I was told during my training that I wasn't good enough for classical ballet.
Not good enough – physically?
Not necessarily physically, more technically not clean enough to become a ballerina. But I wasn't told that until my senior year at the Vienna State Opera (grins and takes a sip of coffee).
Ok, tough words. Speaking of which, there are rumors about Company's. Is it true that many dancers use stimulants or drugs?
I've never been in a company like that, I only know it from hearsay. But yes, consumption of certain stimulants seems to be widespread. Especially in classic company's the pressure is enormous, you have to function no matter how and in what condition.
Crazy when you consider that the body is the main working tool for you dancers. What do you say again, when does your sell-by date start, at 35?
Yes, it starts around 30.
Do you think that's justified?
It's true, after your mid-30s you hardly get any new engagements, there are a few exceptions.
Should that be changed?
Absolutely, but that has to do with the structures in this industry and also with the general abuse of power. The image of the pretty young girl and boy is still popular on the stage. Most classical pieces are also about it. That's why I appreciate contemporary dance, because it breaks with such images and a change is noticeable. A young dancer certainly has the technique, but an experienced, older dancer has the necessary emotion and, in my opinion, you can't learn that, you can only live it.

In April, she'll be performing at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with a dance group.
"It's starting to feel better," Roman said.
"You've got a little bit of strength now," Kadel responded.
"Most doctors don't get it," Roman said afterward. "They don't understand what you need."
Kadel said dancers are extremely compliant as patients. Physical therapist Leigh Allen added, "They're very body aware. It doesn't take much for us to get them to make a change."
The final appointment, 21-year-old Danell Nelson of San Jose, said her left foot hurt so much that her toes turned purple when she danced and the pain was unbearable afterward.
She has two jobs, as a waitress and office worker, to support her dance ambitions, and is often on her feet. Recently, she was accepted to the Laban Conservatory in London.
Kadel examined Nelson and asked lots of questions.
"I'm worried that you have a stress fracture," Kadel said. "The nice thing about stress fractures is they heal up pretty well."
She urged Nelson to eat foods rich in calcium and to stop smoking. She gave her a boot worth $200 that had been donated, and told her to wear it while standing.
"If it's hurting, then it can't be healing," Kadel said.
"I don't want to take time off," Nelson said later. "But I'm glad this is here because I don't have insurance."
Little or no insurance
Kadel said most dancers are uninsured or underinsured. She also treats dance injuries in her UCSF/Mount Zion office.
On a recent Wednesday morning, she saw 16-year-old Mackenzie Conway, accompanied by her father, Dave. They had left their Mariposa home at 5:30 a.m. and driven five hours and 200 miles to see Kadel for the third time.
"Other doctors looked at Mackenzie's feet," Dave Conway said. "Dr. Kadel looked at Mackenzie as a dancer. And her feet are a tool of her trade."
Mackenzie hurt her left ankle during a solo on Memorial Day weekend. After a week of rest, ice, compression and elevation, there was no improvement, so she saw a doctor who diagnosed a sprained ankle. A week later, she visited a podiatrist and came away with a support brace, medicated patches and a prediction the ankle would heal in four weeks.

I was in my 30's by this point and wasn't really interested in having a tense, dramatic in-studio experience.
I was really proud of how I approached this situation. I didn't make a big fuss out of it. I raised my hand and waved the choreographer over to speak to us. Instead of laying the blame on my fellow dancer for the anger that he was displaying towards me, I calmly mentioned that we seemed to be having a misunderstanding and some miscommunication and needed assistance to get back on track. The dancer snapped back in defense of his actions. Instead of trying to rat this dancer out, I continued to keep my calm and said, "I'm not trying to cause any issues, I just feel that we need help communicating and I'm hoping that he can assist us with that." The choreographer saw what I was trying to do and did a really great job of calming the other dancer down and getting us back to a good place.
So, if you find yourself in a similar situation, please follow my lead and seek out assistance to create a dialogue versus assigning blame. Blaming your fellow dancer will only cause immediate and, likely, future issue. Dance is very competitive and dancers almost always want to be seen in the best light possible. If a dancer feels like you are trying to make them look bad for your own personal gain, you will never resolve any situation.
When most people think of an injury, they imagine those scenes in movies when a dancer goes down screaming in pain and hugging an ankle or extremity. While these dramatic injuries do happen, there is also a range of problems that don't always manifest as immediate or cringe-inducing traumas. Back in 2014, when I suffered the injury that took me out of dancing with Oakland Ballet, I landed a Horton-based jump that required me to drop out of the air in a contraction over one leg. I didn't feel or hear any pop. And I didn't feel any dramatic event immediately after execution either. In fact, I didn't notice it until after we finished running this difficult Molissa Fenley work. At the completion of the run, I noticed that my back was becoming mildly tight, but it didn't present itself as anything more than a bit of overwork. It took me nearly an hour outside of rehearsal to notice that something had went wrong and about 3 hours to know that something had gone severely wrong.

