arch pains

[Guest dancer at heart]

whenever im working on pointe, usually towards the end of center work, i get a really bad pain in my muscle in my foot. its the part that gives you an arch and it almost feels like a charlies horse and it realy hurts, and its affecting my pointe work. anyone have an suggestions?

[spaghetti]

This happens to a lot of people because as dancers we articulate our foot and use all of our muscles a lot. When ever it happens to me I really try to stretch the cramp out by doing a really high demi pointe. If you have a tennis ball or some kind of massager you should try working the pain out with this by pressing your foot on top of it. It should help to release the tension. Like every muscle, the muscle in your feet should get a nice stretch atleast once in awhile. Hope this helps with your problem. Remember that your feet are getting stronger and this is just a part of strengthening your muscles.

Edited March 27, 2005 by spaghetti

[Mel Johnson]

Spaghetti, please try to restrain your enthusiasm for responding until a moderator has had a try at giving an answer. This deep-in cramping simply sounds like the muscles in that part of the foot are being worked too hard, and need to be built up. You need to work through the feet by doing relevés, elevés, tendus, degagés, frappés and the occasional pas de cheval. It will take awhile to make yourself stronger.

[Guest dncngrl]

Dancer at heart, I have had problems with my arch too in the past. I found the best thing to do was to massage it when it hurts. But you should try in build it up by doing releves and things like that. I hope that helps

[Victoria Leigh]

Even better would be to try and determine the cause of the problem. That way it can be fixed, instead of just relieved for the moment. Often this can be caused by gripping with the toes, or curling them, or simply OVER-pointing the foot, which would be pointing it without using the energy from the body down through the whole leg to point it. In pointe shoes it could also be pushing down into the foot instead of lifting the body up and almost out of the shoes! Have your teacher watch you very carefully for incorrect foot usage.