How can Pilates help ballroom dancing?

Ballroom dancing has grown in popularity in the past years. Ballroom dancing is no longer just a leisure activity older people or your grandparents used to casually waltz around the dance floor. Shows like “Dancing with the Stars” demonstrate just how much physical work, strength, endurance, coordination, balance, power, flexibility and more is required to dance effortlessly. Ballroom dancing is a sport. And like with any sport training is required, not just in the sport itself but also outside the sport, cross training including strength and flexibility training. Pilates is a great help with ballroom dancing.

Toned muscles are needed in any sport. Toned muscles are muscles at rest. Poorly toned muscles imply that they are ‘flabby’ and have a higher percentage of fat content. Conditioned muscles or muscle groups that are used often stay ‘in shape’ or are ‘conditioned’. This means that when the muscles are called upon to perform the muscles or muscle group responds better to the demand made upon them than muscles that are not toned. The more a muscle is atrophied, usually from lack of use, the less able it is at responding when called upon to be used. In ballroom dancing or any dancing really, there are many quick and sudden movements requiring muscles to react quickly. The more toned and conditioned your muscles are the more efficiently and effortlessly those movements can be made. 

Possible injuries from Ballroom dancing

• Muscle strains from sudden movement without properly warming up.
• Ankle or knee sprains
• Complicated dance steps may aggravate chronic knee, lower back or ankle injuries. Muscles used: Quadriceps, calves, hip abductors (outer thigh), hip adductors (inner thigh), abdominals, obliques, hamstrings, shoulders, upper back, triceps 

Fitness benefits of Ballroom dancing

• Cardiovascular 
• Flexibility 
• Muscular strength 
• Muscular endurance 
• coordination 
• weight loss 

How can Pilates help Ballroom Dancing?

Pilates is an overall body workout. While the goals for people who take Pilates are varied, through Pilates things like posture, breathing and overall ease and efficiency of movement will always be in the background of your Pilates training. Pilates work on the reformer in particular is good for muscle toning in the extremities, in particular the arms, upper body, and legs.

Legs

There is a lot of work that may be done to strengthen the muscles in the legs: quadriceps, hamstrings, adductors (inner thighs), abductors (outer thighs) and calves. While dancing you’re always on your feet so strengthening muscles and keeping them toned and in good condition in this area will help prevent injuries.

Core

There is a lot of ‘core’ strengthening and stabilizing in Pilates. This means strengthening the abdominals, back muscles, as well as the muscles around the pelvis. Being able to keep this area stable while dancing and holding your poster, especially when dancing in contact, will help all for more efficiency and freedom of movement in the legs. Matwork is great for conditioning the core and adding some reformer work helps add a dynamic aspect to that core conditioning in that now you must use the core muscles to stabilize your body while performing other exercises and movements.

Other areas of fitness

Many of the other aspects of fitness are also addressed through Pilates, flexibility, coordination (another big part of Pilates), power (jumpboard work is good for power and plyometric exercises), balance, and local muscular endurance (this is a big part of Pilates!), and strength.

All of this conditioning with Pilates, which is a low impact form of training, will not only enhance your ballroom dancing but also your movements in everyday life.