A Dancer's Guide to Stronger Hips

Although most people don't consider hips to be an essential part of strength for athletics, they are one of the most important. Your hips are the center of your body and are what support the upper and lower half. Any injury to the hips can lead to back pain and knee pain. Coming from personal experience, any time you work out, make sure to work out your hips. Being a dancer, I know that my hips are one of most used part of my body while dancing. To have alignment, posture, balance and technique, my hips must be strong. There are many hip strengthening exercises that I use. The most popular one, is clam shells. The point of this exercise is to open and close your legs to work on your hip rotation and hip flexors.

To complete this exercise, lay down on your side. To achieve the correct position, "Bend your knees to a 45-degree angle, legs and hips stacked" (ATI 18). Keeping your feet together, life your upper knee towards the sky, then back down, and repeat. While doing this exercise, your hips should be in line with your back to keep posture and alignment (ATI 18). An example of this exercise is shown below.

What do you think the result is of overuse in your hips?
ATI, PT. Strengthening Exercises.

A Dancer's Guide to a Stronger Back

Just like many other athletic activities, back strength is very important to a dancer. Back strength helps with balance and alignment. In a lot of dance moves, you have to bend your back or keep it completely straight. If your back is weak, it can become very difficult to keep perfect posture without being very sore and in pain. Pretty much every more in dance requires good alignment to look professional and not sloppy. In addition, balance comes a lot from your back and to complete moves like turns, you need very good balance. The better balance and strength you have, the more turns that you can do.

One exercise I use to strengthen my back is called "Bridges" (ATI 22). For this exercise, you need to lay on a hard, flat surface on your back. Bend your knees up like you would to complete a sit-up. Have your hands flat on the ground by your sides. Keeping your pelvis in line with your back, lift your pelvis up to the ceiling. until your core makes a diagonal line with your legs (ATI 22). Hold this position for 10 seconds, then go back down. Repeat this as many times as you would like. I repeat this 10 times. You should feel this exercise in your back, core, and hips. An example of this is shown below.

How do you think back strength effects your everyday life?
ATI, PT. Strengthening Exercises.

A Dancer's Guide to Stronger Feet

Dancing doesn't only involve straight arms and legs, and good posture. A major part of dance is pointed toes. They key to any move in dance, looking professional and proper is pointing your toes. Now, when doing a style like hip hop or when a move is purposely made to have flexed feet, then it's okay. If flexed feet are intentional, it can add style and emotional to a move or routine. But, normally, dancers always are to point their toes. Someone who isn't a dancer wouldn't think that your feet must be strong and flexible; they do. A perfect point is one where the foot is in line with your leg, and you can feel and see all the muscles through your leg engaging along with your foot.

This exercise is a very simple but very effective foot strengthening exercise. It stretches as well as strengthens your foot, to get that perfect point. First, sit down on a flat, surface. Have your legs straight and extended out in front of you. Flex your feet up and high as you can (ATI 24). The goal is to get your heels as far off the ground as possible. Hold this for as long as you need. I normally do 5 seconds. Then, point your toes down to the ground. Pointing your toes and curling your toes are very different. To achieve this, "Try to get your toes to touch the ground and arch your foot as much as possible (ATI 24). Hold this for as long as you need. Again, I normally do this for 5 seconds. Next, flex your feet again. Go back and forth until you feel your feet are stretched and warmed up. This exercise is shown below.

Is strength in your feet essential to any other sports?
ATI, PT. Strengthening Exercises.