Alice Klock and Jason Hortin in Jonathan Fredrickson's Untitled Landscape (Todd Rosenberg)
Alice Klock, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago
Age she started dancing: 11
How did you get started? I was home-schooled, and my mother wanted me to get out and meet people my age, so she asked, “What about ballet?"
How did you catch up? I worked outside of class. In academic classes like math, the more you study on your own, the better you'll do in class. It was the same for me with dancing.
Were there benefits to starting late? I'm actually glad I started when I did because I developed as a person before I became a dancer. This is a life-consuming art.
Do you have advice for other late starters? Never compare yourself to other people in class. I learned so much from dancers who were three or four years younger than me because I didn't let age get in the way.
Michael Wood (Jack Hartin/courtesy Abhann Productions)
Michael Wood, tap dancer
Age he started dancing: 18
How did you get started? When I was auditioning for musical theater college programs, a friend told me about Oklahoma City University's dance program. I figured, why not? And I got in!
What kept you going? My parents. I couldn't always feel myself getting better, but whenever they came to see my performances, they'd say, “You've come further than you think."
Did you have any breakthrough moments? During my junior year of college, a teacher said, “Michael, I think ballet has finally clicked for you." And that was exactly what happened. One day I stopped feeling like I was trying to do ballet, and just started doing ballet.
Do you have advice for other late starters? There's so much emphasis in this industry on what you can do at what age. But it's all hot air. If you want to do it, just do it.
Dancing kween Jennifer Lopez is preparing us for the second season of "World of Dance" by dropping an insane World of Dance promo that has her slaying the dance floor like we've never seen before.

Furthermore, they can also present in physical changes, typified by a loss of coordination, balance, and neuromuscular control – all of which may have the potential to increase injury risk.
However, much like the physical changes mentioned above, exercise has also been suggested to have a preventative effect on these nasty nervous system changes as well.
Talk about the fountain of youth!
Injury rates and age
You now understand what happens to your body as you get older. With this information in mind, it would stand to reason that these changes might make older athletes more susceptible to injuries than their younger counterparts (Kallinen, 1995).
But is this really the case?
Do injury rates within the same sport go up with age?
There a couple of ways of looking at this question, both of which have slightly different answers (Lewkowski, 2015).
First and foremost, older athletes competing at the elite level in team sports do appear to be at a slightly higher risk of injury than the younger athletes that they play with. For example, soccer, football, and handball athletes over the age of 30 years will be at a slightly higher risk of injury than their teammates who are under 25 years of age.
However, there may be a rather obvious reason for this.
Previous Injury Predictor
You see, the biggest predictor for future injury is a previous injury.
As a result, the more time you spend playing at the elite level, the more likely you are to experience any sort of injury – which will then increase your risk of experiencing an injury in the future.
It could simply by that older athletes have had the time to accumulate injuries, whereas younger athletes have not.
Now, on the other hand, we have older athletes who participate in sports that involve different age classes – predominantly describing those athletes who compete in track and field, in events such as running, sprinting, jumping, and throwing.
Interestingly, in these events, masters athletes do not appear to be at any greater risk of injury than their younger counterparts.
So, if you are looking to compete in a sport into your 60s and beyond, track and field may very well be the way to go!
Related Article: Reduce & Prevent Injuries With Dry Needling
Does the type of sport make a difference when it comes to aging and injury?

