Why do dancers get injured?
This is one those questions that has puzzled every dancer, dance teacher, or dance therapist at some point in their career. Dance is demanding both physically and mentally, it is no wonder it can come along with some risk factors that can lead to injuries both minor and major. Here are some of my tips to ensure the dancers in your life reduce their risk of injury and stay healthy and happy!
#1) Stop repetitive training!
This comes from an article that compares Martial Arts to Dance (Shan, 2005). The range of motion and physical demand on certain joints, like the hip, are very similar in both activities, but injury rates are much less for Martial Artists. Why are more injuries occurring during dance? The authors of this article suggested that because dance repeats skills over and over this leads to greater risk of injury. In Martial Arts, the researchers found that skills were trained using various exercises and cross-training methods which reduced the risk of repetitive strain type injury. For example, instead of having a student repeat an attempt at a switch split over and over, students should be taken through various exercises on the floor, at the bar, and across the floor that develop the strength, power, flexibility, and coordination to execute a switch split. This may take some continuing education or time to develop more creative ways to approach each skill as an educator but the pay-off is less stress and strain on the body.
#2 – Develop your core!
We hear the word core thrown around as almost a buzz word in the dance world. What is the core? The core is basically a group of muscles that allow for stabilization in your spine/pelvis when moving our body or even just our arms or legs. We must be able to use or core without holding our breath. According to Watson et. al, they found that core stabilization lead to improved pirouettes, balance, and muscle performance (Watson, 2007). Ensuring your students have a good understanding of what the core is, how to use it, and how to train it is essential for longevity as a dancer.
#3 – Seek out an individual program
Whether this comes from your dance conditioning teacher, your Chiropractor, or a personal trainer, seeking out an individualized program can help reduce injuries (Dahab, 2009). Knowing your discrepancies or areas for improvement and what you can do at home to bring more balance to your dancing can help reduce injury rates. Remember this is an ever-evolving process. As your goals in dance shift along with our growing body, we need to always go back to our individual programming to make sure we are serving our dancing and meeting our ever-changing needs.
#4 – Focus on endurance rather than strength
Because balance and coordination are underdeveloped in preadolescents, this increases their risk of injury when using weights. I find a lot of dancers think they need more strength, which does help execute certain skills. However, I find clinically that dancers need more endurance to prevent injuries. Long rehearsals demand a lot of our postural muscles. By increasing stabilization with more of an endurance approach helps us move in a healthy way instead of succumbing to fatigue reducing our intention. When we start moving without intention, we get sloppy and this leads to injuries. By training with body weight, resistance bands and blocks, we can increase difficulty with more repetitions improving our muscular endurance and joint stability.
#5 – Rest & Repair
Muscle and bone growth responds to the load imposed. When we exercise, we are often creating micro-traumas in our tissues. Our body then responds by building more/stronger tissue in these areas of micro-trauma, leading to increased strength, endurance, neurological control, and power (Shan, 2005). This means we must give our body time to rebuild. I call this scheduled rest. As dancers, we need to allow our body time to catch up and not feel guilt for taking a rest day. Try splitting up your days of the week into regions of the body. If you have an upper body day followed by a leg day followed by a core day, even without a rest day on day 4, you still give your upper body 2 solid days off to rest and recover. This does take a bit of scheduling but the benefits can lead to less training time to get our movement goals, less pain experienced during training sessions, and fewer injuries setting us back on our timelines.
Injuries are bound to happen in life, but there are modifications in our lifestyle and training methods that can reduce the risks. If you do get injured, seek help as soon as possible. The longer we let an injury fester, the more difficult it can be to heal and correct any biomechanical issues. Find a licensed healthcare provider who listens to your story, who understands the ins and outs of dance, and who can support you through your career as a dancer.
Reference List:
1) Watson T, Graning J, McPherson S, Carter E, Edwards J, Melcher I, Burgess T. Dance, balance and core muscle performance measures are improved following a 9-week core stabilization training program among competitive collegiate dancers. International journal of sports physical therapy. 2017 Feb;12(1):25.
2) Dahab KS, McCambridge TM. Strength training in children and adolescents: raising the bar for young athletes?. Sports Health. 2009 May;1(3):223-6.
3) Shan G. Comparison of repetitive movements between ballet dancers and martial artists: risk assessment of muscle overuse injuries and prevention strategies. Research in Sports Medicine. 2005 Mar 9;13(1):63-76.
