Whether you’re just ending your season or it’s just beginning, I’m sure your dancers are coming to you with issues and injuries of all varying degrees of severity. Sometimes they’re just sore and sometimes there could be something even more serious happening.
Here are three things you can recommend to your dancers to help them undo the effects of the season or to keep them in tip top shape for the rest of the season.
1. They’re sore or they feel like their muscles are tight.
– Recommend stretching after a long hot bath.
– Have them purchase epsom salts with coconut oil and essential oils to help soothe sore muscles that will help them relax in the bath.
– Ask them to foam roll the sore muscles with a foam roller or tennis ball.
-Remind them that sometimes when their hamstrings are sore, it’s a tight low back or when the left side of their body is tight, it’s the right side that really needs the stretch. Use the filtering tool at dancer-fitness.com to search for dancer specific stretches.
2. They feel like one side of their body is weaker than the other.
– Typically during the season dancers only work one side of the body because it’s their strong side or it’s the side that does most of the choreography.
– This can lead to overuse injuries and feeling unbalanced.
– Recommend simple unilateral exercises they can do while brushing their teeth or waiting for their breakfast to cook
Some examples of these are:
3. They are presenting signs of an actual injury.
– If you suspect your dancer has an injury, encourage them to get the help they need from a trusted medical professional.
– This is really hard for dancers to do because they don’t want to hear that they can’t dance.
– Remind them that ignoring the injury could lead to a much more severe injury or even surgery.
– Check out this helpful resource doctorsfordancers.com to help them get paired up with a local dance specific medical professional.