Distorted thinking...

I love this article shared with me by my mom.  There is a lot of value in looking deeply into the kind of "thinking" we spend our time invested in.  It can really shape our daily lives...  Is it positive?  Is it self-sabotaging?  Is it judgmental?  The article mentions a few types of thinking that I feel are quite relevant to us, especially as dancers:

Filtering

• bringing negative details to the forefront while ignoring the positive aspects 
• allowing one tiny mistake to negate the remaining efforts and your success 

Mind Reading

• you think you know what people think and feel, without them even telling you 
• then you act on it, or react to it, when it isn't even real 

Catastrophizing (I'm not sure that's a real word?) 

• thinking you are always in DANGER! 
• constantly expecting a disaster! (who wants to live like that?!) 

Emotional Reasoning 

• if you feel something, it must be true 
• if you feel ugly, you must be ugly
• stop allowing emotions to flow freely in your head -- sometimes they are just not true! 

Heaven's Reward Fallacy (my personal favorite) 

• making sacrifice while thinking that someone, somewhere, is keeping score 
• living a wonderful life is great, but don't beat yourself up if you make a mistake -- there is no one keeping score, and everyone makes mistakes

Don't let this type of thinking control you... it can lead to a distorted self-image and we don't want that!

Hyperextended knees!

Today's post is for Gillian...

Let's investigate: HYPEREXTENDED KNEES! 

Actual name: Genu Recurvatum 

Some causes: disorder of connective tissue, laxity of knee ligaments, irregular alignment of tibia and femur, difference in lower limb lengths

Problems: the knee will go beyond full extension and with this excessive mobility comes problems like knee pain, muscle imbalances, instability with endurance based movements or jumping, among others

What it might look like:

What to do: many of our strengthening exercises from Dance Conditioning are perfect(!!!) and some others  will work too... 

• hamstrings: pelvic bridge, hamstring curl with a physioball, straight leg hamstring reach 
• quadriceps: single leg extension while seated
• did I mention SQUATS?! 
• foam roll the quads and glutes, and stretch the hip flexors -- which may be tight 

A great reminder for us all is to think about our alignment even while casually standing (at the grocery store, a bus stop, while chatting with a friend...) If you suffer from hyperextension in your knees, soften them ever so slightly to put them into full extension or "neutral" as seen above.  This will reduce pressure on the knees, realign any misalignment in the pelvis (anterior pelvic tilt), and take reduce back pain.  

A new motivation

Thanks to one of our students for posting this great article today:

10 Things I Want My Daughter To Know About Working Out

The author encounters a not so inspiring moment in an exercise class, and it enables her to reformulate her thinking around the motivations for "working out" or being active.  It shouldn't be to "look great for your vacation" or to finally "fit into THAT dress."  It should be for so many other meaningful reasons: 

• Being strong is empowering -- feel great carrying your own suitcase down that long stairway in the airport.  Be proud of your power!  
• Doing "fitness" related activities, like biking or skiing, enables you to get out and see the world!  Appreciate nature, a new city, your family and friends through these meaningful activities.  
• Living a healthy lifestyle will keep you healthy: you will be surrounded by positive habits and positive people to create lasting relationships while keeping in good health. 
• Networking is no longer just inside of the office space -- get out and meet people while being active! 
• Feeling beautiful will make you beautiful :) 

So the main idea is that working out is not merely a way to achieve "looking good".... it's a way to feel good, develop good habits, be a role model for others, meet new people, appreciate the world differently, push yourself farther than you ever thought possible.... the list goes on and on.... and on...   

I just received this awesome new water bottle as a gift and it reminded me of the importance of staying hydrated and ensuring that your body receives it's needed fluids daily.  By the time we realize we are dehydrated or feeling thirsty, it's too late, and the body already feels the impact.  

Why drink water? 

• The body is made of roughly 60% water which aids in digestion, transportation of nutrients, maintaining proper body temperature and other important functions, so keeping hydrated helps to keep this balanced.  
• Water helps to regulate your bowels and prevent constipation while keeping your intestinal tract functioning.  
• Water helps rid the body of its major toxin, blood urea nitrogen, through the kidneys and out through your urine.  If you're in good shape, urine should be light in color and flowing freely.  

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends drinking fluids before AND after exercise.  Drink 17 ounces about 2 hours before exercise and keep drinking throughout the workout to replace water that's lost from sweating.  The Institute of Medicine determined that adequate intake for men is roughly 3 liters (about 13 cups) and for women -- 2.2 liters (about 9 cups) of TOTAL BEVERAGES (not just water) per day.  

So keep your glasses full to stay healthy and able to perform at your best this summer!  With the hot, hot heat we need even more fluids, so keep it up :) 

When to heat and when to ice?

A great question from one of our students.... 

When should you use heat?  

When should you apply ice to an injury?

It's.... The Great Debate!!!   

