All posts tagged “stretching

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Injury Prevention

I get many questions about avoiding dance injuries. In a highly competitive and increasingly physical field, many dancers find it difficult to balance their desire to go hard with their desire to enjoy a lasting dance career. Advancements in sports medicine, physical therapy, stretching, and our understanding of technique have proven to be a double-edged sword: Dancers are now capable of movements that would have been impossible without these improvements, but such movements continue to increase the need for ever more advances.

Rather than committing to a cycle like that, the most effective way to avoid injuring yourself while dancing is to injure yourself doing something else entirely.

Why else would this woman, ostensibly charged with the physical well-being of her student, be performing such a stretch?

Alex_Davison_Boulder_Stretching rhythmic dancer

Obviously she is making sure that her student will never injure herself dancing by making sure that her student will never dance. What pragmatism! By preventing the problem before it ever has a chance to arise, this woman should be held up as a teacher who truly cares about preventing dance injury.

To be fair, she is far from the only one. Feel free to comment with stories and pictures of other teachers who are also highly motivated to prevent dance injuries by preventing dancing.

 

 

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Stretching

It is a common misconception that warming up before stretching is essential.

The reasoning for this is often that stretching can produce a dramatic change in the body, and it is best for the body to be as prepared as possible to receive this change. Hogwash. Think about the most dramatic change the body can undergo: surgery. Before surgery, does the doctor guide us through calisthenics? Is cardio performed before an operation? Of course not. For surgery, the most drastic change a body can experience, anesthesia is administered.

Anesthesia is used because for surgery to be successful, it is imperative that we are unaware of what is happening. The surgeon may be cutting away skin and splitting apart bone, but in the end we are put back together in better health than when we started out.

If we want similar success when stretching, we must be similarly unaware of what is happening. Anesthesia, therefore, is the goal for any serious stretcher, and the best way to anesthetize a muscle is to make it extraordinarily cold.

It is a well known fact that Sir Edmund Hillary perfected his splits on the summit of Everest

It is a well known fact that Sir Edmund Hillary perfected his splits on the summit of Everest

If geographically possible, try stretching outside in the snow. Investigate the possibility of using dry ice when stretching. Above all, experiment. Leave comments with your success stories below.

 

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What is Stretching?

There are many myths about stretching. The most damaging is that inflexible people can stretch to become flexible. This is untrue. Believing that inflexible people can stretch is to misunderstand the basic premise of stretching. Stretching is not meant to help inflexible people become flexible. It is for flexible people to show off.

Totally hired

Totally hired

Inflexible people, take heart.  It is still possible to have a dance career by marrying a flexible person and living vicariously through flexible children. Flexible people, any dance career is up for grabs. To get the most out of dancing, be sure to stretch as much as possible in front of the inflexible people.

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Stretching Disclaimer

The author makes no claim of expertise, and indeed lacks basic medical knowledge.

Any responsibility for following prescribed stretches is that of the reader.

All posts are made for entertainment purposes only.

For actual advice about stretching, please visit the Ballet Blog and learn from Lisa Howell.

Don't do this

Don’t do this