This exercise will strengthen your spine, while also allowing the body to remember where your spine is supposed to be in certain ballet positions (Greene Section 2).
1. Lie on your stomach with a pillow under your abdominals. Support your head with your elbows.
2. Inhale in preparation
3. Then exhale, lifting your abdominals towards your spine and gently contract.
4. Hold this position for a few more seconds while you inhale. Exhale once again and lower yourself onto the pillow, further contracting your spine.
* THIS EXERCISE SHOULD MAKE YOU SORE. It's very easy to simply lift yourself off the pillow without using much muscle, but if your are doing it correctly everything should be engaged. Remember, doing this the easy way will gain you no strength. In other words, do it right or don't bother at all!
I'm not sleeping, really.
What other activities (sports, ect) can this strengthening exercise help with, and how so?
-Kristin
Haas, Jacqui Greene. Dance Anatomy. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2010. Print.
Who knew you could lose alignment as a ballet dancer? This really intrigued me and made me wonder, maybe I should try this regardless to having any use of building muscle along my spine. I personally have rarely any experience with dancing, especially as challenging of a genre like ballet. Nonetheless, your instructions are clear, simple and easy to follow! I love how you added extra validation to the audience to make sure they were doing it right as well. I wish you the best of luck on your journey in ballet!
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