Athletes Doing Arabesques

Wilson, Julie C.; Quinn, Bridget; Stratton, Corinne W.; Southwick, Heather; MacDonald, James

doi:10.1249/jsr.0000000000000208

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Dance is a unique combination of artistic expression and athleticism (2,23,29,35). Distinct because of its esthetic nature, dance requires an expressivity and artistry to produce visually pleasing movements (2,30,33).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upper-Body Strength Endurance and Power Norms in Healthy Collegiate Dancers: A 10-year Prospective Study

Coogan

Hansen-Honeycutt

Fauntroy

et al. 2021

Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research

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Coogan, SM, Hansen-Honeycutt, J, Fauntroy, V, and Ambegaonkar, JP. Upper-body strength endurance and power norms in healthy collegiate dancers: A 10-year prospective study. J Strength Cond Res 35(6): 1599–1603, 2021—Dance is physically demanding and requires dancers to have adequate upper body (UB), core, and lower-body fitness to perform successfully. 50–85% of dancers suffer injury during a performance season. Although a large number of dancer's injuries are to the lower body, several dance genres (e.g., modern, hip hop, and salsa) use UB motions such as partner lifts and holds, which may result in a higher risk for UB injury. Health care practitioners often use baseline physical performance normative values to determine their clients' fitness levels and when planning training programs to prevent or rehabilitate postinjury. Still, little information exists regarding UB fitness norms among collegiate dancers. Thus, our purpose was to determine UB strength endurance and power norms in healthy collegiate dancers. We recorded UB muscular fitness in 214 healthy collegiate dancers (males: n = 26, 174.0 ± 6.7 cm, 71.3 ± 9.2 kg and females: n = 188, 163.0 ± 6.1 cm, 59.3 ± 6.8 kg) prospectively over a 10-year period (2008–2018) in a dance program that emphasizes modern and ballet dance. For UB strength endurance, we recorded the number of push-ups a dancer was able to perform without forcibly straining or losing form for 2 consecutive repetitions. For UB power, dancers sat with legs outstretched, backs flat against a wall, and threw a 3-kg ball horizontally from their chest as far as possible (distance thrown normalized to body height, *BH). The best attempt of 3 trials was used for statistical analyses. We report descriptive statistics, interquartile ranges (IQRs), and percentiles for both outcome measures. Dancers performed 20.4 ± 10.6 (range: 2–70, IQR: 12–24; males: 32.5 ± 14.4; females: 18.4 ± 8.4) push-ups and threw the medicine ball 1.8 ± 0.5 *BH (range: 45–3.9, IQR: 1.4–2.1; females: 1.7 ± 0.5; males: 2.3 ± 0.7). Overall, in this long-term prospective study, we developed UB fitness norms for dancers. The push-up test and medicine ball throw test are simple, low-tech, and inexpensive to test dancers UB fitness. Although dancers' UB muscular fitness was lower than previous reports among traditional sport athletes, these values may not necessarily indicate problems, as subjects were all healthy collegiate-level dancers. Rather, our findings reinforce the need to develop dance-specific norms so that practitioners can use these values to assess dancers' UB fitness and devise interventions appropriately. These results provide baseline UB muscular fitness norms among collegiate modern and ballet dancers, and further support the notion that differing norms are needed for different sports and dance genres. Specifically, future researchers should similarly develop norms across different dance genres for preprofessional and professional dancers and also examine whether these norms can predict dancers' injury risk or performance.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upper-Body Strength Endurance and Power Norms in Healthy Collegiate Dancers: A 10-year Prospective Study

Coogan

Hansen-Honeycutt

Fauntroy

et al. 2021

Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dancing, like athletics, is a physically challenging activity, but is also unique as it has the added demands of aesthetically appealing artistry [ 1 , 2 ]. Specifically, dancers regularly perform jumping, landing, and other physically demanding movements [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. Dancing uses similar components of physical fitness as in athletic sports, [ 4 ] placing dancers under a high injury risk [ 4 , 5 , 6 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female Collegiate Dancers’ Physical Fitness across Their Four-Year Programs: A Prospective Analysis

