The traditional ballet conservatory training usually combines a syllabus training (Cecchetti, Royal Academy of Dancing, Vaganova) with the talent of world class retired ballerinas and male dancers. This provides ballet technique that trains each dancer to improve their ballet technique according to their unique physique and talent. How can the recreational dancer, adult ballet beginner or cheer leader student tap into this information in order to avoid ballet injuries and eventual arthritis?
The fastest way to improve your ballet technique, no matter what style of dance your ballet conservatory teaches, is to learn what is anatomically correct and what is not.
You can improve your turnout by understanding the type of hip joints you have. You can also learn which muscles actually hold your turnout, and which muscles support your correct ballet technique and traditional ballet positions. Cheerleaders and even football pros use turnout in their movements and learning it correctly can prevent sprained and torn knee joints.
Analyzing arabesque for example, requires that you understand moving from an upright position of the spine, to a tilted, correctly twisted position of the lumbar (low back) spine. Even if you have 180 degree turnout from your hips, a high arabesque will demand the twist of the low back/pelvis to achieve a professional line. Different dance styles will determine the details of your line, as in some arm placement (square shoulders or not, etc.,) and yet correct ballet technique will allow the dancer to adapt to many choreographic styles.
Also, understanding a proper arabesque ballet position helps you stretch properly to do the splits.
Understanding foot types, foot muscles, and how to strengthen AND relax lower leg and foot muscles will help prepare you for dancing ballet in pointe shoes, regardless of your dance training style. Cheerleaders included - you may not aspire to dance in pointe shoes, but foot/lower leg control will improve your balance and help you avoid the most common ballet/sports/fitness injury - sprained ankles.
It's amazing that x-rays dancers in their twenties can show arthritis in foot joints, knee joints and joints of the low back, neck and shoulders. Certain ballet training styles sprain and strain joints to perpetuate the tradition. Ballet conservatories understand this, and their audition processes attempt to screen out the physiques that will sustain too much damage to finish the training. The better funded academies have added anatomy classes and physical therapists to their programs to diminish this accepted professional hazard.
Now any ballet student or cheer leading student can get the same information! No matter how out of the way your ballet school is! If you have no money to spend, there are many free articles to read on the internet, and many ballet books in your local library.
It's open access to anyone who will search and benefit from the wealth of information on how to improve your ballet technique.
Learn how to IMPROVE YOUR BALLET TECHNIQUE, get exactly the right fit in pink satin flat ballet shoes, pink tights and tutus - the stuff dreams are made of. Get dance education like The Perfect Pointe Book, and Deborah Vogel's 'dancing smart' products for injury prevention, and become the dancer in you.
Showing posts with label arthritis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arthritis. Show all posts
How to Avoid Developing Chronic Joint Pain If You Are a Dancer Or an Athlete
It is vital to understand the role of inflammation in the body, for anyone, but especially would-be ballerinas, men in ballet, and athletes. Whether you are looking for a career builder or just enjoy the challenge of training, it is important to know how to maintain the soft tissues of the body that get worn out on practically a daily basis. To prevent ballet and sports injuries, good training and good work habits are required. For better rehabilitation, once an injury occurs, adding omega 3 oils to your nutrition is a tremendous help to diminish the natural inflammation response.
Inflammation occurs naturally as a response to injury or immune attack. It is temporary, and we recover. In a healthy body, damaged tissues are removed and replaced with new tissue.
In a body that has a low grade chronic inflammation, in the blood and soft tissues, better recovery may not be as speedy, and may never be complete. Joint injuries are supposed to give you trouble for the rest of your life, although maybe not until you are older, then you are to expect arthritis in a damaged joint, if not in every joint. Why is this?
What causes chronic inflammation in your body? Why would a young vibrant person in a developed country who has access to good food, good water, vitamin and mineral supplements have a low grade (or not so low) chronic inflammatory condition?
Sugar is one issue. And artificial sweeteners. Don't eat them. Sorry.
Bonnie C. Minsky has an excellent article with more detail about this.
Andrew Weil, holistic health M.D., Nicholas Perricone, M.D., an anti-aging expert, Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D, an allergy nutritionist, all write about inflammation as a major cause of disease. But you can avoid it.
Think a moment about all the good stuff you eat - lean beef, chicken, cold water fish like salmon, tuna, mackerel, and sardines. Salads, vegetables - are you not doing everything right? How could you not rehabilitate quickly and completely from a minor dance or sports injury? You are eating all the right stuff! You are working out in pointe shoes or shooting baskets daily. Why would you not recover one hundred per cent?
Here's the reality. We eat beef and poultry and eggs from the poultry, that are grain fed. That means that the fats from those foods are predominantly omega 6 fatty acids. They are not bad fats. However, omega 6 oils in the body support pro-inflammatory pathways. They promote inflammation.
But grass fed beef and poultry do not fill us with so much omega 6 fats. And as lean as you want to eat, for weight loss, or weight maintenance, some daily animal fat is crucial for your health. Eat the grass fed as much as you can.
More bad news - fast foods and processed foods contain omega 6 oils. So much for that convenience.