Smaller class sizes allow the teacher to ensure each student understands the concepts and instructions while developing proper technique. Our school limits our young children’s program to 12-15 students per class (w/ assistant) and the upper levels to 16-18 per class.
Our school’s manager and desk staff are on hand after 2pm during the week and from 9:00am-12:00pm on Saturdays. Our hours vary during the summer months. Please call 561-840-7555 or email email@example.com for assistance.
Our closed circuit color camera system allows parents to observe classrooms from our lobby. Parents can enjoy their child’s progress without disturbing the student/teacher classroom dynamic.
Our young children are taught an educational and fun curriculum introducing them to the basics of dance, music, and theatre through combination classes and private lessons. This program provides a solid foundation for future success in the performing arts.
Students are given performance experience in our year-end recital, which is a special time for them to shine and demonstrate the skills they have mastered during the year. They may also audition for our Dance Company, a group that performs locally and attends competitions in the Spring.
We strongly encourage ballet, although it is not required unless you are invloved in Dance Company. Ballet is the foundation of all forms of dance and proper technique is extremely important in developing a dancer’s muscles and preventing injuries. The technique gained through ballet training is best developed between ages 5-11 and will provide the basics necessary for tap, jazz, hip hop, and acrobatics.
Dance is a very physical activity that requires a lot of jumping which can put stress on bones and joints. Most dance footwear does not provide much support, so the shock of dance movement can place a lot of pressure on the knees and back of a dancer. The best way to prevent injury is by choosing a school with a professional “floating floor.” This is a floor that rests on a system of high density foam to absorb the shock of jumping.
The top layer of the dance floor is also an important factor. A vinyl composite “Marley” floor is accepted worldwide as the best surface layer for recreational and professional dance. A Marley floor allows dancers a controlled slide without risk of falling. Our school has floating floors with high density foam blocks under the surface and a Marley top surface. These special floors reduce the risk of injury and allow students to dance longer without getting tired.

The approach to performance, however, changes with age: those under 60 are happier to perform. Kirti, for example, says she loves performing and being part of a team, with the preparation, costume, make-up – and being shouted at by their teacher as if they were 12-year-olds. Smita feels performing is a good way of showing what one has learned, and she appreciates the encouragement. Sue, however, ‘can’t think of anything worse’; some older dancers don’t want to be letting the other dancers down. It is encouraging that some teachers are providing sessions for the over-50s or 60s. Several commented on how yoga, which has been incorporated by teachers in their classes, is enabling them to continue dancing as they grow older.
All those who have families at home appreciate their support and encouragement; and mothers, children and grandchildren are justly proud of these dancers. They will all continue as long as they are able. May it be for many years more.

Today I look, feel, and can dance better than any of my 20-year-old students. You don’t have to turn 45 to let your body go to the dogs. You can do that at any age, in which case you should not be dancing anywhere … not on stage, not locally, not abroad.
With all this focus on the physical, has the ICCR essentially reduced the
dignity of Indian dances to that of runway modeling? What about the unique ability of its experts to transform the sensual to the sacred and the vulgar to the venerable? Does it not require a great deal of introspection, self-discovery, and growth before dances of such depth can be created or performed? How can anyone impose an age restriction on a journey so profound?
David Roche, who for many years produced the famous San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, and is currently the director of Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, raised another important point. “Ramnad Krishnan (Karnatik musician) once told me that musicians are mere children until they reach the age of 60,” he said. “Up until then their raga interpretations are considered puerile.” Wouldn’t a similar growth period be essential for dancers as well, especially in an art form that continuously seeks to transcend the physical?
Ageism has always been expressed as “intergenerational warfare,” primarily focused on the proportion of job opportunities and the Federal budget allocated to programs benefiting older adults. In defense of the ICCR, let us assume that this rule was made only to make it easier to support young talent or as New York based dancer Uttara Asha Coorlawala says, “an attempt to spread the goodies around rather than allow a few, and now senior stars, to hog all opportunities.” Do the ICCR officers apply the rule across the board to every artist or do they sneak in clauses of “extraordinary circumstances” or “exceptional cases?” Anita Ratnam, one of India’s brightest choreographers, asks, “How does one grow into a legend without government patronage and support?”
The ICCR officers need to find ways to support their issues without turning them into national statutes. Instead of discriminating on the basis of age, why not discriminate on the basis of quality? “We regret to inform you that your application was rated No. 15 by our selection panel and our budget can only support 12 touring companies this year.” Simple.

