To any aspiring and professional dancer, the answers to these questions are painfully obvious. Painful in more ways than one, but sadly only obvious to some. The art and pursuit of making dance look effortless and easy, leads many observers to think that perhaps it is. (Never mind that some of these same critics couldn’t touch their own toes, let alone fly through the air in grand jeté splits. Just saying.)

But fortunately, Discovery found a more diplomatic and compelling answer for their readers through this video interview with Cape Town City Ballet’s senior principal dancer, Laura Bosenberg. See the short but inspiring video here (beautifully produced by Stage 5 Films) and share with your friends…

Sleeping to be a star? Photo by NimahelPhotoArt via Flickr.

You probably won’t know it, but you could already be deep into sleep debt and this silent loan shark is steadily stealing the shine off your performance. Sleep debt is caused by accumulating sleep loss over time and yes, your body does keep score – that late night I-know-I-shouldn’t-but-I’ll-have-it-anyway coffee sets you back at least ten points. Well okay, maybe five.

Most people don’t realise that they have chronic sleep debt, because it builds up slowly over days and weeks. Also, there are two types of sleep loss – acute and chronic:

Acute sleep loss happens when you pull an all-nighter and you’re awake for more than 24 hours. You may think you’re a cool kid for doing it, but the resulting impairment can temporarily make you as dumb as Dory (you know, Finding Nemo).

Chronic sleep loss is when you only get about four to seven hours sleep a night, putting you a little more into debt each time. And surprise surprise, this is actually the really nasty thief-in-the-night, increasingly robbing your power during the day, but so subtly that you wouldn’t notice the change.

Just can’t get enough

US researchers found that while most people will catch up on acute sleep loss with a single night of 10 hours sleep, those with chronic sleep loss showed deteriorating performance for each hour spent awake.

They found that three days is not enough to recover from chronic sleep loss, but they couldn’t say how many days or weeks may actually be needed. This could be because every person needs a slightly different amount of sleep, and of course your sleep debt score might register higher on the scary-scale than others!

How to fix your sleep debt and improve performance

Cheri Mah (@Cheri_Mah) is one of the leading American authorities in sleep and athletic performance and she coaches collegiate and professional sports teams on optimal sleep, recovery, and peak performance. She found that swimmers who increased their sleep improved their reaction time off the starting block by 17%, and tennis players got a 42% boost in hitting accuracy too (see the study info here).

If it works this well for swimmers and tennis players, imagine what advantage this can create for a dancer.

So start by extending your nightly shut-eye by 30 minutes or more. Yes, that means no more night-time coffees and bad reality TV shows. Set a reminder if you have to until your new habit becomes second nature, but do what you can to get some more sleep each night.

But don’t get fooled…

That rejuvenated feeling you might have after one decent night’s sleep is wonderful, but a tad misleading too. Don’t be tricked into believing that you’re restored as new and your debt is paid.

This loan shark is sneaky and you’ll have to keep paying your debt for a while yet, consistently night by night if you want to shake off the shark and reach your peak performance again.

Your new sleep patterns will be worth their weight in gold soon enough. Okay, so you can’t really weigh sleep, but just think, those extra zzz’s could just win you gold at the next dance competition with your new found vigour and competitive advantage. Now isn’t that worth sleeping on?

Cape Town City Ballet warm-up class. Photo by Michael Groenewald courtesy of CTCB.

Do you ever have those days where you know there is so much more you can do in ballet class, but your body stubbornly refuses to cooperate? Of course you do, silly question, pushing the body beyond its boundaries is basically the definition of ballet, right?

After all, there is no such thing as too many pirouette turns or too much elevation in jumps – dancers are always striving for more.

Dramatic moment with Elizabeth Nienaber. Photo by Michael Groenewald courtesy of CTCB.

But while relentlessly pushing yourself in ballet can certainly give you results, it can also give you injuries. A better approach is to find a happy balance, where you can identify your weak areas and safely strengthen them out of class, enabling you to work harder and with more control in the class.

This is where cross-training for ballet is so valuable.

