"There are shortcuts to happiness and dancing is one of them. Vicki Baum
Dancing is happiness and while you will be happy dancing, you need to make sure that your body is fine with being agile and moving in the way that dancers need to move.
A dancer's body will certainly cry for help if you start dancing without doing a pre-workout before trying out those intense dance moves. You must remember that dancing is also a sport. Like with any other sport, dancing requires some preparation work before you actually get moving.
All dancers need to warm up their muscles to avoid damaging their muscles and to ensure that they strengthen their muscles enough to allow the muscles to move in any way you want them to.
Ask any dancer and they will tell you that preparation is key. Turn on the music that you like and begin by working out. First things first, you can begin by stretching.
Like with most exercises, beginning with stretching is a great idea. We provide you with some stretching strategies to get you started.
Stretching Strategies to Begin Your Dancing Session
"Dancing is creating a sculpture that is only visible for a moment." Erol Ozan
Before you step to the beat, you must make sure that you do some stretching. If you are looking for some stretching exercises for dance training, look at our tips for stretching beforehand.
If you don't begin your dance lessons with stretching, you are sure to get injured. When you warm-up before dance, you stretch out your muscles and that allows your muscles to warm up and relax.
Choose to wear an outfit that enables ease of movement. In doing so, you will ensure that you make it easier for your body to do the movements that you will need to perform before you start making them.
You need to make sure that your stretching strategies entail stretching out your shoulders, neck, back, pelvis, knees, ankles, wrists, etc.
The best advice when stretching and working out before you start dancing is to stretch the way that you know how.
Your dance workout to make your muscles more flexible and lither as well as to get your blood flowing should include:
- Doing jumping jacks
- Leg swings
- Hip swings
- Shoulder rolls
- Lunges
- Burpees
Bending and stretching is a great idea especially when you are not overexerting yourself. Keep your stretching routine to about 10 to 15 minutes. You must remember that if you are taking one hour for your dance lesson, you don't want to spend longer than 10 minutes on stretching and warming up.
Truth be told, once you advance from a beginner dancer to a more advanced dancer, you will be spending more time working out. You want to make sure to stretch out your muscles properly so that you don't over stress your muscles.
Dance Training
"When you get a chance to sit out or dance, I hope you dance." Lee Ann Womack
If you choose to take up dancing with the help of a dancing tutor, you need to make sure you work on becoming more flexible. You may choose to do flexibility exercises for dance.
Through dance training, you will learn how to move with more grace. To move more gracefully, you must ensure that you have more flexibility. Even if you choose to take up dance training not to become a professional dancer but to work on your flexibility, you will be doing just great. Whenever you choose to take classes that entails working your muscles and joints, you are bound to feel better overall and prevent future health problems.
In your personal life, all activities like going up the stairs, hiking, and gardening becomes easier and effortless. The more dance training you have, the more flexible you will be. If you are flexible enough, you can even start doing the splits.
Here is all you need to know about how to do the splits.
If you are interested in dance training, but don't know how to get started, you can always check out the Superprof site to find the right dance tutor for you.
If you do want to be able to tap your feet to the beat professionally, you need to make sure that you are a disciplined dancer. Discipline in dance can be encouraged when you solicit help from a private teacher. You are most discipline when you reach out to a private dance tutor who will help you to keep on track and a dance tutor who will focus on your flexibility.
A great dance teacher will be able to teach you the more traditional flexibility exercises. These exercises you may find are highly similar to warm-up exercises with slightly advanced movements. Don't underestimate the power of dance training, through dance training, you don't only learn how to dance but how to warm-up as well.
Ideas for Dancer Workouts
Are you intending on being a dancer who can do the splits? Your ambitions are justified as the splits are done in many choreographies. Most people send their children for dancing class from an early age, so by the time they are older, they are flexible enough to perform a vast array of dance movements. While you may be thinking that it will be impossible to teach an adult how to dance, it's really not. Even though most dancers start very young, it surely isn't impossible to start learning how to dance as an adult. It will take a little more time to become a great dancer, but you will get there if you are motivated enough.
Discipline is a great quality to have. Discipline is even needed for those dancer workouts that are essential during dance training. You need to make sure that you put some effort into these dancer workouts. Do not workout too fast as then they might not be as effective.
At the same time, you must not workout everyday if your body is not used to it. Working out too frequently can lead to muscle pains. We suggest that you take dance classes twice or thrice a week and ease your body gradually into doing these daily work outs.
Dance Exercise for Beginner Dancers
Here are some types of dance exercises that are perfect for your dancer workout:
Loaded pancake stretch: The stretch is extremely flexible since you have to ideally get your chest to the floor while reaching forward. The main crux of the stretch is to be extremely flat and hence the name of the stretch is the pancake stretch. To do the proper loaded pancake stretch, you need to squat down with a straight spine. You must also make sure your shoulders are away from your ears. You need to place one hand on the ground with the other hand lifted towards the ceiling. With the hand on the ground, you need to make sure that you are pressing against the inside of your knee. Hold the position for about 30 seconds.
Pushups: Don't think that dancers don't do pushups as well. When a dancer does a push up it promotes upper body strength. Pushups require full body work. To do a pushup, you need to get up on all fours, making sure your hands are wider than your shoulders. The idea is to keep your elbows slightly bent while pushing up.
The split squat: If you would like to promote leg mobility, the split squat is best way to get started. To do the split squat, your one leg needs to be ahead of the other, rotate your forward foot, so that it pointed straight ahead. Make sure this forward foot is flat on the ground. Rotate the hip of your back leg inward to ensure both your feet are pointing in the same direction. Bend your front knees and continue to do this. You want to reach a point where your calf is covered by your hamstring and your knees should be well passed your toes.
The workout is the exercise that you need to do before you can learn how to actually dance. Once you start with beginner workout moves, you can always advance your workout.
Soon you will be doing front splits and side splits as well.
To do the front splits, sit on the floor, spreading out your stretched legs while leaning your chest forward straight to the ground. While the idea of doing pancake stretches and side splits may seem too overwhelming, you need to make sure that you keep at it, as the dance workouts need to be done in order to make you a far better dancer.
Strength Training for Dancers
Whether you choose to believe it or not, part of your journey as a dancer entails building your upper and lower body strength. As a female dancer, the thought of strength training may prove to be quite stressful. All that strength training is meant to be is a way of developing your strength so that you are able to exert the needed force when you dance.
Again, don't let the thought of having to do workouts and strength training scare you from taking dancing lesson. You have to admit, taking dance lessons (even with the dance workouts) will still be far cooler than well your mathematics class.
According to research attending dance classes just to dance but not doing any dance workouts is not merely enough to provide stimuli nor to increase fitness levels. That is why so many ballet, hip hop or contemporary dancers get dance-related injuries. To avoid the dance-related injuries that about 80% of dancers face, you ought to always do dance workouts before you start dancing.
These dance workouts will help you with your respective choreography. You will notice some choreographed movements require much physical strength and you need to be able to do these movements to adhere to the choreography taught by your dance instructor. The dance instructor is always there to guide you and help you understand what is expected of you.
During your dance classes, don't forget to have fun and not to overthink anything.
"Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order." Samuel Beckett
Enjoyed this article? Leave a rating!
Loading...