ICE, ice baby

• use on injury sites 
• for inflammation, swelling, or if it's red or hot 

Hot, hot HEAT

• use for muscle soreness, muscles spasms
• use to reduce stress  

Some additional tips: 

• when icing a muscle injury (like a strain or tear) use ice the first few days to decrease inflammation, and then switch to heat 
• do not heat a fresh injury -- it will likely make the inflammation worse and cause the site to swell more 
• ice for about 30 minutes and never place the ice pack directly onto the skin (could cause frostbite) 
• a contrast bath (going back and forth from cold to hot) can be used to reduce swelling (not pain)  
• you can repeat 5 minute increments for an injury between cold and hot temps which will open and close the blood vessels to pump out the swelling 

Here's a great tip for a homemade ice pack below!  It really works! 

What is a chia seed?!

I absolutely love to teach.  In class this morning one of our student's, Lucy, told me I was a warrior :)  When was the last time YOU heard that?!  Well, it's actually on the label of today's featured post..... the health warrior: found inside of a chia bar.  This one (shown above) which I had after my run today happens to have coconut, and it was delicious AND filling!!!!

Getting it's name from the Mayan word for "strength", these small but powerful seeds are knows to boost and help sustain stamina and energy levels.  Chia seeds have the maximum amount of nutrients with the minimum amount of calories.  They contain fiber, omega fatty acids, calcium, antioxidants, and even protein.  Chia helps aid in weight loss and digestion by helping to curb your appetite.  So try adding this little tiny superfood into your diet!  

6 miles down today.....

.... only 20.2 miles to go.  I have officially been accepted to run in the NYC Marathon this November 1st!!!  I might be crazy, but it's happening!

As a young person I was always told that running was bad for dancers.  And now, as a Dance Conditioning teacher, I tell my students to hit the track and get to work!  I LOVE this article from Dance Magazine.  These experts give some wonderful tips for dancing AND running as part of your weekly regimen.  Of course when you're in specific training (for a marathon, a performance season, etc.) something has gotta give -- so adjust as needed to best suit your goals, your schedule, and your body.

Some interesting points from the article: 

• repeated bounce of running strengthens bones (like resistance training with weights!)
• running in parallel helps to strengthen those muscles underutilized -- especially for ballet dancers who are always working in outward rotation
• increases stamina -- strengthens heart and lungs (prevents injuries resulting from fatigue!)
• landing a leap in ballet is equal to 12 times your body weight, and running is only 7-8 times (who would have thought?!) 

Some great tips: 

• start smart with lunges and squats to get those muscles ready, and then balance power walking with short intervals of running until your body is ready for longer runs of 30-45 minutes
• muscle soreness is ok, but be on the lookout for any join pain, swelling, or tendon discomfort 
• pay attention to your form, a heel strike is great for dancers to roll through the whole foot and not tense up the calf muscles 
• get fitted for proper shoes -- just like you would for specific dance styles 
• the "runner's high" is an added bonus! 

So get out and hit the pavement!  

Happy (and healthy!) running! 

What is "quiet" time?

How do you define your "quiet" time?  How do you relax? Recharge?  Especially if you are an "on-the-go-24-hours-per-day" kind of person, how do you find time to relax, rest, and how do you get to a place where you feel like that is worthwhile and not merely a waste of time?

Many of the dancers at our program are high achieving students, dancing multiple days a week.  They are athletes, actors, singers, and deeply committed to things they care about: their families, baking, the environment, investigating other cultures.... the list goes on and on.  So how does a young person prioritize and then STILL find time to rest, relax, or take a risk?

One conversation I had with a student this afternoon ended with me encouraging her to go out and (literally) play in the mud this weekend.  Get absolutely filthy dirty, love it, then go home and shower.  If we are always following the road map, with fear of getting lost, we may be missing out on so much.

This conversation led to a larger discussion about how the kind of people we are often parallels the kind of dancer we are: if you are an organizer -- someone who loves order and structure, you may be this kind of mover.  If you are a risk taker, someone who easily "goes with the flow", you might dance with more abandonment.  Many of the students agreed with this, like they had suddenly realized they dance like their personality!

An interesting article, Dance moves can reveal your personality from publication The Telegraph, looks at the styles and trends of movements on a dance floor and the corresponding personality types of those movers.  My favorite highlights:

• "People use body motions as reliable indicators of others' personality types, and even the movements of robots have been shown to elicit attributes of 'personality' by observers."
• Michelle Groves, associate dean at the faculty of education at the Royal Academy of Dance, said professional dancers were trained to express their emotions when they danced and tended to hide their personalities, but this would be less obvious in untrained people.
• Dr Peter Lovatt, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire and a former professional dancer, said dancing and movement could convey subtle messages about the way people are feeling and thinking, which has its routes deep in our evolutionary history.
• "Confidence plays an important role in the way people dance. Self esteem also plays an important role and this can influence a person's personality."

So that leads me to more questions: are confident, more bodily comfortable people drawn to dance, or does dance shape you into this kind of person?  And if your personality draws you to structure and organization and a need to keep busy, how do you truly find rest?  Should you go out and play in the mud?  Should you paint, get messy, be daring? With it help to relax your movement in a technique class, or encourage you to take more risk?  I'd be curious to see!

The danger with keeping a close eye on the scale...