So when you’re panting after that first allegro exercise and when your feet should be doing hummingbird beats but start to resemble flopping fish instead, it’s time to add some cardio fitness workouts.

And when you’re fighting to hold (or lift) that arabesque, perhaps it’s time to include some core strength conditioning.

Following the recent cross-training article on BodyMindBallet (Best out-the-class ideas for in-the-class performance), I asked a few South African professional ballet dancers to tell us what type of ballet cross-training they do and what works best for them.

Here are some of their ideas that you can try for yourself.

[Although remember that what works for one dancer doesn’t necessarily work for another, so it’s always best to chat to your ballet teacher and physical therapist before starting any new training schedules.]

Ballet cross-training that works:

Michael Revie from South African Mzansi Ballet stretching during rehearsals. Photo by Jurgen Badenhorst courtesy of SAMB.

Michael Revie, principal dancer at South African Mzansi Ballet says, “when I perform, it is normally for 1 and a half to 2 hours and it is a mix of everything, so training many different ways is very, very important for me.”

Michael does circuit training three times a week, mixing upper body and leg workouts, and he aims to do weight training twice a week too. However, he doesn’t stop there.

“Being a dancer, we move every day in different ways,” says Michael. “I feel if I stick to one type of training, I will be neglecting some parts of my body. I need to be fit to run long distance and do sprints, long jump, high jump, weight lifting, flexibility and strength.”

Thomas Thorne of Cape Town City Ballet (CTCB) takes a similar approach with cross-training.  He says “I don’t believe that just a ballet class is enough to keep strong. Ballet has become more athletic and bodies are more toned, so going to the pilates class or the gym is needed.”

Thomas recommends trying many different forms of exercise and he emphasizes that “male dancers also must be strong to partner a girl and get through a solo”.

Kirstel Jensen and Daniel Szybkowski during rehearsals at Cape Town City Ballet’s studios. Photo by Michael Groenewald courtesy of CTCB.

However, even though the physical demands and cross-training needs are different for ballet men and women, that doesn’t mean gym is only for the boys.

Kirstel Jensen, a CTCB dancer, says that gym makes her stronger too, especially helping with upper body strength and also strengthening her legs for jumping and landing. She says working out at the gym also improves her stamina and “it makes muscles not usually used stronger, which in turn improves my ballet technique”.

But when it comes to increasing core body strength, pilates pops up on almost all dancers’ cross-training schedules. Claire Spector (from Cape Town City Ballet) says pilates helps her build strong core muscles, while it’s good for preventing injuries and for general body conditioning.

Elizabeth Nienaber (CTCB) says she does pilates, yoga and gym, listing several benefits including increasing flexibility, relieving stress and she says it provides a “better understanding of the body/mind connection”.

Angela Hansford during rehearsals. Photo by Michael Groenewald courtsy of CTCB.

Angela Hansford (CTCB) believes that yoga works best for her. In particular Angela says that because she’s tall, she needs a very strong core. “This helps me to move faster and be more coordinated,” she says.

Angela adds that yoga stretches are very beneficial, and “heated yoga is also great because you feel more flexible in the heat and can really push your stretches.”

But if you prefer fresh air to hot, stuffy studios, Daniel Szybkowski (CTCB) says he goes jogging and hiking, which he claims strengthens his ankles and legs and also improves his stamina.

But what about cross-training for injury rehabilitation?

Michael Revie has dealt with his fair share of injuries over his career and has developed his own injury prevention/recovery techniques. But as a starting point he says, “if I have an injury, I wait until the physio says I am allowed to train, then I train the injured area by itself (pilates, swimming, biokinetics). As soon as I feel the strength coming back, I start to lift more and train longer.”

See them in action…

Now that you have some insight into these dancers’ off-stage workouts, why don’t you see for yourself how it translates into their on-stage performance?

You can still catch the Cape Town City Ballet dancers on stage this week with their production of The Sleeping Beauty at Artscape until 18 August (tickets through Computicket here); and you can see Michael Revie and the South African Mzansi Ballet dancers in their upcoming production of Cinderella at the Joburg Theatre in September (book those tickets here).