(Ages 3 – 12)
For young dancers who are just starting! Creative ballet utilizes an age appropriate syllabus geared toward developing the skills needed to progress to either the conservatory or recreational programs.
(Ages 7 and up)
A carefully designed progression of levels for the young dancer through the pre-professional student. The emphasis is focused on developing the dancer as they grow in skills and abilities and offers the opportunity to dance at the highest level as they grow more serious about their studies.
Adult and Teen Recreational Classes
For teens and adults who wish to dance for enjoyment and exercise. Recreational classes are open to all levels of skill and ages.

Ballet dancing has been a popular art form for centuries, and for those who have never danced, it has tremendous appeal as either a hobby or a potential vocation.
Children—especially girls—are often fascinated by the apparently effortless grace with which dancers move, and by the colorful, intricate costumes they sometimes wear.
But ballet has a darker side, and the placid expressions worn by dancers often mask terrible pain caused by ballet injuries.
The careers of professional dancers are often short; before they turn 30, most of them retire from dancing, either to teach or to pursue some other, unrelated occupation.
The purpose of this article is not to discourage children or their parents from considering ballet lessons, or even to discourage anyone from pursuing ballet as a career; rather, our purpose here is to make the reader aware of the risks that ballet injuries can pose to their future well being.
Types of Ballet Injuries That Can Happen
Many of the various injuries dancers can suffer are not severe, and pose no serious threat to the dancer’s future as a performer, or to his or her ability to participate in other sports or to walk with a normal gait.
Other types of ballet injuries, however, can be cause for concern. As you read about the various types of ballet injuries, feel free to click on any of the related links to read more about them.
Injuries and conditions that can be caused by ballet include:
- Bunion or hallux valgus (sometimes at an unusually young age)
- Ankle sprains (particularly later ankle sprains)
- Stress fractures brought on by small, repetitive impacts over the course of time
- Trigger toe
- Shin splints
Dancer’s Fracture is the most common acute fracture suffered by dancers. It strikes the fifth metatarsal, the bone that lies along the outer edge of the foot. It usually happens when a dancer jumps and lands badly, coming down on an inverted (turned-in) foot. As the name “dancer’s fracture” suggests, this is a common ballet injury.
Sesamoiditis: When a dancer is on demi-pointe, her weight rests on the sesamoid bones, which lie just behind the big toe. Regular application of this kind of stress can cause gradual onset of sesamoiditis, and the dancer will experience pain when bending or straightening the big toe.

Homemade chicken noodle soup made in the crock pot for a set-it-and-forget-it easy dinner. You can evan prep all the ingredients ahead of time and store them in the freezer to pull out on a day where you forgot to plan dinner. Just make sure you thaw the ingredients before adding it to the slow cooker to prevent it from staying at an unsafe temperature for too long.
8 ounces whole-wheat egg noodles or other whole-wheat noodles
3 pounds bone-in chicken breast, skin removed
2 cups chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrot
1 cup chopped celery
2 sprigs thyme
8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 cups frozen peas
¼ cup chopped fresh dill, plus more for garnish
2 tablespoons lemon juice
The adolescent dancer faces unique challenges due to physical and emotional changes that occur during pubertal development. Rapid growth periods can lead to reduced strength, impaired balance, and decreased flexibility, which can alter technical ability and increase the risk of injury.
Growth spurts in dancers usually occur between the ages 11-15 in girls and 13-17 in boys, and can last up to two years (IADMS 2000). As height increases, weight gain also occurs. A girl’s menstrual cycle begins during these growth phases and is essential for formation of bone. The pressure to stay thin during periods of weight gain in addition to being unaware of/ignoring nutritional needs results in an energy deficit and increases the likelihood of irregular periods (Delegate 2018). Bones grow at a faster rate than muscles and tendons, and limbs grow at a faster rate than the trunk. This affects strength, flexibility, and balance control in dancers. These changes can make movement feel awkward and may affect your ability to perform at the level that you are used to. Don’t be discouraged, these changes are temporary!
The injury rate increases by 35% as dancers reach ages 14-16. Body regions most commonly affected are the foot/ankle, lumbar spine, hips, and knees (Steinberg 2012, Delegate 2018).
Common injury types in adolescents:
REDUCING INJURY RISK DURING GROWTH CHANGES:
1)Education Committee (Kathryn Daniels, Chair). International Association for Dance Medicine & Science.