The students filled out some questionnaires regarding their strengths and weaknesses, their short and long-term goals, previous injury history, and a ton of other important pieces of information.  I was struck by some of the goals, especially those around specific "weight loss" goals.  To me, your weight should not be reflected by the number we see on the scale, but in how you feel and the tracking of your energy levels, physical strength and performance.  I turned to a great article from the Harvard Medical Center for some thoughts on this topic. My question:

How do we assess our size in a healthy way, and how do we get away from worrying about being "fat"?!

Harvard Health Publications states that most people have their own "private" way of assessing how "fat" they are -- like feeling your pants getting tight or loose, or catching your reflection in the mirror.  But how do we determine what is body fat, and what is bone structure, muscles, organs, hair... all that other stuff that comprises the mass that is our weight?  There are three common ways in the mix right now:

• Body Mass Index, BMI -- your weight in kg divided by the square of your heigh in meters.  It's generally a good measure of health risk as most studies show that with an increased BMI comes an increase in cardiovascular disease related deaths.  
• The down side... BMI does not separate pounds from fat from pounds that are created by fat-free tissue like muscle and bone.  It also doesn't tell us what kind of fat it is.  Could it be from healthy subcutaneous fat that's below the skin which protects us and keeps us warm?  Who knows?! 
• Waist Measurement -- not about weight or total body fat, but about the metabolically active fat that collects around the organs in our abdomens.  Waist measurement is a great predictor of diabetes and a good indicator of heart disease risk. 
• The down side... where do you measure "the waist" on the body?  Is it at navel level?  And it just might not be scientific enough to add to more quantifiable things like cholesterol, or blood pressure screenings.  
• Waist-to-hip ratio, WHR -- your waist circumference divided by hip circumference. Basically a smaller waist and larger hips is usually associated with a decreased right of heart disease, stroke, and other health problems.  

So... what to do?! How do we manage all of this?  What's in a number?

To me... nothing really.

As dancers we are so in-tune with our bodies that we know (quite easily) when we are out of shape, easily fatigued, and not performing at our best.  We don't need to step on a scale to know this info, and I encourage our students to step off the scale, and to begin to understand when they are FEELING their very best.  Muscle weighs far more than fat does in pounds, so when building muscle and developing your fitness you often GAIN weight.  Our bodies fluctuate so much (especially for women) and it's important to pay attention to any rapid weight gains or losses as this could be a sign of a major health issue, but try not to get too caught up in the number.  We must find a way to ignore the information around us in the news about what "beautiful" is and begin to feel what beautiful is.

Day Two: Bones, Muscles, and our first Circuit Workout

This afternoon brought us a discussion on key bones and bony landmarks for dancers to know as well as a some information on key joints we use often and the muscles that facilitate their actions.  One of the more important parts of the body for a dancer to know is the spine.  Each section has particular movement ability and when realizing this we can see the true value in the "expressivity" that is added to create beautiful dance movements.  

For instance-- the thoracic spine does not actually allow the body to hyperextend.  These vertebrae are shaped in such a way that they become locked against one another; it's actually your cervical and lumbar spines that allow us to travel beyond 180 degrees as you would in a back port de bras at the ballet barre.  

Similarly, the large vertebrae of the lumbar spine cannot rotate.  When spiraling the spine we imagine a starting place at the base of our pelvis, but he curve begins much higher.  In order to see the beautiful expression of dancers, we incorporate our arms, our focus, and quality, to create the spiral.  If we just look at the spine itself, very little mobility may be used -- it's all the other things that make dance beautiful.  

This expressivity that we spend years and years training and developing is what separates dance from athletics and makes what we do an art form.  When you're in the gym lifting weights or on the treadmill for a run, it's about the mechanics and proper form and alignment are a must.  Onstage, it's about feeling and expression.  It's about sharing that with the audience.  It's about communication.  

Back at NYSSSA!

Day 1 for NYSSSA 2014!!!

We welcomed 30 of New York State's finest dancers back to Saratoga Springs today, and began with our first day at The National Museum of Dance.  This summer in addition to teaching several Dance Conditioning workshops, I'll also be setting a new piece of choreography. I'll be keeping up with the blog again this summer, so check out postings featuring photos and videos of the students, interesting articles, and fun facts!  Today we began with some assessment and wonderful conversation.  Lots of excitement-- let's get to work! 

Check out Dutch in an overhead squat with his partner, Lucy: 

In the assessment we're looking for any deviation of the arms, head, lower back, knees and feet.  This will give us information about any muscle imbalances and help to guide our sessions.  We also investigated joint mobility, and strength testing.  

Most importantly the students shared some of their summer goals, which helped to spark a conversation about what someone looks like vs. how strong they might be.  We often think that the grass is greener on the other side, without really knowing the grass, personally. We see high legs and think, wow - that's so beautiful.  What we might not realize is that the dancer with an incredible amount of flexibility may have other issues, like developing strength.  It is about finding the best YOUR body can offer to you for what your goals are, not someone else's.  

It's a tall order, to accept the things we cannot change about ourselves -- like the skeleton we were born with or previous injuries -- and to improve the things which we CAN control.  That's our summer goal. Not to be someone else, but to be our best self.  And it starts today!