Fit to dance 2
By Dance UK
Dancers should be physically fitter
Messages suggesting that a fitter dancer is more able to concentrate suffer less often from fatigue and is therefore potentially less risk of injury, seem to be getting thought to the profession. Many dancers take their own steps to supplement their training with cardiovascular fitness sessions and keep up some level of training during time off. Schools and companies have provided supplemental training within training schedules. However, some have later dropped this as schedules became too full and establishments were reluctant to drop any dance technique classes or needed the time for rehearsals.
Many companies and schools have Pilates and fitness training equipment available on the premises for dancers to use when required. Where this has not been possible others established relationships and provided or encouraged membership with local gyms.
Several of the larger dance companies carry out orthopaedic assessments of dancers not only on first joining the company but regular intervals over the year. Some are also paying for exercise physiologists to assess dancers’ fitness in various areas. Dance scientists are developing protocols for testing dancers’ fitness, working with dance schools and companies to make the tests as dance specific and relevant as possible. Together, company physiotherapists and exercise physiologists are devising individual training programmes for dancers to work on their own particular areas of strength and weakness.
This works best when there is regular monitoring of the results of training and of dancers’ progress so that programmes can be individually adapted. Some establishments report a lack of time to properly assess the effectiveness of the supplemental training they are implementing, relaying on anecdotal evidence only.
Dance UK’s Healthier Dancer Programme (HDP) offers both practical and theoretical workshops on various principles of fitness for dance, and informs the profession of some of the latest thinking in this area thought articles published in Dance UK News.
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