I would very much like to go back eight months in time and beg that naive version of myself to meet with a physical therapist before diving back into rigorous training. How I’m moving forward while managing an injury is this month’s topic.

You had a rough rehearsal. Your foot, which has been bothering you on and off for months, is really hurting today. What do you do? For many dancers, it seems, the answer is “Go to the emergency room.” That’s according to a study recently published in the journal Sports Health. Joshua Honrado, an athletic trainer […]

From a very early age, dancers are taught that pain comes with the territory. When injuries inevitably arise, dancers feel shame, social stigma and tremendous pressure to bounce back as quickly as possible. This means taking a risk by downplaying the severity, or hiding it altogether due to fear.

When I was a young dancer, a teacher once told me that a day off in dance was like a week off in any other passion. Although this is a myth that’s been debunked, those words have still haunted me every day for the past nine years.

Have you ever felt pain in the back of your ankle while pointing your foot or rising onto relevé? This could be a sign of an injury common in dancers, especially those working on pointe, called posterior ankle impingement. Don’t ignore this pain. Early treatment could mean the difference between healing and needing surgery down […]

The bad news: “There’s so much about the healing process that dancers don’t have control over,” says registered dietitian nutritionist Tiffany Mendell. One notable exception? How dancers fuel and nourish their injured bodies. To help your body recover, avoid these four common nutritional mistakes. DON’T Eat Too Little In an effort to avoid gaining weight, many […]

Not all doctors get what dancers do. Even something as small as how a foot fits in a pointe shoe might not be familiar to a doctor without dance knowledge, says Dr. Kathleen Davenport, company physician with Miami City Ballet and the director of physiatry at Hospital for Special Surgery Florida. “That can be everything […]

It’s become second nature in dance studios: The instant anyone gets hurt, our immediate reaction is to run to the freezer to grab some ice (or, more realistically, a package of frozen peas). But as routine as icing our injuries might be, the benefits are not actually backed up by scientific studies. And some experts […]