Ambegaonkar,

Hansen-Honeycutt,

Wiese

et al. 2023

JFMK

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Dance is physically demanding, requiring physical fitness (PF) that includes upper body, lower body, core fitness, and balance for successful performance. Whether PF changes as dancers advance from when they enter (freshmen) to when they graduate from their collegiate program (seniors) is unclear. We prospectively compared collegiate dancers’ freshman-to-senior PF. We recorded PF in regard to upper body strength endurance (push-ups), core strength endurance (front, left-side, right-side, and extensor plank hold times), lower body power (single leg hop—SLH—distances % height; Leg Symmetry Index: LSI = higher/lower × 100, %), and balance (anterior reach balance, % leg length, LL; LSI balance = higher/lower × 100, %) in 23 female collegiate dancers (freshman age = 18.2 ± 0.6 years). Repeated measures ANOVAs (p ≤ 0.05) were used to compare measures from freshman to senior years. Across their collegiate programs, dancers’ PF remained unchanged. Specifically, their upper body strength endurance push-up numbers (p = 0.93), their core strength endurance plank times (left: p = 0.44, right: p = 0.67, front: p = 0.60, p = 0.22), their SLH distances (left: p = 0.44, right: p = 0.85), and their symmetry (p = 0.16) stayed similar. Also, dancers’ right leg (p = 0.08) and left leg balance (p = 0.06) remained similar, with better balance symmetry (p < 0.001) in seniors. Overall, dancers’ PF did not change across their collegiate programs. Thus, female dancers’ freshman PF may be an adequate baseline reference measure when devising rehabilitation programs and determining readiness-to-return-to-activity post injury.

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“…3 Many young dancers perceive that their progression en pointe will be precipitous, 1 yet transition to pointe requires attaining numerous criteria to determine readiness. These criteria include; chronological age [1][2][3][5][6][7][8] ; core, ankle, and pelvic stability 1,2,4,[6][7][8][9][10] ; core, lower limb, and ankle strength 1,2,4,[6][7][8][9][10] ; range of motion (ROM) 1,2,4,[6][7][8][9][10] ; flexibility of the foot and ankle (plantar flexion) 1,2,4,[6][7][8][9][10] ; balance 1,2,10 ; foot, ankle, and lower limb alignment 1,2,8,10 ; technique 2,…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Determining Pointe Readiness in Young Adolescent Female Dancers: A Systematic Review

Hough-Coles

Wyon

2022

j dance med sci

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Dancing en pointe is an integral aspect of ballet for female dancers and they start pointe training in young adolescence. The primary objective of this review was to investigate the screening tests used to determine pointe readiness in young adolescent female dancers, and the secondary objective was to determine the injuries associated with pointe training. The search engines Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science were mined using medical subject heading terms “pointe,” “pointe readiness,” “injury,” “young,” “adolescent,” “female,” and “dancer,” and a manual search of relevant articles was conducted. The inclusion criteria were: females aged 8 to 20 years, pre-pointe, training en pointe, and pointe-related injury. The search strategy followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The following data were extracted; first author, year of publication, study design, participant size, mean age, testing, outcome, and general notes of each study. Risk of bias was evaluated using the Research Triangle Institute Item Bank (RTI-IB). Eight cross-sectional studies met the inclusion criteria. Results suggested that the topple, airplane, sauté, and relevé tests are statistically better determinants of pointe readiness than chronological age alone. Utilizing these methods alongside age, strength, body maturation, range of motion (ROM), and teacher evaluation could provide an all-round insight into a dancer’s readiness for pointe. However, the included studies had contradictory outcomes with regard to pointe-related injury and the review’s conclusions are limited by methodological design.

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Athletes Doing Arabesques

Cited by 10 publications

References 2 publications

Upper-Body Strength Endurance and Power Norms in Healthy Collegiate Dancers: A 10-year Prospective Study

Upper-Body Strength Endurance and Power Norms in Healthy Collegiate Dancers: A 10-year Prospective Study

Female Collegiate Dancers’ Physical Fitness across Their Four-Year Programs: A Prospective Analysis

Determining Pointe Readiness in Young Adolescent Female Dancers: A Systematic Review

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