One of the trainers at my gym and I were chatting, and he said I should do more ankle exercises (particularly ankle flexion, an exercise involving lifting a dumbell with both feet), as I now practice ballet as well as karate. I already do plenty of calf raises, so I thought I was doing a good job with the ankles. What say ye?
Yes. You have to train the muscles pulling in the other direction. Same concept as push/pull routines in weight lifting, gotta' have that balance.
im guessing they are saying that tib work is a good idea: theres stuff in here: http://danceproject.ca/mobility-for-dancers/ also google skater squats.
yeah, i'd ordinarily say no, BUT you are a dancer, so your needs are different, thus in your case i'd say yes.
Sounds like it would probably be for the best. Never hurts to have strong ankles though, especially give the strain it'll come under by dancing. Then there's the ballet :happy: :evil: Ero, I'm surprised you didn't make a joke about generating power in the phalanges or something
Yeah I know, but then it's late and poorly delivered! I've never done dancing, but I've done plenty of long duration activity requiring the use of the lower limb muscles to function proficiently at all times or I could end up hurting myself. A good example is going on regular ruck marches/patrols with a ton of weight on my back. It may sound stupid, but if your shin muscles are burning and too tired to raise your foot while walking, tripping and falling become a much more common experience. This can also happen while walking normally without weight for great distances or running too. It's not exactly a pressing matter for most people though. Given that you're dancing I would assume that you need to develop a high level of awareness in fine motor skills in your foot positioning. The flexion of your foot is certainly involved in that, making working the shin muscles a potentially necessary thing. You don't have to use weights though, standing and rocking back while flexing your foot up with a 3-5 second hold for 10-20 repetitions is good too. Doing stuff like this also helps prevent shin splints since it will develop more strength/muscle growth to take impact. I think this is a rather unfamiliar area of necessity in training because it's one of those "fine tune" type of things, like training your finger strength. Nobody ever really needs to do it unless they are getting up into the more elite levels of activity/exercise. It sounds like a smart thing to work on for 5-10 minutes a day if you're doing ballet though.
This is a good idea! I was thinkg of working on ankle/calves stuff 3 days/week as usual, but your plan sounds better.
