Biokinetics to master your pirouettes - Melissa Biffi (Paladin Biokineticists)

Just like any other sport, dancing is very taxing on the body, because of the long hours of training and we are constantly pushing our bodies to achieve more and more every time. Although pushing your body can certainly provide you with results, at the same time it may result in injuries. Therefore it is extremely important to find a balance and identify weaknesses that can be strengthened, enabling you to work harder and push yourself without obtaining injuries.

Often with dances they realise their weaknesses too late, which will result in long term rehabilitation in order to correct these injuries. Therefore it is of vital importance that individuals address their weaknesses before the injuries occur. It is believed that supervised training and focusing on key areas can allow a dancer to build the strength needed and still allow their bodies to recover from a strenuous dance class, without the risk of developing overuse or repetitive injuries. This is done by using different physical activity in order to rest dance-specific muscles which will allow the body to adapt, as it gives the nervous system a rest from the usual dance specific movements.

The use of Biokinetics is a great way to help professional and aspiring dancers to improve fitness, flexibility, and strength and help with injury recovery. That being said, no amount of Biokinetics can replace your dancing classes, the only way to master pirouettes is to practice them. However this needs to be done with the right combination of supervised training, resulting in increases in strength and control, thus your improvements should be progressively more noticeable from class to class setting you apart from the rest.

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. While not being strictly ‘exercise’, if your budget and schedule allows, you’d be good to make time for some additional therapies to improve your body’s recovery such as Sports massage, Yoga and Pilates depending on the specific needs of your body.

Sports massage can help maintain the body in a number of specific ways. General conditioning, preventing injuries and loss of mobility, restore mobility to injured muscle tissue, boost performance and extend the overall life of your sporting career.

Yoga is perfect for building core muscle and general 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 feet.

Weight training is essential for all dances. For dancing boy a strength training program is beneficial as it helps in preparing for partnering. For ballet girls, you’d need specific advice on weight training, as you want to maintain long, lean muscles and not build bulk like a bodybuilder ,also keeping  in mind there may be some forms of exercise that could be great for you and not-so-great for others.

Finding your personal recipe for dancing success might take some experimental research, but a combination of dancing and other forms of exercise is highly recommended if you want to take your dancing to the next level. 

Melissa Biffi obtained her BCom Sports Management Degree at the University of Johannesburg and completed her Honours in Biokinetics at the University of Witwatersrand.

She has a special interest in dancing and other sports such as soccer and hockey, which lead to her interest in orthopaedic rehabilitation, particularly knee rehabilitation.

Melissa is also very passionate about working with children in specific areas such as rehabilitation and development of individuals from very young ages all the way through to adolescents.

Melissa can be contacted on 082 822 9677 or melissabiffi@kinetics.co.za