Using Your Spine as a Dancer

The spine is a very important part of alignment and balance in dancing, especially ballet. All dancers put a tremendous amount of stress on their backs, meaning it is very important to build muscles around the spinal area in order to protect yourself from injury. "Learning how to control your spine is the key to beautiful lines" (Greene Section 2).


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.

HAPPY FEET :)

Feet are by far the most important component to dancing. "Quick, fearless" feet are required to execute all motions (Greene Section 6). But this type of foot must be trained. Whether it is flexibility, strength, or coordination, everyone has something they could do to improve their feet. In dance, you feet are never simply "good enough!"

This particular exercise trains the foot for what ballerinas call a "winged" position 

        (See the upward curve to her arch? OMG PERFECT. O.o)

So basically our goal is to achieve this craziness.^

1.)  Sit down with a thear band (or elastic band) "wrapped around the forefoot" (Greene Section 6) (or upper part of your foot).

2.) Push your foot outward, creating resistance against the band. This brings your foot into a wing.

3.) Repeat 10-12 times, both in pointed and flexed foot.

This exercise is simple, but very effective. I do resistance band strengthening to my feet a few times per week.

Feet points and turned out

Feet flexed and turned out :)

Featuring me, casually trying to be cute...... 

What other activities can strengthening your feet help with? What injuries can this exercise help prevent?

-Kristin

Haas, Jacqui Greene. Dance Anatomy. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2010. Print.