Every week, scores of young dancers take to Instagram to show off a physical feat that seems to defy the limits of human hip bones.
The #TiltTuesday trend features dancers stretching their legs into extreme contortions. Sometimes the photos merely attract likes or followers. Other times they can attract the attention of scouts, leading to audition opportunities or even sponsorship deals.
Instagram and YouTube are littered with images and videos of stretches such as the "side tilt," in which one leg is extended into a standing side split, often held at bizarre angles that extend past 180 degrees. Another popular pose, known sometimes as a "scorpion" involves one leg stretched out behind the dancer, bent and grasped behind the head like a tail poised to sting.
But some dance industry veterans say the trend is an unhealthy phenomenon that encourages young dancers to attempt risky movements that could bring about irreversible damage.
While some of the dancers performing these poses are professionally trained ballerinas, many are young amateurs in the earliest years of their dance training.
These young dancers pushing their bodies to achieve such complicated stretches or dangerous leaps are putting themselves at risk of ending their careers before they even begin, according to Paul Malek, a choreographer and artistic director at Australia's Transit Dance Company.
"Pushing these dancers so far past where they should be at ages eight, 10, 12 — they're actually wearing away what holds their hips together," Malek told Business Insider.
Malek has been an outspoken critic of the stunts and acrobatics he sees dancers perform in competitions and on social media. He said he has seen firsthand the effects that excessive stretching and unnecessary tricks — such as side tilts — can have on dancers' hips and joints.
Beyond the physical effects on young dancers' bodies, these trends have also warped their understanding of what dance is, Malek said. The tricks popularized on social media have introduced a narrow set of skills for dancers to aspire to — at the expense of the large range of movement contemporary dance encompasses.
"Instagram and social media is extremely, extremely to blame here in my opinion," he said. "I ask young dancers, 'Who are some of the great dancers in the world?' And they name 16-year-olds who have 300,000 followers on Instagram who can do a leg mount or scorpion really well."

I’m 21 and studied ballet from the age of 4 until 13. However I gave up and returned at 19 but had to stop due to lack of funds! I have my Bloch pre-pointe shoes and my flat ballet shoes which I do practice on, and I’d never buy pointes without a teacher’s instruction.
I’m looking to getting into training soon again, but do you think its too late to work for pointe?
– Ballerina Interrupted
Good for you for returning to your passion despite setbacks! First, I just want you to know that pointework is certainly not the be-all end-all of dance or even ballet. Ballet can be beautiful, striking and extraordinary without pointe shoes. I’m pointing this out because, not knowing your health nor seeing your feet, I cannot guarantee that you are eligible, but I will give you the parameters so that you can get going in the right direction.
Provided that a dancer is physician-approved for exercise, the only age-related barriers would really be related to bone strength – too young could mean the bones have not sufficiently ossified, and too old could mean they had reached a point of brittleness. There are other possible roadblocks to your success – genetic predisposition to ingrown toenails, limited flexibility in the tendons and ligaments to make an arch sufficient to get over the box of a pointe shoe and other such issues that are best assessed by a well-qualified teacher and your physician in-person.
Provided that you have no such limitations, the most important thing is for your pointe preparation is to get a quality teacher, preferably someone who has taught adults long enough to understand limitations that they run into and how to relay information in a way that makes sense to them. A good teacher for any age group will enforce a minimum of two ballet technique classes per week leading up and for at least the first year of pointe. You should expect at least two years of re-training to prepare, possible more. If you get there in less time, consider it lagniappe.
If you’ll go to my website homepage, look on the black menu bar and click Pointe Shoes. Read those articles. Then check out the Adult Beginner Pointe link on my blogroll to read about one adult ballet students foray into her first year of pointe.

