I’m truly a technical writer when it comes to ballet. I have been on a team that trained world class ballet dancers, even some famous dancers. Now I appreciate the situation of the recreational dancer, one who may never be a prima ballerina. But who shouldn’t love dance?For example, can ballet pictures of one of […]

Any artistic director of ballet dancers, sports coaches, and recreational dance teachers want to help professionals and students alike to exercise prevention for overuse injuries and repetitive stress injuries that lead to chronic injury. A ballet dancer, dance student or professional sports trainee expects chronic pain. Chronic muscle pain is caused by excessive muscle tension. […]

The psoas muscle, or hip flexor, plays a huge part in a ballet workout. The psoas muscle runs from the thigh to the anterior or front of the spine. As a hip flexor, or a muscle that bends the hip joint, lifting the thigh, this muscle is responsible for your higher leg extensions to devant, […]

Ballet dancers. On television every week now. Breaking Pointe, Bunheads…talking ballet terms and hanging out in the local dance academy? Well all I can say is – finally! No more freak subculture, but people watching ballet dancers. listening and deciphering ballet terms and maybe looking up their local dance academy to see if there are […]

A common myth about pregnancy weight gain is that, if you nurse your baby, it just melts away. Tell me about it. Now you want to get back to your healthy weight. So what are the best workout routines? You need workout routines that nix that pregnancy weight gain whether you’re nursing or not get […]

Amino acids are among the essential nutrients you need on a daily basis to prevent cardiovascular disease. The amino acids are very much a part of the structure of the human body and key in your biochemical processes. Minerals and vitamins are  crucial as well to maintain your overall body health. One of the amino […]

Physical therapy for a stiff neck, one of the main whiplash symptoms, should begin as soon as possible after a car accident. The soft tissue injuries from the whiplash, or a de-celeration/acceleration injury are very painful, and can even include lower back pain. Often the whole spine will feel stiff and sore, but after some […]

Medical research has now shown that aerobic exercise will actually cause you to store body fat. If you love cardio, you don’t have to give it up. You can add one or two sessions a week of a different physical activity such as weight training or a paced exert/rest interval training. This way you will […]

A magnesium deficiency is associated with so many health conditions, that it often over looked as a cause of symptoms such as heart palpitations. Heart health is more often related to high cholesterol levels, eating trans fats, or lack of exercise. However, heart palpitations are part of the generalized anxiety disorder, or social anxiety disorder, […]

I admit up front that after a twenty year athletic career, I had never heard of fast twitch muscle fibers. Landing in a desk job, I got really worried about getting old fast, and losing my muscle tissue. Trouble was, I didn’t know how I got it in the first place, and I didn’t know […]

A martial artist dance fan asked me recently this question: a ballet dancer looks extremely flexible, and she has the strength to hold her legs up and use them at these extreme angles. And this fan was wondering if it is core strength ballet dancers use in order to be able to support their legs […]

How do you reach and increase your maximum heart rate with exercise?  Does the typical cardiovascular exercise achieve this, or is there a better way? Yes, there is a better way! And I hope this article helps you with your exercise challenge, because what I am about to describe is the most effective exercise for […]

Cheerleading stunts require a lot of strength, and also requires constant attention to warm up exercises and flexibility exercises. Every cheer leader hopes that she or he can do the splits, or at least appear that this is so. For those who are simply born to not ever get that flexible, there are safe ways […]

“It doesn’t take time!” is the response I hear when I inquire “what’s your priority in healthy recipes?”  Do healthy recipes depend  on time to shop, plan, organize, chop, cook, store, pack for lunch or not, and then clean out the fridge, throw out what’s not eaten, or compost it, while you try to not […]

The more I read about enzyme activity the more I realize how important it is. An enzyme is required to process and assimilate each group of the yummy food that we eat. One enzyme is needed to digest sugars, and another is needed to digest proteins. And so forth, for all the foods types that […]

Strength training for getting into pointe shoes. Every foot movement you do at the ballet barre in class, will build strong enough foot muscles for pointe work, if you learn to push down into the floor, creating resistance in the motion. At the same time, you pull up away from the leg movement with your […]

