Fitness Expert Devises ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Injury Prevention Guide
Every season, stars succumb to injuries on “Dancing with the Stars.” The latest victim is Mark Ballas, who revealed on Sunday that he suffered a lower back injury last week.
“While trying a lift, I compressed two discs in my lower back and could hardly move for two days,” Ballas said.
Now, fitness and pain expert Jill Miller (aka The Body Whisperer), has devised an injury prevention regimen for the celebrities participating in “Dancing with the Stars” … and those viewers inspired to follow in their footsteps. Dancing – whether it’s televised or not! – uses a very specific group of fascia (connective tissue) that can freeze up and cause injury if they’re not dealt with proper stretching and strength-building exercise.
Jill is a leader in the growing Self Care fitness movement, which involves self-administered therapeutic techniques to deal with everyday pain while staying fit. (Yes, we must exercise to stay in shape. No, we neither need to accept pain nor pops pills to deal with it!) Her technique focuses on the manipulation of “fascia” – the soft scaffolding of connective tissue that surrounds muscles, groups of muscles, blood vessels and nerves that, in effect, holds us together. “Fascia maintenance: promises to be one the hot health and fitness story for 2013.
She is the creator of Yoga Tune Up®, which boast 200 instructors worldwide, and she is an elite instructor at fitness chain Equinox for whom she has created a curriculum for “Self Care” pain management certification.
She has been featured in Self, Prevention, Redbook, Yoga Journal, Women’s Running, Fit Yoga and on The Today Show; the Los Angeles Times calls her “kinetically arresting.
Typical injuries dancers face:
Dancers are athletes who put their body at the mercy of a strenuous art form. The repetition of moves, the falls, the long hours, the stress of performance and costumes and footwear can all put a dancer’s body in peril. Muscle and other soft tissue injuries as well as stress-fractures are unfortunately par for the course when training for a dance competition, whether it is televised or not.
Common issues:
· sprained ankle
· Pulled hamstrings
· back spasms
· pinched nerves
· muscle tears in shoulder and neck
· plantar fasciitis
· labral tears (shoulder or hip- ask Lady Gaga about hers)
· general strains and sprains from over stretching tissues during fast movements or falls
Typical “blind spots” that can cause those injuries:
The body must be warmed up completely from toes to head. Joints and soft tissues that do not move well must be addressed so that movement is fluid from joint to joint. If a body is loaded with Trigger Points or old injuries that have not resolved, this is going to set the dancer up for an accident or aches and pains. Compensations in “healthy” tissues will eventually become loaded with their own overuse injuries, and that will set the stage for a bigger problem in performance or rehearsal, and could even take someone out of the competition. Finding these blind spots are imperative and one of the skills that Jill provides is helping people identify where these blind spots reside.
A few specific techniques and exercises they can do quickly as a warm up/cool down to prevent injury and bring balance/strength to blind spot areas:
Deep abdominal breathing is often overlooked as a warm-up cool down strategy. Conscious breathing activates the respiratory diaphragm and prepare the lungs and heart for the intensity of performance, deep breathing also helps ease nerves and anxiety. The diaphragm is a central muscle for posture as well as breath. When the diaphragm’s position and full function is overlooked, it can lead to heightened anxiety as well as core tension which prevents the spine from moving well in full range of motion.
In addition, taking care of a dancer’s body means adequate time dedicated to self-care with massage whenever and wherever the body needs it. While it would be great to have a massage therapist at every rehearsal, or backstage, that often requires undressing and oil and other disruptions to the flow of practice or performance. The YTU Therapy Balls can be used on any aching body part in need of function for rehearsal or performance. The balls can easily used on the feet, ankles and spine…essential pre-performnace warm-up. After rehearsal or performance, the feet again will need to be addressed (due to hazardous footwear) and the hips and buttocks and shoulders to help soothe tissues that were heavily used in jumps, lifts and trying to maintain the classical “Dancer’s Turn-Out” position in the hips.