Frustrated American educators have watched while those in power have ignored recommendations and research that has suggested this for over 25 years although families that can afford to give their child the greatest gift they have to give, a dance education, can be assured of good fitness throughout their lifetimes because of this early investment. http://yogauonline.com/yogatherapy/yoga-for-kids/yoga-for-kids-practice/2016050415-youth-fitness-steady-decline
As if any of us here needed further convincing, here is yet one more short article supporting the argument that children and adults need more and not less of what dance has to offer. Note – executive functioning is referring to cognitive flexibility, working memory, processing speed and verbal fluency.
“Musical training can now be added to three other activities which have been shown to increase children’s executive functioning: physical exercise, mindfulness training and martial arts.”
Since dance training requires precision in all 3 of the above activities, or similar, I would suggest that it isn’t that bright above average children are attracted to dance but that dance is creating bright, above average children. I have NEVER taught an accomplished dancer who didn’t excel in school and develop psychological maturity ahead of her peers. And I’ve been teaching a long time 🙂
Growing up has always been tough. Everyone you love knows that so they do their best to give advise to dancers, catch them when they fall, and bolster self-esteem. But most lessons in life are learned through trial and error and the life of an artist-in-training is certainly no exception.
Last Christmas, I went to visit my first teacher. I remember how angry she made me a million times. I remember not getting roles I wanted or compliments I thought I deserved. She was like a mother to me but she always did what was best for the company which often meant I was denied. But I persevered. I realized rather young that I was no prodigy so I tried to capitalize on my strengths and work on my shortcomings. My own mother was from an era that trusted the teacher and didn’t interfere when I was weeping about some shortcoming I thought my teacher possessed. There were never teacher conferences or talk of changing schools. Each day, I arrived for class and rehearsal, just like the day before. All these years later, I know how wise both my teacher and my mother were.

By Daniel Labadie
The life of an athlete is full of challenges, and dancers are no exception to this. From Broadway stages to studios, a dancer’s body is in constant demand for hours a day, sometimes 7 days a week. While the role of a professional dancer can vary from teaching to performing, most dancers seem to have one major thing in common: injuries. Like any other sport, the physical demands of dance can sometimes result in occasional harm to the body. Dancers have found the practice of Yoga to be beneficial in supporting their physical bodies, but can Yoga be used as a form of injury management for these athletes?
There is evidence to suggest that Yoga may be beneficial for increasing and maintaining flexibility and balance amongst collegiate athletes, which serves as a form of injury prevention. The study analyzed a group of male college athletes who attended a bi-weekly Yoga class for 10 weeks (Polsgrove, Eggleston and Lockyer, 2016). The results showed that each participant experienced a significant increase in both flexibility and balance measurements and the researchers concluded that a regular Yoga practice “may enhance athletic performances that require these characteristics” (Polsgrove, Eggleston and Lockyer, 2016). However, more research is needed on Yoga as a form of injury management for dancers specifically. Additionally, the above study only analyzed male athletes and the results cannot be applied to other populations.
Like most sports, there is an assumption of risk that comes with repetitive physical exercise. Local valley dance teacher, Rolanda Polanco, knows firsthand about movement related injuries. “I’ve broken toes, torn ligaments in my ankle and sprained both feet along with stress fractures, patellar tendonitis, back injuries and neck pain.” Rolanda has 18 years of experience teaching dance for children and high school students, who also experience their share of performance related injuries. “The most common injuries I have seen over the years amongst my students have been sprained ankles and stress fractures.”
On average, most dancers go through conditioning exercises and various forms of flexibility and strength training as methods of both injury prevention and improving performance. However, dance professionals do not always address injury treatment in the dance world. “Unfortunately in my experience, I had next to no injury management that came from my dance instructors & continued to repeatedly have the same injury,” says Hannah Swim, an actor and dancer of 11 years who also teaches Yoga.

(Note from Mark: The below article was written for a website that offers education for trainers. They approached me to talk about training dancers, and I obliged with this here article. Although it’s written for trainers, I think most folks (especially dancers) can learn a thing or two by seeing how we approach dancers. I also apologize, since I had to make it all professional and shit, it’s distinctly lacking in f bombs. I hope you can fucking forgive me.)
Being located in midtown Manhattan, Mark Fisher Fitness is the premier training hub for many of Broadway’s most accomplished dancers. We take a lot of pride in being able to apply the most progressive training protocols to a population that doesn’t generally get a lot of attention in the fitness world. This lack of attention is to probably to be expected. Let’s face it, most trainers are far more interested in MMA than ABT (… google it).
As fitness pros, it’s an honor to work with people who’ve dedicated their lives to reaching personal peaks of artistry through movement. And although dancers display some of the most awe-inspiring athleticism you’ll ever get to see, they do carry special considerations. So if you’re not particularly familiar with the world of jazz hands, this article should give you a handle on how to work with dancers.
Most folks know dancers are flexible. And generally speaking this is true, but you’d be surprised how often dancers are getting their range of motion from less-than-ideal places. Not unlike the general population, dancer ankles and hip flexors are often super tight. And even more so than those chained to a desk all day, they often develop excessive mobility in less than ideal places. For instance, tight hips often lead to too much movement at the lumbar spine so dancers can create more range of motion. Anyone familiar with the Joint By Joint theory or the work of Dr. Stuart McGill knows this is a bad scene.
|Pretty sure most folks would rip in two if they tried this.|
Be wary of assuming they’ll have good mobility just because they’re dancers. Since the best performers are often the best compensators, many elite dancers are able to create some beautiful aesthetic qualities on a base of a dysfunctional movement foundation. Be sure to look at their mobility with a discerning eye and do some baseline assessments or screening, like the FMS. If necessary hammer soft tissue work, correctives, and mobility exercises.

