Why is it important for dancers to warm up

You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email. Menu Skip to content. Why should you warm up and cool down? The cool down is just as important as the warm up If the activity stops suddenly the blood will pool within the muscles rather than return the blood to the brain, this will cause dizziness.

Dancing increases adrenaline and endorphins hormones in circulations which can lead to restlessness and sleep. Increase in waste products such as Lactic Acid can cause stiffness and soreness as well as cramps and muscle spasms. A Note from Laura: Sydney is a lifelong dancer who holds a Masters degree in dance and has substantial experience in both solo and partnered styles. She is currently travelling around the world to better understand the history, culture, and technique of Brazilian Zouk.

Given her extensive classical training, she seemed like a great person to author a piece on the importance of a full warm-up and cool-down in the context of partnered dancing — an aspect many social dancers neglect. We hope you enjoy her debut piece on TDG. Often, we focus on injuries that result from bad technique.

However, it is completely possible for any dancers to experience injuries during social dancing. Even strong technical dancers.

Even dancers who have had lots of great quality instruction. Even professionals. One potential culprit is the lack of appropriate warm-ups used by social dancers. One critical difference between most social dancers and professional solo dancers is the importance of a real warm-up. A ballet dancer would never perform without one.

In fact, most professional ballet dancers arrive up to an hour early for their morning classes for the sole purpose of warming up. Further, those classes function as the warm-up for their rehearsals. A proper warm-up primes your body to be able to use its full range of motion safely. This is why most professional ballet dancers save stretching for the middle or end of class — after their warm up. They know that their full range of motion is only accessible to them after their muscles are warmed up.

Conversely, many social dancers and lay people on general confuse stretching as the warm-up. In addition, many social dancers will walk into a party, often coming from a sedentary day job, and start dancing immediately.

Because their body is not warmed up, they put stress not only on their muscles, but also their tendons, ligaments, and bones. But if you warm the putty up first, it stretches into long, gooey strings. Our muscles are similar. This allows the muscles to move and change shape. This can lead to injury. To cool down after a long night of dancing, take 5 minutes to do some gentle stretching, roll out with a foam roller or lacrosse ball, take a warm shower, and drink water.

Your body will thank you in the morning. Heavily stretching a cold muscle is like pulling on a cold rubber band —not good!! So those are a few important things every dancer should know about warm-up — I hope it has been helpful information, and comes in time for you to incorporate it into your new dance season! She is also a Pilates rehabilitation specialist and Franklin Educator. Great article. This site may contain Amazon affiliate links, other affiliate links, or sponsored content. All material on this site is copyrighted and cannot be reprinted or used without permission of 4dancers.

Copyright , All Rights Reserved. The dynamic section warms up your joints and the static stretches ensure your muscles are ready for you to begin dancing. The dynamic part of your warm up can be performing dynamic stretches such as leg swings or jogging on the spot.

Start your dynamic warm up by moving your head up, down and side to side to warm up the muscles in your neck, then work your way down your body to your feet. This helps the blood flow to your muscles increase so your body is ready for your upcoming dance class or performance. The static section of your warm up, as the title suggests, means stretching without movement.

Popular stretches in a warm up for many dancers include toe touches, leg stretches and the splits position. Your warm up can be as long as you prefer, some dancers enjoy a really long warm up to ensure their body is as ready as possible to dance and to decrease any chances of injury.

The dynamic part of your warm up should be no less than 5 minutes, your current level of fitness will determine how long your warm up needs to be. Need an excuse to be in the dance studio for longer?