My dance school is closed for the summer. How can I stay fit?

After the end of year dance concert and the end of the semester, it’s significant to take a break. Both physical and mental rest are significant, and a few weeks off can lend a hand your body recuperate and gain health. a mental break from dancing.

If your mind and body need a longer break (for example, more than a few weeks), you may want to take a longer break, especially if you are training at a competitive or pre-competitive level.

The benefit is enjoying other aspects of life outside of dancing, such as spending time with family, friends and enjoying your hobbies.

A secure and fulfilling dance life

Creating meaning and value in outdoor life dancing and expanding your sense of self can make it easier to focus on other aspects when you experience changes or arduous moments during your dance training, such as an injury.

Taking extended break from dance training, however, will mean losing some of your fitness and physical capacity. When you return to dancing, your body needs time to recover.

Approaches such as ‘getting fit’ can result in sudden spikes in training load (training hours and intensity), which may escalate the risk of damage. It is recommended to gradually and gradually escalate the training load overtime so that the body can adapt and safely return to full fitness.

A period of four to six weeks of gradually increasing training load and introducing jumps is suggested dance settings.

For dancers who want to stay physically fit during the holidays, a great place to start is to focus on building a physical foundation.

Building a physical foundation means focusing on target fitness areas such as full-body strength, cardiovascular fitness or endurance (e.g., jumping, walking, biking, running, swimming), flexibility, and some dance-specific conditioning (e.g., calf raises for ballet).

A good physical foundation will mean improved performance and fitness levels, so your body will be ready to take on more challenging moves and dance routines when you return to the studio.

Building full body strength at home or at the park

A great place to start is to choose movements that require your muscles to work to support your body weight.

Basic movements such as crawling (moving across the floor on hands and feet) and locomotion (traveling movements such as lunges, jumping, gliding) are great for developing body control, arm and leg stability, and coordinated movement patterns.

Below is a sequence that can be used as a warm-up or even as a workout itself. The ten-minute sequence focuses on gross motor skills and basic movement patterns. It includes exercises that work through a series of joint movements and in multiple planes (forward, sideways, rotational).

Once you feel comfortable with the basic movements above, it’s time to introduce bodyweight resistance exercises.

Bodyweight resistance exercises can be beneficial for developing a solid foundation in dance movements such as jumping, landing, floor work, partnering and aerial work.

The exercises in the above sequence can be used in a secure and effective form neuromuscular warm-up.

Try to include one exercise from each of the movement categories below (squat, horizontal push, etc.) to build your workout.

Try to do two to three sets (or rounds) of each exercise with about a minute rest between sets. An alternative is to do one set of each exercise with minimal rest in between, and then do a second or third set.

If you’re training with friends, you can set a timer and do each exercise for a maximum of 50 seconds (instead of counting reps), and it will take ten seconds to move on to the next exercise.

Depending on your strength level, you may need to do fewer reps and build sets and reps overtime. After completing bodyweight exercises, complete relaxation that includes stretching the muscles of your upper and lower body. Remember to employ a sturdy bar (e.g. an outdoor fitness station) to perform horizontal rows and overhead holds.

Exercises may need to be modified depending on your fitness level and physical limitations, such as injury.

How often should I train?

A common misconception about dancing is that “more is better“. This belief can lead to dancers training long hours on most or all days of the week overtrainingplateau and increased risk damage.

Our bodies need enough time between training sessions to adapt and become stronger and fitter. The time between sessions is the time during which our muscles and tissues regenerate training benefits are achieved.

Including appropriate regeneration (including sleep and downtime) and by including rest days throughout the week, our bodies can benefit the most from training.

Muscles can withstand up to 48-72 hours to recover from most types of strength training (the more intense it is, the longer it will take to recover).

Low-intensity aerobic activity such as brisk walking can be performed on most days (24-hour recovery), while high-intensity anaerobic activity such as high-intensity intervals or sprints may take three days or longer.

Try to spread your training sessions throughout the week and allow yourself time to recover between sessions.

Below is a sample weekly schedule based on incorporating adequate recovery between sessions and switching on polarized training where some days are harder and others are easier.

Before starting a modern exercise program, seek advice from your doctor and/or exercise specialist.