It’s difficult enough to keep any dancer’s feet healthy, but keeping a young male dancer’s feet healthy seems all the more difficult. I suppose parents of young ballerinas might argue that their daughters must wear pointe shoes, and this poses a problem all its own. However, in my experience, boys feet are challenging; they often do more than dance with them.
In 16 years, my son has had at least one sprained ankle (from playing soccer), a bruised bone (from landing a jump wrong in ballet), an extreme case of tendonitis (from too many turns during an impromptu turning competition), and a dislocated pinky toe that caused a slight fracture resulting in a six week boot stint and a several month physical therapy routine (he caught his toe on the floor during a contemporary class). Another time he sprained his toe badly playing soccer barefoot at school.
How do you help your students to keep their feet healthy even when they don’t do anything 'stupid' and simply go to dance class? Here are several key exercises from experts:
The Flamingo
Much of keeping feet healthy comes from core strength and good posture. Once students have learned good abdominal and pelvic alignment, which allows the nerves that go to the feet not to be compromised in any way they are on the road to keeping their feet healthy. Marika Molnar, president of Westside Dance Physical Therapy in New York City, suggests they stand on one leg in parallel. The other leg is raised off the floor and doesn’t touch the body. The foot and ankle ligaments and tendons should be working hard to keep the body over the base of support. The bottom of the foot should share the support between the heel, ball of the first and ball of the fifth toe so dancers have a tripod beneath them.
Students should try this exercise for 10 seconds at first with about six repetitions and build up to 60 seconds. Once dancers can accomplish it for 30 seconds on one leg, they should switch to the other leg.
This exercise helps students increase their awareness of where they are in space. Molnar cautions: 'Make sure that the alignment of the leg is healthy without the knee hyper-extending beyond five degrees.'
The next part is more challenging: Have the students close their eyes and repeat the exercise. This forces them to rely on their intrinsic messengers: the information from the ligaments, tendons, muscles, etc., to the brain.
The Foot Crunch
This exercise strengthens the muscles of the foot and the muscles that support the arch of the foot, according to Chris E. Chung, MD, a sports medicine specialist at South Bay Sports & Preventive Medicine Associates, Inc., in San Jose, California.
To perform a foot crunch, students simply pick up a towel (or a theraband or a pencil) with their toes. Doing 15 crunches on each foot for two repetitions per foot provides a good daily workout.
Foot Doming
In a similar fashion, Kim Gardner, a former professional dancer, ballet teacher and leading dance medicine specialist at South Bay Sports suggests dancers practice 'doming' their foot over a tennis ball to strengthen intrinsic arch muscles. This involves simply holding the arch over the ball for five seconds at a time for up to 15 repetitions per day. Dancers should perform this exercise with one foot, and then switch to the other foot. This exercise can be done without a ball as well.
Pushing Sand
Another good exercise, especially for pre-pointe students, involves strengthening the arch of the foot and the muscles along both sides of the ankle and calf to create ankle stability. Gardner explains that these muscles attach under the foot like stirrups, but one shouldn’t pull up tighter than the other. 'The inner stirrup muscles help avoid pronation while the outer stirrup muscles help avoid supination,' she says.
Doming over the tennis ball helps strengthen the stirrup muscles to some extent, but imagining yourself standing in wet sand scooping the sand to one side or the other with the sole of the foot does a better job. While sitting, students should be instructed to move the inside of foot toward midline and to imagine they are scooping sand towards the center of their body and then pushing it away from their center and towards the outside or their body. This can be done with a Theraband as well.
Young Male Dancers can Become Arthritic Old Men--
At Least When It Comes to Toes
Arthritis in the big toe represents a foot ailment particular to male dancers. To help prevent this, teachers can look for incorrect alignment of the foot, says Molnar, and correct too much weight borne on the big toe joint during relevé. Over time, incorrect alignment can result in a spur formation on the top of the foot at the joint line which will result in pain.
Teachers need to have male students take off their dance shoes and then watch the alignment of foot to leg to make sure students are not turning with the big toe twisted in any way, says Molnar.
Nina Amir is a freelance writer publishing mentor, who frequently writes about dance. She is currently working on a book about how to mentor boys who want to become professional dancers. Nina also blogs at www.mysoncandance.net about being the parent of a male dancer and how to help boys succeed at dance and in the dance world.