The WORST Injuries Dancers Can Face and How to Prevent Them From Happening
If there’s one thing we know about dancing that comes with the territory, it’s that injuries are common for so many. Dance is one of the most delicate forms of physical activity out there. It can look so effortless at times, and then in the next moment, you may experience a very painful injury that leaves everyone squirming as to what just happened in the moment. We’ve seen it happen countless times, and it’s one of the worst feelings for anyone, including the people looking on. At Dansations, it’s our job to train your kids in ways which they hopefully avoid any bad injury and continue doing what they love.
In this blog, we will break down several of the worst kinds of injuries that dancers can face and how to prevent them from happening.
Stress Fracture Injuries From Constant Repetition
Given that we primarily work with children and teens, these are people whose bones are all still growing. Dancing is going to put a lot of stress on them, and that could potentially lead to stress fractures. A weakened bone can develop tiny cracks when the body doesn’t have enough time to recover between high-octane activities like dance. These stress fractures are most likely going to be in your lower legs, ankles, feet, and other parts.
For the younger dancers we work with on a daily basis, the warning signs are never to be ignored! If someone starts to feel worse when they are going through the motions of dancing, it can indicate they are feeling more than just soreness from constant reps. Soreness is different from pain, and for children and teens, if you have a tender feeling over a bone that feels different than normal, a medical professional should evaluate it.
Ankle Sprains Are VERY Common for Dancers
An ankle sprain is one of the most common types of injuries for a dancer. If you find yourself in the unfortunate circumstance of landing incorrectly on your feet after you jump, that’s where the sprain happens. Also, like with most athletes in other sports, if you have already sprained your ankle before, it increases how injury-prone you are to having it happen again.
Dancers need to be able to establish a good amount of strength development into their dance preparation. Work to help create good stability in the parts of your body that could sprain, along with your hips and your core muscles. Our dance instructors are going to teach your kids about how to control their landings and properly align themselves on quick movements. Important note: make sure you have appropriate dance shoes! Anything that’s worn down will make it easier to injure yourself.
Long-Term Injuries in Your Knees and ACL
Cover your eyes, because there is no scarier combination of two words around a kind of injury than “knee” and “ACL”. Most of the repetitive type of movements in dancing with jumping and bending, can cause knee pain. If awkward landings are a common occurrence for your kids, that’s going to affect the ligaments, which include the ACL. An ACL injury takes roughly 6 months or more to recover from, depending on how major or minor it is. Given dancing is physical, it may be longer than normal if, say, you were someone who doesn’t do physical activities like it.
A good way of avoiding this injury is by strengthening your hips, hamstrings, and core. All dance training is gonna fall under being taught good landing mechanics and jumping so that your neuromuscular control is in top shape. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, they think it’s best that you do plyometric exercises as a way to prevent injury.
Like all forms of physical activity and athletics, you have to be able to let your body heal and recover before the next practice, match, or other form of competition. If your body is tired from the last round and you don’t let it recover, it puts added stress on other parts of the body. Your muscles, tendons, joints, and bones all need recovery. You will start to have hip problems, knee pain (maybe related to the ACL), lower-back pain, and more.
Building a Safe Dance Environment For Your Kids
And that’s a perfect way to transition into the next part, which is to talk about how it should be a team effort amongst us and you, the parents, to help ensure that your kids are given the safest environment possible that won’t lead to these kinds of injuries.
We always want to encourage your kids to warm up properly before our lessons and competitions, along with establishing a scheduled recovery plan. It’s recommended by many pediatric professionals that you give yourself at least one day of rest each week away from periods of intensive training.
Most importantly, we want to be able to speak to your kids on a level of education to where we can teach them how to feel comfortable if, by chance, they do feel the signs of a possible injury. To speak up when the first signs are noticed and address them with our instructors and you as their parents. If you have any questions about this topic or are interested in other avenues of Dansations, give us a call or reach out through our contact form. We will be in touch!
Dance Injuries FAQ
How can dancers help prevent injuries from happening?
If a dancer takes themselves through a proper warm-up before dance lessons or a dance competition, participates in strength training, practices good landing techniques, buys good dance shoes, and also gives themselves good time to recover, this can help reduce the risk of injury.