Tips to find your best cross-training balance. Photo by Lululemon Athletica via Flickr.

It may sound counter-intuitive, but if you want to improve your ballet performance, you may need to step outside the ballet class to do it.

Cross-training is the new must-do for professional and aspiring dancers, helping you improve fitness, flexibility, strength, injury recovery, musicality and more.

Now don’t get me wrong, the only way to master pirouettes is to practice them and no amount of cross-training can replace your ballet classes. But with the right combination of training, you’ll have such increased strength and control that you could suddenly find your fouettés start flying and your improvements should be increasingly noticeable from class to class.

However, some exercises are definitely better for ballet than others and you wouldn’t want to build bulky muscles or put yourself at risk for more injuries. So let’s take a look at the best forms of ballet cross-training and what it can do for you.

What’s so important about cross-training for ballet?

Dancers often only realise their weaknesses too late – like the lack of aerobic fitness when you’re panting and out of breath halfway through a stage performance. Or how about those nasty injuries that pop up just when you’re preparing for that big exam?

Dance biokineticist, Tanya Lourens, warns that “if dancers don’t allow sufficient time for their bodies to rest, the benefits of training will be diminished or even reversed, as the body will become over trained.”

Art of Motion’s Kirsten Johnson during a performance at the International Ballet Gala in homage to Alicia Alonso. You can see more Gala photos in the gallery here. Photo by Sarah Weyman.

So how do you increase your strength and fitness but also avoid injuries and ‘over-training’?

Tanya Lourens says that using cross-training correctly can still allow a dancer’s body to recover from a strenuous class, without the risk of developing overuse or repetitive strain injuries.

She suggests the best approach is to engage in a completely different physical activity in order to rest dance-specific muscles. “This will allow the body to adapt as it gives the nervous system a rest from the usual dance specific patterns,” she says.

Esmé Harris, director of Art of Motion, should also know a thing or two about cross-training considering her ballet students are collecting local (South African) and international awards, and not just in ballet, but in rhythmic gymnastics and Irish dancing too.

In fact, the school has purposely designed a cross-training methodology and exercise programme that seems to be giving their dancers an edge in stamina, strength and performance quality.

[You can judge this for yourself if you head over to the Linder Auditorium in Johannesburg on 10 August 2013, where Art of Motion will perform a production called White Noise. Tickets via Computicket.]

Getting the ingredients just right

Esmé Harris compares cross-training for ballet to preparing the precise ingredients for a recipe, warning that “should you omit one ingredient, your end product will either be a total flop or most certainly inferior”.

She says, “ballet dancers need intelligence, musicality, grace, performance quality, technique, flexibility, stamina, strength and a mutual respect for the many other dance genres that require equal skills,” while explaining that many of these qualities can only be acquired outside the ballet halls.

Finding your perfect mix of training ingredients may take some experimentation, but here are some ideas to get you cooking…

Top cross-training ideas

Rhythmic gymnastics:
Great for improving coordination and, according to Harris, “rhythmic gymnastics certainly is the answer to intelligence, flexibility, stamina and strength training,” although she recommends at least four classes should be attended weekly for the best impact.

Uh, no, that’s not quite what we meant by ‘swimming’. Photo by Tommy Wong via Flickr.

Swimming:
Swimming twice a week, all year round, will keep you fit and creates the long lean muscles dancers need. It also serves as an excellent non-weight-bearing recharger for sore muscles.

Harris recommends 80 lengths per session, but even a few laps to begin with could do wonders for your body and fitness.

As for the best strokes, try backstroke to strengthen your upper back, freestyle for a general workout and a bit of breaststroke to focus on your legs, hips and turnout.

Yoga:
Yoga is perfect for building core muscle and mental strength while improving flexibility too. Having to focus on your balance whilst barefoot also helps to awaken and strengthen the intrinsic foot muscles which are so important for strong pointe work. The Art of Motion students take yoga and pilates classes twice a week.

Kirsten de Klerk, pilates instructor from Innermotion Studio in Johannesburg, demonstrates exactly why pilates is known for building fantastic core strength.

