Resistance Training for Ballet

Resistance training is used to improve strength and stamina. Resistance exercises involve resisting force, whether it be free weights, dumbells, resistance bands, machines, or even the weight of your own body as with push-ups, sit-ups, or leg lifts.

For ballet dancers the goal of resistance training isn't to build up overdeveloped muscles. The focus should be on enhancing your strength in order to perform better beats, leaps and sustained poses. If you are a male ballet dancer, stronger muscles will help you with lifting your partner. Having a stronger physique and stronger muscles also help to avoid injury. It is also beneficial to fortify your bones with weight bearing exercises to build and maintain bone mass, in order to prevent osteoporosis and loss of bone density that make fractures more likely.

To get going with your own strength training routine, it is best to work with a personal trainer who is familiar with the requirements of ballet dancing. A personal trainer will assess you and give you exercises to work on depending on what needs strengthening. Your trainer will also tell you what weights to use and how many repetitions you should do. A personal trainer will also be able to correct you and ensure that you are doing all your exercises for maximum benefit. As you get stronger he should adjust your program accordingly.

Anyone can benefit from resistance training, providing that you are mature enough to take instruction and perform the exercises correctly. Young muscles and growing bones should not use heavy weights, and should rather concentrate on more repetitions with lighter weights or resistance. In fact there should always be more repetitions with lighter weights rather than fewer repetitions with heavier weights. A young person's program should emphasise correct technique and smooth movements.

Once you have set yourself up with a resistance-training program, it is easy to keep with, with some self discipline. Perform every exercise with form, purposefully and correctly. This is essential for the safety and effectiveness of any strength or resistance training program. A standard training session is thirty to sixty minutes, three times a week. If at home, set yourself up some space to work out in. On the move, resist bands make the perfect weight training tool, as they come in different sizes and strengths, and there are countless beneficial exercises that can be performed with these.

You can vary your resistance training and work on different areas of the body on different days, or you can do a full body workout each time you exercise. The important thing is to take a full day off in between, so that you can give your muscles a chance to recover.

Article by Michel Maling
"I love Dancing and I love Online Marketing. I currently teach Ballet, Modern, Hip Hop, Social Ballroom and Latin American. Dancing is my passion and I know there are many others out there who love it as much as I do, so what are you waiting for, DANCE to the tune of Life.

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