Physical Therapy Equipment
Exercises to Strengthen Your Dancing!

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There are many types of different exercises for dancers to use increase and improve strength.

One options is to use physical therapy equipment. You can use this equipment to target specific areas you need to work on, to prevent injury and also to help recover from an injury.

Here are a few examples of exercises you can do with various types of physical therapy equipment -

Latex resistance exercise band

These bands are excellent because they can be used by all dancers of all ages and levels. They are specifically beneficial for young dancers trying to strengthen their feet for pointe work.

These bands come in different sizes of strength suited to your needs. These bands are great because you can do exercises with them for so many different parts of the body.

You can do several different exercises but here's an example of one foot exercise -

- Sit on the floor with your legs out in front of you

- Wrap the band around one flexed foot and hold the two ends with your hands

- Simply pointe your foot going through the demi-pinte and your metatarsals.

- Roll the foot back up to the starting flexed position

- Repeat on both feet. To benefit from this exercises I'd say to do it continually on one foot for about 5 or 10 minutes... your foot should start to ache!

Physic-therapeutical training belt

This is a strong elastic belt which many dancer's use to increase leg flexibility.

An example of what you would do with this belt, is to sit in box splits with the elastic wrapped in a certain way around your feet and legs. The resistance from the band is meant to increase flexibility.

Weights

Dance weights can be worn around the ankles or wrists to strengthen muscles. If you are interested in using weights then just evaluate your level and ability.

Younger dancers will be more vulnerable to the ankle weights putting too much strain on the knees or ankles. Perhaps using weights are most beneficial to dancers who have been training for several years.

Here is an insight to some exercises you could do with weights -

Wrist Weights

- Go from ballet arm positions one to five, and then back again, several times in a row

- Hold your arms in each position for one minute

Ankle Weights

- Do a series of battements on each side and at each height (working up to grand-battement)

- Standing in fifth position, slide both feet out to the sides simultaneously; pull your feet back into fifth simultaneously

- Practice your jumps (but not turns) with weights on

You see and hear all these different options of exercises and things you can do to improve. But before you go too into depth with additional exercises, I would advise you to let the exercises be guided by your ballet teacher or a physical therapist.

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