be ergogenic for endurance running? the professional ballet dancers seem to be defying gravity at times in their flyovers, etc.
Any educated opinion?
No, I don’t think ballet studios are as aggressive in expanding their market as CrossFit or yoga.
The one ballet dancer I knew fought a constant battle with injury. It was a brutal activity, despite its outwardly graceful appearance. Viewed from her perspective, it reminded me of boxing.
As Tom said it is definitely brutal as far as injuries go. As a woman, you constantly deal with foot and ankle issues from the point shoes, and as a guy you still have those problems in addition to the upper body stresses of lifting chicks!
I danced on a pre-professional level for about 5 years prior to giving it up to race bikes (early teens). Definitely gave me a great base of fitness, my ankles click and pop constantly and I don’t even have a 20 inch vertical jump now. It’s not bad as an off-season activity but don’t expect a direct impact on your race results.
Oh, and one of my cardiology professors quoted a study a while back that showed a population of ballet dancers with extremely high vo2 max scores. The training is often highly anaerobic- and theatre rehearsals are often 6+ hours.
-Physiojoe
Some ST’ers may know a fine fellow by the name of Ken O’Day from Michigan who works part time for Two Wheel Tango in Ann Arbor.
What many people may not know about Ken is that his family- father and brother Kevin, are acclaimed dancers and choreographers. Kevin O’Day, Ken’s brother, has been a choreographer for the White Oak Dance Company and Artistic Director for the Mannheim Ballett.
Both of these guys- Keven and Ken’s Dad (who may have passed away unfortunately) are incredibly fit, as has Ken always been. It seemed as though there was a genetic pre-dispotion among the O’Day men for both endurance sports and dance, and the similarities between the aptitude required for the two became apparent when you looked at the fitness and dedication to training of these guys.
I went to a professional ballet school until I was 17. The school I went to did not allow us to participate in gym class or any other sports in case we developed unattractive muscles or hurt ourselves. I believe that ballet has helped me become a good swimmer because technique comes easily to me, I am really good kicking (ankle flexibility) and I have good body position awareness.
I don’t think ballet would be useful for running. Contrary to what the other poster said, ballet is not anerobic at all. Ballet class consists of hours of standing at a bar learning positions. Ballet dances are lean because they dont eat very much not because they are exercising all day long. Rehersals can run for 6+ hours but most of that time, you are sitting on the floor and waiting your turn.
Also, ballet dancers are trained to turn their feet and legs outwards. I still walk around like that and I quit almost 10 years ago. I had a lot of knee injuries when I started running.
My wife is a fine amateur ballet dancer. She is a slow runner that gets out of breath easily. And as was mentioned she has weird posture issues, which may be an issue when she wants to run further distances.
ballet is more of a fast twitch sport. those leaps are the stuff of the NFL more than endurance running.
the balance and general fitness would certainly be better than sitting on the couch. if you took it to a high level it would probably screw up your feet and ankles for running though.
I believe that ballet has helped me become a good swimmer because technique comes easily to me, I am really good kicking (ankle flexibility) and I have good body position awareness.
You bring up a great point I forgot to mention- is increased body awareness, especially dancing as I grew up (brain still maturing). I’m not saying I have the best bike handling skills on the planet, but cycling and other life skills are easy to me when any type of proprioception are involved.
From a mental standpoint, it may also help that my director was a harsh-tongued Russian who turned pro when she was 14. I thrived on being complimented when I really deserved it but also being told when I sucked! It was not unusual to see even the older teenagers shaking and crying after a hard rehearsal.
-Physiojoe
I spent 15 years as a professional ballet dancer. Retired at age 38 due to chronic calf injuries and feeling pretty satisfied with the career I had. It took a good decade to fix the biomechanical chain that caused the injuries and re-orient my body to running. Swimming and cycling were easy to switch to…
But to your question- I regularly worked out 40 hours/week between daily class, rehearsals, and performances. Around Christmas, when every dance studio was trying to put on a Nutcracker and all the bigger companies were doing shows too, you could be a hired gun and make a good bunch of cash, but it meant up to 90 consecutive days without one off.
Overall, for the successful male dancers, there was a high level of fitness,mostly correlated with the high level of training. For males, ballet is very explosive, with multiple conseutive jumps, turns, etc. The magazine Physician and Sports Medicine has done a couple good articles, recording HR’s over 200 during stage performances of demanding ballet variations. Most of us cross-trained with weights, some pilates, some swimming. Only one dancer I kow, who was very successful, ran much. He kept it quiet, but I know one off-season he ran and chopped wood, came back in the Fall, and everyone thought he had been taking class all summer 'cause he was in such amazing shape.
Personally, looking back, if ew had all been taught to cross-train for endurance (indoor cycling), had a solid dance-specific weight lifting program, did core work like pilates regularly, the injury rate would’ve been lower, and the careers longer.
Would ballet training help your performance in triathlon? Maybe…core strength and flexibility. But ballet training can be brutal, and is designed to alter the shape of your muscles, and the rhythm to their contractions. IMHO, you’d be better off training with Pilates for the core and flexibility work.
I was a Ballet dancer for four years as a teen. What most people said here is correct. We would “work out” or what we called Studio rehearsals for four hours a day and six hours during the weekends. It was the most intense physical activity I have ever engaged it - to date. During those days my flexibility was matched only by other dancers. I could do things with my legs and body that made the other athletes in the gym drop their jaws. I could jump and kick higher than the Tae-Kwon-Do guys. Strangely in my case, I could also run and swim really well too. Perhaps it was because of my previous running and swimming base before I got into dancing.
Ballet was physically and mentally hard especially for the Male Danseurs. We had to carry the Ballerinas and was expected to jump higher than the Ballerinas. My knees always ached because of having to “turn out” and I swam and run in the track to relax. There was an instance that I could keep up with some of the track runners at school during their workouts - so much so that the Track coach wondered who I was and why I wasn’t in the team.
That was over 25 years ago and I often wish I kept the basic Ballet workouts as I am certain they would greatly benefit me today.
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