As a former competitive athlete, national team coach and now as a sports physician, I appreciate how important it is to have a well-functioning and quickly accessible medical network.
In the last 6 years of providing medical care to professional ballet dancers, I have realized that the medical care in professional ballet dance is far from what it is in competitive sports.
In sports medicine, there are annual initial examinations specifically tailored to the individual sports, which means that problems with the musculoskeletal system can be identified at the start of the season.
There are detailed rehabilitation plans for many injuries. These can be easily transferred to ballet and, as in sport, can also be coordinated with the coaches/employers for the seasons. In the event of injuries, this can ensure a quicker return to action after injuries.
This increases the motivation of the injured to actively participate. For the employer, this is an interesting economic factor, especially if the company does not have many dancers to fall back on.
I have analyzed many of the typical and unusual injuries that I have seen and treated in recent years. In hindsight, it turned out that some of them could even have been avoided.
There are many studies on the topics of training, prophylaxis, rehabilitation and nutrition in professional ballet dance, but these are often not accessible to dancers or are written in a way that is too incomprehensible, as they are medical.
In my blogs, I try to strike a balance between science and reality.
BalletDoc® is the platform for professional ballet dancers, coaches, doctors and therapists who want to find out about ballet-specific, but also unusual injuries and curiosities.
