Cross Training
Dancing Smart Newsletter
June 4, 2004
End of the school year and graduations are upon us! (I had my youngest graduate from middle school, and my oldest graduates today from high school- time flies by so quickly!) This week has been totally bonkers for me, and when Anneleise asked to continue from last week’s topic on pilates training into cross training I eagerly said yes.
Cross training and questioning some of the well-established training patterns of dancers is good. If we simply look at our students we can see a wide range of flexibility and strength and idiosyncratic movement patterns. At times the cookie cutter mentality is hard to break, especially if a way of training has been good for us personally.
Anneliese’s article has lots of food for thought — let’s dig right in!
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Cross Training — What it is and What it can do
I asked Deborah if I could write this week’s newsletter to further explore the question that came up last week about Pilates training. Many teachers, me included, realize that a student’s performance can be enhanced with non dance training. What we sometimes lose site of is that overtraining a dancing body can happen more quickly than we give it credit for. We see the goal that our student has, or that we have for a class and focus on a plan to achieve that goal, sometimes without seeing the bigger picture.
As an example, Suzy has great turnout, works hard, stands up straight, and is in the middle of her growing years. On a good day her extension is 90 degrees. We want to improve her extension. The first thing that comes to mind is "Suzy needs to stretch". We put Suzy’s leg on the barre and we stretch her to the front, we face the barre and stretch her side, we turn her to arabesque and stretch her there. Suzy slides into splits on the barre and we fee like we’ve really stretched her. However, her extension isn’t improving.
When we look at a problem like the above and come up with a single "plan of attack" we aren’t really addressing the problem, we are fixing the symptoms. Cross Training should be about finding, addressing, and alleviating the problems, or better yet training a body that doesn’t develop those problems to begin with. A dance class is not designed to provide a well rounded conditioning program; it is a specific activity with very specialized needs. Dance conditioning classes often focus on the actions that are already performed during a dance class with the premise that repeating the action more often is better. Sometimes more is just more.
How can a dancer effectively cross train? One way is by varying the dance styles studied on a regular basis. Ballet dancers who regularly take modern dance will find they strengthen a different set of muscles than ballet dancers who only take ballet. Jazz, Hip Hop, Tap, and Ballroom dance all rely on different muscles and movement patterns. To be effective as a cross training program participation in the other styles needs to be consistent. Taking one modern class a month will not do a whole lot to counter the effects of 4 hours of ballet a day.
Add a complimentary but non dance movement class into your schedule. Options include Pilates, Gyrokinesis, Yoga, Nia and Feldenkrais. The trick is to know which muscles you are using in dance, which way you are using them, and how to balance out the rest of the body. The following guidelines can be applied to any training program. They are not designed to take into account any special considerations, such as injuries.
- Allow your muscles to do the jobs they are meant to. Try to avoid "getting through a movement" when you know you are using a body part that isn’t supposed to be involved. This will require that you learn which body parts should be executing the movement.
- Train stability and balance as often as you train flexibility. Dancers like to stretch, there isn’t anything wrong with that unless we do it to the exclusion of other things. Flexibility is only as useful as the joint that is being moved. If the stability is not present the flexibility will cause more problems (and possibly injuries) than it will help.
- Body alignment is the most crucial aspect of training. In order for muscles to do their jobs properly and move the joints where you want them to go everything needs to be in the right place. When one piece of the puzzle is missing things don’t fit together and work the way they should.
- Get out of your box. Having a routine and following it day in and day out does a very limited amount of good to your body. Change it up, be creative, think of your training as an exercise in choreography: How many ways can I move X?
- Work your joints in all the directions they don’t get worked in dance. Ballerinas this means you work parallel and maybe even a little turned in.
- Work on all different levels. Try to use muscles while on the floor, sitting, standing, and kneeling. Remember to move front, back, and side too.
- Use props such as Therabands, towels, various size balls, a partner, etc. Challenge your balance by working on a non stable surface. Work the dynamics of a movement backwards, if you usually work slow make one half of the movement fast but controlled, and then take twice as long for the next part.
- Learn new material. Take a class in another movement form to introduce new ways of working to your body. Remember you are looking to compliment your dance training — not duplicate it.
- Have a clear goal that you are working towards, but don’t take the straightest path. The more journeys you allow your body to take to reach your goal, the better you will be.
- Know when to stop. A very important part of training is resting.
Now back to Suzy. Make sure she knows which muscles are supposed to be doing which actions as she executes her extension. Teach her to release those muscles as well as engage them. Very often the problem is gripping and not tightness. Make sure the rest of her body is supported by the deeper core muscles instead of the superficial muscles. Stretch her in a parallel or even medially rotated (turned in) to allow her turnout muscles a chance to relax and release. Remember she is still growing and her bones will grow before her muscles stretch to catch up. Keep all stretching so that is felt in the belly of the muscle and not in the joint where the ligaments could be getting involved. Make sure the attention paid to her extension is in proportion to all her other skills. This is both for physical balance and emotional health. Constantly singling out the same issue changes it from a challenge for the student to a problem.
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Quick announcement — I had to make a challenging decision at the end of last week to cancel the workshop for dancers and dance teacher’s on exploring anatomy due to low enrollment. I still believe in my heart of hearts that it is a topic that is desired by the dance community, but perhaps this summer isn’t the right time. I would be interested in looking at other venues to work with this material by perhaps traveling with another master teacher into an area and doing an abbreviated workshop over one or two days. If anyone is interested in that, please let me know. I will keep you all in touch with any events I may be doing in the future.
Hope everyone’s recitals and graduations go well!
Warmest regards,
Deborah
"Education is the key to injury prevention"