Dance and Sports are two physical activities, which are closely intermingled and inter-related though both vary in their ultimate purposes. Both involve rigorous physical movements and body actions, which require perseverance, stamina and energy. Off late both Dance and Sports have started complementing each other with more and more athletes taking up dance to help them improve their important, vital and significant sporting traits. Dance lessons to improve Athleticism is nothing new but lately the practice has become extremely famous and even coaches have started recommending dance lessons to athletes cutting across the different sports.
There are many dance forms like Ballet, Salsa etc. which are more popular among the athletes since they more or less exercise and help all body parts, something that is imperative to athletes and sportspersons. Most importantly, athletes and dancers share many same and common goals which can be best achieved or served by cross training. Dance often supplements the training efforts of athletes and helps them enhance their overall performance. It acts as a catalyst in their journey towards overall fitness. Experts believe that sportspersons can drastically and incredibly benefit from different dance forms provided they attend to their classes faithfully and practice these dances conscientiously. It is believed that dance forms an important of training schedules of some of the most famous and successful athletes across the globe and this indeed goes on to show the importance of dance as medium to stay fit and fine for athletes and sportspersons.
There are several ways dance can help an athlete. It allows the athlete to stay fitter, leaner and better and thus considerably influencing and affecting, for good, his/her performance. It not only conditions the bodies of athletes, but also improves their strength and endurance. Some of the most important ways in which dance can help make one a better athlete are as mentioned below:
Cardiovascular: A fit cardiovascular system is imperative for any athlete or sportsperson. It is responsible for pumping oxygenated and pure blood to different parts of the body including all the muscles and tissues. Dance lessons improve the overall stamina and endurance of the athlete and give him/her that extra edge which is required in tough world class sporting competition. Dancing improves the body’s ability to deliver oxygen and hence directly strengthens the cardiovascular system of the body. This is beneficial for number of sports and overall fitness of the athletes.
Strength: Strength of an athlete determines how long he/she could give a stiff competition to his/her competitors. Strength is hugely improved and amplified by body weight trainings of which dance forms an important part. Dance necessarily engages different and multiple muscle groups at the same time and thus ensuring that more calories are burnt and consequently more strength is gained in a shorter time duration. Dancing also contributes immensely to muscle building and strengthening which ensures that the athlete stays leaner and fitter. Dancing ensures that muscles stay in proper shape and are strong enough to stand the pressure during any sporting competition.
Flexibility: Flexibility of muscles are either required directly or indirectly in sports. While sports like Basketball, Badminton, Cheerleading etc. require athletes to be flexible with their bodies, other sports require flexibility for a different purpose altogether. The athletes who are fit throughout the season and are injured the least are the best athletes. Injury prevention forms a crucial part in an athlete’s personal as well as professional life. This is where flexibility comes into play. Flexible bodies are less vulnerable to injuries and are better performers when it comes to most of the sports.
Dance helps a great deal when it comes to obtaining flexible bodies and helps prevent muscle strains, sprains, tears, and other injuries. Flexibility also ensures that one has faster and quicker reflexes. With flexible muscles, tendons and ligaments also become more flexible, which reduces the chance of major injury especially to ACLs, MCLs, shoulders, and wrists (Vick 2012). Most of the major dance forms like ballet, jazz or hip-hop have special flexibility sessions. Hence dancing can makes sure that athlete’s body stays flexible and hence injury free. It also promotes better and supple muscles and considerably helps in addition of increased joint range of motion. This makes the athlete lighter, fitter and much more graceful and powerful on the field.
Endurance: Endurance is critically important and almost imperative in many track and field sporting events. It is about that extra bit of strength that often plays a decisive role in tough and neck-to-neck competitions. An athlete’s performance can suffer and degrade by a great deal if he/she lacks the required endurance. Endurance is in a way directly related to one’s stamina and hence an important and significant feature of athlete’s performance. Taking a dance class assists and facilitates endurance building. The conditioning it provides helps athlete’s body build the stamina needed for variety of athletic activities (Renee 2012). Since endurance and stamina are central to all major sporting and field events, dance through the process of improving an athlete’s endurance and building his/her stamina helps him/her to perform better. This indeed proves the true significance of dance in an athlete’s career since better performance due to improved stamina is what eventually matters.
Leg, Foot and Ankle Strength: Legs, Feet and Ankles are the most essential body parts which feature in all major sports and hence their fitness, strength and endurance is of paramount importance. Notably, these three parts ‘cum’ joints are also the most exposed and vulnerable to different forms of serious and career threatening injuries. Dancing builds strength in body parts that athletes often take for granted in weight rooms or their personal trainings. Dancing helps athletes build vital strength in hard-to-target muscles of legs, feet and ankles. It also helps in development and growth of hip flexor and knee strength, and hence helps athletes in learning to articulate through all parts of the foot, which leads to unexpected increase in the strength levels of smaller muscles of feet and ankles (Fisk 2013).