Pilates:
While many dancers swear by pilates to improve their core strength, according to Heidi Wright, a ballet teacher and pilates/post-rehabilitation practitioner in Johannesburg, one of the best benefits of pilates for a dancer is learning to use and leverage the breath.

Just knowing when its best to inhale or exhale can either facilitate or debilitate a performance. She says, “a dancer often struggles with their breath when their bodies are pushed to their limits, so training the organs for breathing can give the dancer a greater breath capacity, which will enhance both their performance and stamina.”

Weight training:
For ballet boys, weight training is essential – a minimum of four times a week according to Harris – in order to better prepare for partnering. For ballet girls, you’d rather need to get specific advice on weight training, as you want to maintain long, lean muscles and not build bulk like a bodybuilder.

Oh so Irish. Photo by Rona Proudfoot via Flickr.

Irish, contemporary and other dance genres:
Irish dance can be used to train elevation and improve lower body strength, while contemporary and African dance helps to create expressive upper bodies.

Tap and Spanish dance are particularly good for musicality; and Latin American will certainly assist with rhythm and partnering expertise too.

Esmé Harris adds that “even hip hop has proven to be most challenging and demanding both stylistically and on a fitness front”.

Biokinetics:
A biokineticist can identify weaknesses and risk factors that could result in dance injuries and give you tailor-made physical training as well as education on conditioning principles, which could be applied directly to improve your dance technique.

Physio and other physical therapies:
While not being strictly ‘exercise’, if your budget and schedule allows, you’d be wise to make time for some additional therapies to improve your body’s recovery. And better yet, rather than only visiting a physiotherapist when you have a problem, consider a regular physio session for injury prevention instead. Sports massage, chiropractic and other healing therapies all have tremendous value too, depending on the specific needs of your body.

More trial, less error

Finding your personal recipe for ballet success might take some experimental research. Also keep in mind that, depending on your particular needs, there may be some forms of cross-training that could be great for you and not-so-great for others. So remember to always get the advice of your ballet teacher and physical therapist first before attempting any new training regimes – they’ll know your strengths and weaknesses best.

But if you’re having fun and loving what you’re doing, you’re probably on the right track anyway.

Hey, no judging, whatever makes you happy (and fit). Photo by Kevin Dooley via Flickr

P.S. We’ve asked a few South African professional ballet dancers about their favourite cross-training exercises. Look out for their thoughts on the subject here on BodyMindBallet soon. [UPDATE: Read the article on insider cross-training tips here.] In the meantime, what do you think? Are there any other ballet cross-training tips you can add (in the comments below)?

Photo by SweetOnVeg via Flickr

I love food. Yes, even the sad little brussel sprouts can take their place on my plate. But there’s only so much a girl can eat before reaching that “uh-oh, I’ve over-done it again” moment.

So here’s the best advice I’ve heard to avoid overeating and be kind to your waist-line and your health.

Before dishing up that next meal, remember these two tips:

1) Choose a smaller plate

Yes, even if you’re really hungry.

Look, it takes about 20 minutes for you to register that you’re full. If you’re mindlessly eating in front of the TV (the Overeating Culprit Number 1), you could’ve shoveled a mini mountain of food before 20 minutes are up, only to hit that awful over-full feeling moments later.

The smaller plate subtly tricks your brain into thinking that you have more food, meaning that you’re less likely to over-eat. So start small and slow, and hey, you can always go back for a second helping if you really, truly need more – after 20 minutes, of course.

2) Always start with the lower-kilojoule, higher-nutrition foods first

That usually means the fruit and veg first. You’ll want to identify the most satisfying foods – and by ‘satisfying’ I mean for your stomach, not for your emotions, so go put those chocolates away.

If you start with the foods that are highest in fibre, protein and/or water (think apples, carrots or eggs), then your stomach will start to feel satisfied sooner and you’ll take the edge off your hunger before going overboard on the higher-calorie foods.

The HAPIfork, designed to make you eat smarter and feel better.

Still need help?

Meet the portion control nagging nanny – the electronic vibrating fork. It’s called the HAPIfork and it’s a smart utensil designed to make you a smarter eater – and a slower eater at that.