In March of 2016, I received an email from Ashley saying he was in San Francisco at the time and wanted to have a meeting with me. It was then that he offered me a company contract to dance under him at Joffrey Ballet and immediately I graciously accepted. This is now my third season dancing with Joffrey Ballet and I’ve cherished every moment I’ve gotten to perform and dance with the company.
Nutcracker season is different because instead of doing about 10 shows which is the usual amount we do per program, we perform around 30 shows all throughout the month of December. Also because it is a full company production, most of us are needed to perform in every show. Luckily we’re not doing the same thing each time, one day you might just be performing Flowers/Fair Visitors and that same evening you could have a full show of Party, Battle, Snow and Flowers/Fair Visitors that involves tons of quick changes and lots of running around. So it’s pretty exciting and keeps you on your feet, but because of how long the run is, you need to take it one day at a time and focus on what you’re performing at that time.
Every dancer deals with aches and pains, it comes with the job. But I’ve definitely had my fair share of injuries. The type of injury it is can usually depend on what we’re rehearsing at the time, since we’re trying to perfect our steps and partnering before we open a program. But at the same time, we’re only human and mistakes happen. Sometimes we may land from a jump the wrong way or sprain an ankle, especially if your body is already exhausted from being overworked. That’s why it’s so important for us to take care of our bodies even outside of the studio by eating right, icing, cross training, and rolling out muscles because our bodies are our instruments.
Personally, I’m the kind of person that hates giving up and not being able to perform, so even if something hurts I’ll still give 100 percent and give it my all. But when it’s impossible for me to do a plié and jump or point my foot, then I know that it’s better for me to rest and recover so I can perform again later.
Some common injuries that dancers experience in their careers are sprained ankles, meniscus tears, tendinitis, dropped metatarsals and skeletal alignment issues.

College cheerleaders have the highest injury rate (2.4), followed by elementary school (1.5), high school (0.9), all-star (0.8), middle school (0.5), and recreational (0.5) cheerleaders. The overall injury rate in high school cheerleading is lower than in other girls’ high school sports (Table 1).5,8
As in other sports, cheerleading injury rates increase with age and competitive level.5,9 Middle and high school cheerleaders have lower overall rates of injury than do collegiate cheerleaders (0.5 and 0.9 vs 2.4 per 1000 athletic exposures, respectively).5 This is probably because older, better-skilled cheerleaders perform more complex gymnastics and height-based stunts. Rates of stunt-related injuries are higher for collegiate versus high school and middle school cheerleaders (1.59 vs 0.59 and 0.23 per 1000 athlete exposures, respectively).10
The most common mechanisms of injury are basing/spotting (23%), tumbling (14%–26%), and falls from heights (14%–25%).5,11 Stunting accounts for 42% to 60% of all cheerleading injuries and 96% of concussions and closed-head injuries.10,12,13 Pyramid stunts are responsible for the majority of head/neck injuries (50%–66%).14,15
Types of Injuries
When all age groups are considered together, lower-extremity injuries are most common (30%–37% of all cheerleading injuries), followed by injuries to the upper extremities (21%–26%), head/neck (16%–19%), and trunk (7%–17%).5,7,9,15 Younger cheerleaders are more likely to experience upper-extremity injuries (41% vs 25% of all injuries for 6- to 11-year-olds vs 12- to 17-year-olds, respectively), and older cheerleaders are more likely to have lower-extremity injuries (38% vs 29% of all injuries for 12- to 17-year-olds vs 6- to 11-year-olds).9
Overall, sprains and strains are the most common types of injuries (53% of all cheerleading injuries), followed by abrasions/contusions/hematomas (13%–18%), fractures/dislocations (10%–16%),