More Reasons Why Dance is Good for Our Bodies

           "Stifling an urge to dance is bad for your health - it rusts your spirit and your hips." - Terri Guillemets

         We begin dancing, our heart rate increases, the number of blood vessels increases, increased blood flow delivers more oxygen and nutrients to our muscles, and our circulatory system becomes more efficient as was discussed in last week's post.

           Additionally, our nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems are called upon to work at their peak levels, and our bodies reap the benefits.

            As we dance, our nervous system responds in a variety of ways.  The nervous system is continually growing and adapting to accommodate the body’s needs. Each time we engage in a new movement, a new neural pathway is formed. This pathway is the route that a message travels on to go from the brain to the muscle and back to the brain again and is made up of specialized cells called neurons. Messages are passed along the neurons with the help of substances called neurotransmitters. As we begin to move, the brain, which is the control center of the nervous system, signals the body to release extra proteins and neurotransmitters. The proteins promote new neuron growth, and the neurotransmitters help to improve the speed at which messages travel the pathways. These new, efficient neural pathways increase muscle responses and coordination.

            Additionally, when we dance, the brain releases endorphins, which are hormones that promote feelings of happiness and euphoria. These feelings help improve moods, and studies have shown that physically active people recover more quickly from mild depression and have a healthier mental state.

            Dance can also create a healthier skeletal system.  Since dance is a weight bearing activity, it can positively affect bone density.  The cells in our skeletal system respond to increased weight loads, or stressors, by increasing bone tissue to protect the body.  The constant impact with the floor that occurs when dancers execute dance steps, jump, and practice choreographed falls increases the load, or amount of weight, the body must support. The bones respond by adding more layers of protein cells called collagen to support the load.  These layers increase bone density and help protect against broken bones and stress fractures. Dancing can also decrease the risk of developing osteoporosis, which is a bone disease that manifests itself in brittle bones that break because they are not dense enough to support the body and the loads placed upon it.

            Lastly, the muscular system’s response to dance is also a healthy one. As we dance and call upon our muscles to move our bodies in various ways, several things happen. As physical activity increases, the number of mitochondria found in muscle cells increases. The mitochondria are the organelles found in individual cells, which produce the ATP, or energy, that the body needs to move. The more mitochondria in our muscles cells, the greater the energy production capabilities. As muscles are exercised continually, individual muscle fiber size increases by 40-50%. As fiber size increases, muscles grow stronger, the nervous system must create more neural pathways, and muscles generate more power.  Additionally, connective tissue like tendons and ligaments also grow stronger, and the body develops greater protection against injuries.

            Clearly, dance provides the body with a multitude of benefits and can create happy, healthy people when they take the time to learn to dance in ways that are anatomically correct for their individual bodies.

Alignment: Developing a Strong Foundation

"When you find that your life is out of alignment with your grandest idea of yourself, seek to change it." -Neale Donald Walsch

         A contractor would never try to build on an unstable infrastructure, yet each day dancers attempt multiple pirouettes and complicated combinations upon misaligned bodies that provide a shaky foundation.

         Correct body alignment allows for efficient muscle use, encourages a less bound and more relaxed approach to movement, reduces the risk of injury, and contributes to ease of movement.

         Whenever a dancer has difficulty with balance or executing a step, which he or she should be strong enough to do, it is important to first observe his or her body alignment.  Just as a building will weaken if there is a crack in the foundation, the body is weakened by misalignment.

         Before each class a dancer needs to re-establish a strong base by being certain that all five toes are flat on the floor.  Body weight should be equally distributed on each foot in a triangular pattern formed by the base of the big toe, the heel, and the base of the pinky toe.  The ankle should be lifted so that the base of the tibia is not rolling forward and causing the foot to pronate, or roll inward.  Subsequently, the knee joint should be centered over the ankle, and the hip joint should be centered over the knee.  The base of the ribcage should be in line with the pelvis while the sternum is lifted and the shoulders rest on the body, similar to how frosting rests upon a cake.  The neck should be lengthened with the head lifting as if it were a helium-filled balloon.

         Dancers are often told to “pull up their centers” which often causes a disconnect between the upper and lower halves and the front and back halves of the body. When a dancer “pulls up” the stomach, the tendency is to “sit” or relax into the back of the hips and open the ribcage, resulting in a swayed back.  Dancers engage their abdominal muscles, tuck the pelvis, and hyperextend their legs and believe they are properly aligned.

         This ideology results in gripping muscles instead of lengthening them, stressing ligaments instead of strengthening muscles, and skeletal misalignment.

         Instead, dancers need to think of the ankle being lifted by the patella, or kneecap, and the leg being lengthened by the pelvis lifting and lengthening the quadriceps and hamstrings.  Dancers also need to remember to lengthen the back of the torso as well as the front as if the entire upper body were being sucked up through a straw.  Additionally, it is important for dancers to lengthen through the front and back of the neck equally to avoid the turtling of the head that often occurs.

         Simply thinking about dance posture differently will help align the body, engage the muscles in a different way, and produce a lengthening of the body which will increase the efficiency of movement, improve mechanics and balance, and lead to healthy dancing.

        

Dancers & Bone Health

“The harder the demand placed upon the structure, the stronger the foundation must be.” Our bones – they protect our organs, they manufacture red blood cells, they store calcium, they provide a place for muscles to connect, they permit movement and they provide the framework for our bodies.  Without our skeletal system, we could not exist, yet we rarely think about how our bones develop or bone health. Although our bones appear sedentary, bone tissue is very active and each week 5-7% of our bone mass is recycled, or remodeled.  The outer surface of our bones is compact bone, which is composed of a web of proteins that hardens into a tough structure.  The inside of our skeletons is made of spongy bones with spaces in between the bone cells. Our bones grow from the outside in.  Specialized cells called osteoblasts build bone by travelling to the surface of the bones and depositing collagen molecules between the structural cells to form a matrix and that hardens into layers of compact bone. Meanwhile, other cells called osteoclasts resorb, or breakdown, the mineralized matrix from the inside.  The bottom most layer is dissolved and calcium is released into the bloodstream. This process serves to renew our bones and occurs in a balanced manner most of the time.  During growth spurts, and especially during adolescence, the creation, or modeling, of new bone occurs in addition to the remodeling process, resulting in a surplus of new bone. It is also important to know that osteoblasts (the builders) respond to increased loads that are placed upon the bones such as weight training or weight bearing activities like walking, running and jumping.  When the body recognizes an increased load, or stress, on the skeleton, the osteoblasts are called in for overtime and begin to model more new bone to protect the body against the increased strain. Bone cells grow old like any other cells, and, unfortunately, osteoblasts (the builders) age quicker than the osteoclasts (the dissolvers).  Between the ages of 30 and 40, the osteoblasts begin to slow down while the osteoclasts continue to resorb bone tissue.  A deficit of bone mass is naturally created which can lead to osteoporosis.  People with osteoporosis have brittle, fragile bones which can fracture easily. The best defense against osteoporosis is encouraging the body to create as much bone mass as possible during the formative years and to stimulate the osteoblasts with weight bearing physical activity. Since dance is a weight bearing activity, it would seem that dancers have nothing to worry about, right?  Next week’s post will explain why dancers have to be concerned.