A basic overview of injuries in dancers and anatomical terms including muscles and bones.

1. Injury Prevention and
Anatomy for Dancers
Goal: To develop an anatomical understanding of your body to
prevent injuries

2. 12 Body Placement Rules for
Ballet Technique
1. Head erect straight on top of spine, ears over
shoulders chin up
2. Diaphragm lifted (breathing muscles in rib cage
3. Spine held straight up and lengthened (cervical,
thoracic, lumbar and sacral)
4. Shoulders squarely over hip
5. Eyes forward and focused
6. Pelvis centered with the hips placed directly over the
feet

3. 7. Abdomen (lower abdominal muscles) tightened and lifted
8.Gluteal muscles contracted to pull down tailbone
9. Thighs (quadriceps and hamstrings) pulled up with
knees straight
10. Feet must bear weight primarily over the metatarsals
(long thin bones in the foot).
11. Turn out from hip joints (ball and socket joint)
12. SMILE

4. Have you ever had an injury?
 What where you told to do to heal it?
 Is it still bothering you?
 Why is learning about this important?

5. 4 Warning Signs of an injury
• Pain that gets progressively worse during class,
rehearsal, work out, etc
• .Pain that comes after your class, rehearsal, or work
out and comes back the next day after less movement
is done.
• Pain that appears when executing certain movements
(e.g. during arabesque or landing a jump).
• No real sense of “pain” but a definite restriction
of movement.

6. 6 Most common dance
injuries
 Achilles Tendonitis and Shin Splints
 Ankle Sprain
 Stress Fracture
 Patellofemoral Syndrome
 Low Back Disorders
 Anterior Shoulder Impingement

7. Soreness vs. Pain
 Pain is a complicated process in which our nervous
system communicates important information to us.
 Pain warns us to pay attention to our bodies.
 Acute pain typically gets our immediate attention, like
the dancer who comes down from a leap incorrectly
and sprains his/her ankle.
 Chronic pain can be more challenging to define and to
separate from soreness – especially for dancers, as
they appear to have a higher pain tolerance than much
of the general population.

8. Soreness vs. Pain
 Soreness can be caused by overworking the muscles
without the proper warm-up for that movement
patterning.
 Depending on your individual body type and structure,
some movements will suit you better and feel natural,
while other movements challenge your physicality.
 What you are actually feeling are small tears in the
muscles and connective tissue caused by overly
forceful stretching, movements that you are not
accustomed to, or a combination of the two.

9. What to do?
 Proper nutrition is essential for the body to repair itself easily
and quickly, even from small muscle tears. Protein and good
carbohydrates (such as vegetables) should be well
represented in the diet. Grains and sweets should be
minimized.
 Proper hydration is important. A general rule for hydration is

10. What to do?
 Warm up muscles with movement, such as brisk
walking, easy jogging, or marching in place, prior to
stretching gently. This approach will help to dissipate
any waste products, such as lactic acid, while
conditioning the muscles and preparing them for class
or rehearsal. It’s amazing how many times I see
dancers walk into rehearsal without a proper warm-up.
Taking class in the morning will not count as a warm-up
if your rehearsal isn’t until late afternoon.

11. WHAT IS A BODY JOINT?
WHAT IS SYNOVIAL FLUID?
WHAT TWO JOINTS DO WE USE TO CREATE THESE SHAPES?
 Joints are areas where bones are linked together.
They have varying degrees of mobility.
 Synovial Fluid lubricates the joint and provides
nutrients to the joint tissues.
 Shoulder Joint: Ball and Socket which has great
mobility in all directions.
 Elbow Joint: Hinge which has limited mobility basically
flexion and extension (up and down).

12. The Hip
 Ball and Socket Joint
 Mainly used for turn-out.
 Plays an important roll in extension.
 What is extension in dance?
 What is turn out?
 What is the illiopsoas muscle and how does it relate to
the hip socket and turn out?
 Watch Video

13. The Hip: 180 Degrees of
Mobility

14. Iliopsoas Muscle

15. Tibial Torsion?
 Tibia: often referred to as the “shin bone” it is the third
strongest bone in your body.

16. Reading: Injury Intervention
 For each injury summarize what the risk factors are and
how to treat the injury.
 We will discuss

17. Muscles of the Arm and
Shoulder and Back
 Biceps Brachii
 Triceps Brachii
 Deltoids
 Trapezious
 Latisimus Dorsi
 Rhomboid

18. Muscles of the Anterior
(Front) Trunk
 Rectus Abdominus
 Pectoralis
 Obliques
 Gluteals

19. Muscles of the Legs
 Gastrocnemius
 Anterior Tiblialus
 Hamstrings
 Quadriceps

20. Muscles of the Pelvis
 Illiopsoas Major

21. Bones
 Spine Sections: Cervical, Thoracic, Lumbar, Sacral
 Pelvis
 Femur
 Tibia
 Fibula
 Metatarsals
 Patella