Flexibility Exercises For Dancers – Muscles That Get Left Out Dancers want to get higher leg extensions and fluid movements. Usually when they think about flexibility exercises they want to focus on the obvious muscles like: the hamstrings, and hamstring stretches for higher leg extensions to the front the adductors, for higher leg extensions to […]

One of the hardest challenges for those who want to take adult ballet, especially if they haven’t been doing any flexibility exercises,  is to learn the right method in performing stretching exercises. If you are sore and stiff in your joints when you get out of bed in the morning, how do you approach learning […]

If you have constant neck pain and other muscle tension, stretching exercises will help you.  How do you feel when:  you first wake up in the morning and roll over to sit up? Stiff/sore/ afraid to move? when you first walk around – carefully – being mindful of some neck pain lower back pain hip […]

Every age group has a reason to be concerned about the right methods of muscle building.  Life has become sedentary for almost all working groups. Getting up from your school desk, computer station or lecture desk for a three minute break to stretch your legs does not do much for the state of your muscles. […]

Dry winter skin is an inflammatory response even in humid climates. Running the heat inside dries the air, and affects your skin tone. Hydration and the consumption of healthy omega 3 fatty acids are the best skin tone treatments. What you put into your skin from your diet is more important to decrease an inflammatory […]

I am enthused after seeing a trailer about a new television series about classical ballet. “Breaking Pointe”, premiering on the CW May 31st, looked promising to me until I found out it is a new reality show. Uh oh! I am wondering how the subcultural world of classical ballet will be spun for tv viewers. […]

Dancers (and others) can get really stressed over striving for a healthy weight, choosing the healthy options, and all the while craving those yummy high calorie foods. Obese teens, young adults who want to be athletic and slim, (whether dancers or not) try to stay healthy while constantly worrying about weight loss. Is this or […]

Physical activity in winter may feel like a chore. The sun is down before you leave work, and your whole energy is changed due to hormonal shifts that naturally occur with the seasons. If you’re used to doing aerobic exercise outdoors, now you need to replace it with something effective to keep up your muscle […]

Stretching exercises are one of the best things you can do to relieve muscle spasms in leg muscles. Some people are woken up from their sleep with muscle spasms and others have painful leg muscles all the time. All of our muscles affect the others when they are holding muscle tension, so I will help […]

Are you interested in staying close to your ideal body weight over the winter months? While many people use gyms for this, it is always handy to learn a workout routine that you can do at home for those wild winter days when you don’t want to go out. You can use your favorite style […]

Many who danced in childhood think about getting back into adult ballet. And why not? Even if you feel old and stiff, all you have to do is learn a set of flexibility exercises you can do daily, and perhaps some extra foot exercises to work on strengthening those foot muscles faster. There’s nothing better […]

How do you know what positive changes to aim for to get to a  healthy weight? The more extreme lose-ten-pounds-in-two-weeks crash diets, or 500 calorie a day diets are not safe for everybody. Or maybe not safe for anybody, depending on which diet guru or doctor you listen to. I am going to suggest a […]

Pink satin pointe shoes are every ballet student’s dream. Whether you are a child starting ballet, or an adult ballet classes beginner, I know you want to get ahead and try to be among the best in your class.  If  for some reason you think this is not an outcome that you can achieve, I […]

Winter workouts can mean many things to many people. In cold weather, you need to warm up sufficiently. You need to have a goal for your workout routines. Do you want to increase metabolism, burn calories, build muscle, or all of those? What physical activity will get you the best results? You can do any […]

Many people would like to know how to avoid cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease, and need to know how to choose the right vitamins. Good quality vitamins and nutritional health supplements can assist you in health matters, and to prevent cardiovascular and coronary heart disease being key.  I am going to help you with […]

Do you need to sleep? If you are tired and irritable, I’ll bet you would love to get your health back with a natural remedy. A health nutritional supplement that will not only correct a deficiency, but can help your body continue to correct itself. A good night’s sleep affects almost every aspect of your […]