More bad news - you cannot eat too much cold water fish because of the pollutants in them, mainly mercury. But the good news is, you can now get ultra purified or pharmaceutical grade, fish oils as a nutritional supplement.
You can also decrease your ingestion of omega 6 fats by avoiding all the bottled salad dressings and most bottled vegetable oils that you find at the grocery store. Except for olive oil, avocado oil, walnut oil and flaxseed oil, (and I'm only including here the more typically available oils, there are more), vegetable oils too are omega 6 oils and will promote inflammation in your body.
This sounds pretty hopeless, but here is the good news. Omega 3 oils are anti-inflammatory and are also readily available. If you are willing to make a small lifestyle change, or get your mother/child/wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend/cook, or whoever does the shopping and food prep at home to do so (they will thank you big time), you can switch to omega 3 oils,
If your current training is a career building plan, this information is crucial. If you are training for personal enjoyment, it is important for health too. Being athletic doesn't make arthritis a given in your future. Joint pain can be relieved by decreasing inflammation. Inflammation can be decreased by diet. It is really pretty simple.
I hope that if you are a young ballerina, among the men in ballet, or a young athlete, that you will have your parents read this article. I can only touch the tip of the iceberg here, in the topic of omega 3 oils and their anti-inflammatory properties. But the facts seem to indicate that balancing omega 6 fatty acids in your diet with omega 3 oils, would affect your family health for the better. Dance and sports injuries may be in their past or present too.
Bonnie C. Minsky's article is at http://www.consciouschoice.com/2004/cc1706/healthconscious1706.html.
For an excellent source of omega 3 ultra purified fish oils, click here.
Inflammation occurs naturally as a response to injury or immune attack. It is temporary, and we recover. In a healthy body, damaged tissues are removed and replaced with new tissue.
In a body that has a low grade chronic inflammation, in the blood and soft tissues, better recovery may not be as speedy, and may never be complete. Joint injuries are supposed to give you trouble for the rest of your life, although maybe not until you are older, then you are to expect arthritis in a damaged joint, if not in every joint. Why is this?
What causes chronic inflammation in your body? Why would a young vibrant person in a developed country who has access to good food, good water, vitamin and mineral supplements have a low grade (or not so low) chronic inflammatory condition?
Sugar is one issue. And artificial sweeteners. Don't eat them. Sorry.
Bonnie C. Minsky has an excellent article with more detail about this.
Andrew Weil, holistic health M.D., Nicholas Perricone, M.D., an anti-aging expert, Jeffrey Bland, Ph.D, an allergy nutritionist, all write about inflammation as a major cause of disease. But you can avoid it.
Think a moment about all the good stuff you eat - lean beef, chicken, cold water fish like salmon, tuna, mackerel, and sardines. Salads, vegetables - are you not doing everything right? How could you not rehabilitate quickly and completely from a minor dance or sports injury? You are eating all the right stuff! You are working out in pointe shoes or shooting baskets daily. Why would you not recover one hundred per cent?
Here's the reality. We eat beef and poultry and eggs from the poultry, that are grain fed. That means that the fats from those foods are predominantly omega 6 fatty acids. They are not bad fats. However, omega 6 oils in the body support pro-inflammatory pathways. They promote inflammation.
But grass fed beef and poultry do not fill us with so much omega 6 fats. And as lean as you want to eat, for weight loss, or weight maintenance, some daily animal fat is crucial for your health. Eat the grass fed as much as you can.
More bad news - fast foods and processed foods contain omega 6 oils. So much for that convenience.
More bad news - you cannot eat too much cold water fish because of the pollutants in them, mainly mercury. But the good news is, you can now get ultra purified or pharmaceutical grade, fish oils as a nutritional supplement.
You can also decrease your ingestion of omega 6 fats by avoiding all the bottled salad dressings and most bottled vegetable oils that you find at the grocery store. Except for olive oil, avocado oil, walnut oil and flaxseed oil, (and I'm only including here the more typically available oils, there are more), vegetable oils too are omega 6 oils and will promote inflammation in your body.
This sounds pretty hopeless, but here is the good news. Omega 3 oils are anti-inflammatory and are also readily available. If you are willing to make a small lifestyle change, or get your mother/child/wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend/cook, or whoever does the shopping and food prep at home to do so (they will thank you big time), you can switch to omega 3 oils,
If your current training is a career building plan, this information is crucial. If you are training for personal enjoyment, it is important for health too. Being athletic doesn't make arthritis a given in your future. Joint pain can be relieved by decreasing inflammation. Inflammation can be decreased by diet. It is really pretty simple.
I hope that if you are a young ballerina, among the men in ballet, or a young athlete, that you will have your parents read this article. I can only touch the tip of the iceberg here, in the topic of omega 3 oils and their anti-inflammatory properties. But the facts seem to indicate that balancing omega 6 fatty acids in your diet with omega 3 oils, would affect your family health for the better. Dance and sports injuries may be in their past or present too.
Bonnie C. Minsky's article is at http://www.consciouschoice.com/2004/cc1706/healthconscious1706.html.
For an excellent source of omega 3 ultra purified fish oils, click here.
Labels:
arthritis,
ballerina,
career builder,
joint pain,
omega 3,
pointe shoes,
sports injuries,
training
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