IADMS Miami 2000   [back to the Category]

Conditioning for Dancers: A Direct Approach   [read the french version]

Author :   Tom Welsh, Ph.D.

Author: Tom Welsh, Ph.D., Dance Department, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

Supplemental conditioning is becoming an essential component of the young dancer’s training just as cross training is essential for young athletes. Despite its recognized importance, few dance teachers attempt to teach it perhaps because they have little personal experience with dance conditioning classes.

This movement session is designed for teachers of dance and others who might teach conditioning for dancers. It will introduce a complementary set of exercises tailored to the developing dancer’s needs. The exercises will be taught in a manner that reveals the essential features of each exercise and its relationship to the physical capacities young dancers must develop to optimize their performance and reduce their risk of injury.

The presenter teaches dance conditioning and injury prevention for adolescent dancers in the Ballet West Conservatory summer program and for university dancers in the professional training program at Florida State University.

This is the abstract of a paper presented at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science, held 27-29 October 2000 in Miami, Florida, USA. All rights are reserved by the individual author(s).