Most ballet dancers see themselves more as artists than as athletes.
From a sports medicine perspective, a ballet dancer is both an artist and a high-performance athlete.
However, ballet dance is just as physically demanding as high-performance sport and carries a similarly high risk of injury during a performance season.
According to studies, 40-85% of dancers are injured during a season.
There are 0.77 injuries per 1000 dance hours. This means that in a company with 40 dancers and a weekly work or training time of 33 hours, one injury per week is to be expected.
Injuries to the lower extremities and back occur very frequently. Soft tissue and overuse injuries are predominant. Studies have shown that the reasons for injuries in professional ballet dancers and recreational dancers are different.
In professional ballet dancers overuse injuries predominate These are caused by
- physical condition
- poor control of the lumbar-pelvic movement
- inappropriate contraction of the transversus abdominis muscle
- reduced strength of the lower limbs
- poor aerobic fitness
In recreational ballet dancers acute injuries predominate. These are caused by
- excessive mobility of the hips and ankles, which cannot yet be compensated for muscularly
- longer training times to which the dancers are not yet accustomed
