Physical Issues of Dancers

Dance has a variety of great things about itself, but it also has many obstacles to overcome if you are interested in it. Try having tortured toes from slamming roughly 300 pounds on them when you’re landing your jumps every day, painful ingrown toenails, needing hip and knee replacements when you’re 25 from your turnout, and back and ankle problems.

These are the most common injuries dancers get after years of dancing, which people tend to overlook. Some of these injuries are long-term, which are very concerning for dancers, so they need to know how to cope or prevent these injuries from happening.

Ballet dancers who are in pointe need to know to tape their feet before putting on pointe shoes and put a toe protector in between their big toe and their second toe. This is so that they don’t jam into each other when the ballerina is landing or leaps, turning or going up on the toes at all.

Another major physical issue that dancers need to make sure they’re prepared for is ingrown toenails. Since the toes are constantly rubbing against each other, there may be times when the dancer experiences an ingrown toenail. There are no preventing ingrown toenails, they are inevitable in the dance world. In order to make this go away though, the dancer has to cut a pie shape in the middle of the nail that's infected, that way the nail grows to fill in that gap, which will make the ingrown nail vanish. Either do it this way or go see a doctor and they will cut it out, which is what I had to do!

Dancers: Tell your coaches when you notice the slightest bit of injury! It may be more important than you think it is, and they will tell you how to fix it.

The next issue that a dancer would most likely experience is hip, knee, and ankle pain. This is due to their turnout being too extreme. They over-extend their feet, trying to point them towards the wall. This forces the hips and knees to stay in line with the feet, which puts a huge strain on those regions. The only way to prevent this from affecting the dancer in future years is to not force your turn out when dancing. This is extremely hard though, considering that’s what ballet is all about, having a good turnout!

The last main physical issue dancers usually experience is back problems. This is from the repetition of using their back in dances, rehearsals, performances, stretching, and maintaining their flexibility all those years. They have to practice hours a day at least a few times a week, (the more days for the more serious the dancer is) and make sure they are staying flexible and in shape for their performances. Dancers do things with their bodies that the average human isn’t meant to do. They bend their bodies in unhealthy ways which is why those body parts hurt and may need to be replaced in later years. The only way to prevent this is to make sure you are warm before you stretch, and never run a dance cold!

That is my advice for dancers and anyone who is interested in protecting their body while being a dancer!