Since dance trains one with fast and prompt footwork and complex moving pattern, it also helps in proper and efficient coordination between the different parts of the body and the mind which again contributes to fine reflexes and sound decision making and both essentially play very vital roles in sporting events. Increased strength in ankles contributes to better balance, stability and concentration on the field. All this can be achieved through regular dancing sessions and noticeably many leading athletes resort to dancing sessions with increase in these three parts as their prime motive.
Balance and Coordination: Balance and coordination often come in pair and lack of one trait can significantly affect the efficiency of the other. Balance and coordination are absolutely must and critical for athletes and are often the deciding factors between the premium athletes and the rest. Dance helps athletes in achieving better and improved balancing and coordination. Coordination and balancing often consume a lot of time and efforts of the athletes but dancing acts as a catalyst and helps athletes in achieving the desired levels of balance and coordination in less amount of time. Balance is most importantly obtained by strength in proper core muscle groups, which can be obtained by proper dancing sessions and schedules.
Focus and Self-Awareness: Dance requires proper hard work, patience, diligence, perseverance, concentration and focus. Continuous and prolonged exposure to dance sessions can help athletes achieve all these traits as part of their nature and hence could help them a great deal in their professional lives. Dancing also helps in increased self-awareness of one’s body and helps in proper analysis of body alignments and this helps in control over movement of every muscle and limb. It helps in increased experience in isolation of body parts, a skill that can condition one’s body and can help in quicker and faster movement of legs and feet. Dance also helps in proper training of gaining control over movement of muscles i.e. proper contraction and relaxation of muscles, which in turn promotes alertness, agility and responsiveness. All these qualities form an important part in a successful career of a professional athlete and all these can be achieved and gained through proper, continuous, prolonged and rigorous dance sessions. This again establishes the importance of dance for athletes, in remaining fit and in achieving qualities, which could set them apart and let them have a real successful career.
There are various athletes who have taken it to dancing to gain some of the qualities that are essential for their respective sports since dancing solves multiple purposes and helps them in identifying their strength and weaknesses and consequently work on bettering their strengths and fighting and improving upon their weaknesses. There are many examples, which can be used to signify the importance of dance for athletes but the personality of Lynn Swann directly relates to the topic.
Lynn Swann is an acclaimed and famous American former football player. He was a fine football player who brought laurels to American football. He represented Trojans in two Rose Bowl games and helped them national championship in 1972 and then went on to become the most valuable player in 1973. He then played many important tournaments before he was selected National Football League Man of the year in 1981. It is noticeable that Swann was well known for his unparalleled catching ability that was famously and fondly known as ‘ballet-like’ ability to catch. It was this catching style only that led to his successful career and also made him an instant hit among his teammates and media too. His catching style consisted of almost all the famous ballet dance moves.
He used to leap, hang in the air, twist and turn before finally contorting his body quite like a ballet dancer before coming down with the ball. It is further significant to note that Swann was pretty good and active with dancing and pursued it from an early age. He used to learn and study tap, modern dance and ballet. These dances inspired his unique playing style, which not only facilitated a successful career for him but also proved that dance could help athletes in an incredible and rather magnificent manner. Swann often credits his dance lessons as the reason behind his immense success in football. Dancing ensured that his height (only 5 feet 11 inches) did not hinder his growth and progress in his sporting career since his ballet moves helped him overcome his weakness. Lynn Swann once contended and accepted that he took several years of dance lessons that included ballet, tap and Jazz and that they helped him a great deal with body control, balance, a sense of rhythm, and timing (BrainyQuotes 2013). Most importantly these are the traits, which set Swann apart from other and conventional football players.
After the thorough and thoughtful analysis of the effects of dancing on athletes, it can be safely contended that dancing and dance lessons can help athletes a great deal in almost every possible aspect of their sporting event right from their physical fitness to mental and emotional fitness. Dance sessions not only ensure that an athlete stays fit and injury free but also acquire them with important and essential qualities like patience, perseverance, extensive and rigorous schedules. These qualities go a long way in in development of endurance, stamina and strength. It can then be said that all athletes should essentially make dance sessions an important part of their training schedules to achieve success and better and prolonged overall fitness.
Works Cited
BrainyQuotes. ”Lynn Swann Quotes”
Brainy Quotes. 12 April 2013. Web. 2013
< http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lynnswann275014.html>
Fisk, Judy. ”How does dance class make one a better athlete?”
Healthy Living. 12 April 2013. Web. 2013
< http://healthyliving.azcentral.com/dance-class-make-one-better-athlete-4286.html>
Renee, Janet. ”How does dance class make one a better athlete?”
Live Strong. 12 April 2013. Web. 2012
< http://www.livestrong.com/article/555930-how-does-dance-class-make-one-a-better-athlete/>
Vick, Megan. ”6 reasons every athlete needs dance and yoga”
Mind Body Green. 12 April 2013. Web. 2012
< http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-6415/6-Reasons-Every-Athlete-Needs-Dance-and-Yoga.html>