The creators of this device hope to help you slow down the eating process and make you feel better after each meal by giving you a gentle vibration if it calculates you’re eating too fast.

Pretty nifty idea, especially if you fall victim to TV-dinners and unhealthy eating on-the-go.

Photo by RelaxingMusic via Flickr

Did you know that some high performing professional athletes get up to 12 hours sleep a night?

Usain Bolt, widely regarded as the fastest sprinter on the planet, gives part of the reason when he says that “sleep is extremely important to me – I need to rest and recover in order for the training I do to be absorbed by my body.”

And Roger Federer, professional tennis player, says, “If I don’t sleep 11 to 12 hours a day, it’s not right.” (Keep reading for a brilliant infographic on this topic.)

The secret power of optimal sleep for peak athletic performance

We all know that we need a good night’s sleep to be healthy, but did you know that not getting enough sleep could actually be holding back your athletic potential?

Multiple gold-winning Olympic swimmer, Michael Phelps, said “eat, sleep, and swim, that’s all I can do”. And he doesn’t mean that eating and swimming is all he can do in-between sleep, as if sleep was some kind of inconvenience; no, sleep is one of his top strategic priorities.

It has a lot to do with recovery. The body needs enough time spent in deep sleep to rebuild and repair the tissues. If it gets to complete this task each night without interruption, then your body is that little bit more prepared the next day for the next batch of training.

Doing this consistently night after night is what some professional athletes believe to be their secret weapon. Once you’re already at the top of your game, leveraging this silent power of sleep is the perfect competitive advantage.

Fortunately, you don’t have to wait until you’re at the top of your class before trying some of their tricks. You could start sleeping like a professional tonight.

Winners sleep, losers weep

So, how much should you be sleeping? ‘A little bit more’ is probably the best answer. The average person sleeps only 6 hours and 44 minutes, but you should be aiming for at least 8 good hours each night if you want to dance at your best.

While you may not need to copy Roger Federer’s 12 hour sleeps, many high performance athletes average around 8 to 10 hours, so depending on the mental and athletic demands of your day, you‘ll have to experiment with what works best for you.

Have a look at this fantastic infographic for more sleep stats and quotes on how you can sleep to be an all-star (click on the image to see the full-sized infographic created by Zeo).

How many hours sleep do you get per night? Have you found that a good or bad night’s rest has affected your performance?

Photo by Lorenzo Sernicola via Flickr

When a teacher tells a dancer to lift the arches of the foot, you’d think it’s a simple instruction with no room for misinterpretation. Think again.

Are you doing it wrong?

Following our recent post on arches (Fact or Myth: Do high heels strengthen the foot arch), we’ll show you one surprisingly simple exercise to lift and strengthen your arches, while avoiding overusing the wrong muscles.

Actually, we’ll get Australian dance physiotherapist Lisa Howell to show you with her short and sweet video on the topic.

She calls it the ‘holy grail of arch control’. And if you’re one of those dancers unwittingly gripping the wrong muscles/tendons to lift your arches (like I was), then this little video certainly will feel like the most highly-prized holy secret you’ve ever discovered.

It’s an old video, but a must-see for dancers and dance teachers alike…

Did this video help you? Let us know your thoughts and suggestions on arch control in the comments below.

Photo by Andrea Rinaldi via Flickr

Sorry ladies, this one’s definitely a myth, and a dangerous one at that, especially for a dancer.

According to the Journal of Experimental Biology, researchers have found that the Achilles tendon of women who wear high heels actually thicken over time and stiffen permanently.

In fact, high heel wearers are found to have muscle fibres around 13% shorter than women who wear flat shoes. Yikes!

Also, high heels worn for extended periods will put pressure on your metatarsal heads, which already take a great deal of pressure with every jump and relevé in the ballet class.

You’ll be far better off by treating your feet kindly in-between dance classes by wearing flat shoes that cushion your soles and support the feet and ankles (like running shoes, ankle boots or lace-ups).

Rather reserve those killer heels for special occasions (preferably where you don’t have to do too much standing), and make sure to gently stretch out your calves afterwards.