muscle composition and dancers

[eunheejun]

I guess dance scholars can provide some useful information to this question. Just incidentally, I have been wondering about the question of muscle composition (e.g., slow twitch, fast-twitch) in dancers and other types of athletes. As for me, I have always been the former type; I used to sprint in school and played handball. I was always good at making swift direction changes or doing long jumps but never had the endurance to run a marathon. Muscle composition-wise, are sprinters close to dancers? Thanks!

 

Eun Hee

[Guest ingve]

I guess it is really hard to find a proper answer to that question, but I can give my taste. If you want to compare a typical dancers body with an athlet/runner, i guess a 800 Meters or 1500 meters runner would have the perfect muscles for a dancer. The fine deffinition of athlethes who train for running for a longer distance, but with the explosivity and power to sprint in the end of a race.

 

Myself I was much more a sprinter, but to tone my muscles and to improve my endurence i ran during my active career as a dancer, and made it in the end to do a half marathon 4 times a year, and in less than 1hour 45 minutes.

 

It really helped me to train contra my natural ways.

 

cheers

ingve

[Clara 76]

That may be difficult to quantify because many dancers don't run. Like me- I'm not running unless someone's chasing me!!!

[Guest ingve]

That may be difficult to quantify because many dancers don't run. Like me- I'm not running unless someone's chasing me!!!

You should try it, after the first months where everything hurts, and you think you will never be able to dance again

 

 

Something happens, and many things just make so much more sense.

[Garyecht]

Because ballet movement is primarily a skill, other than having great flexibility, the physical qualities needed to be really good at ballet are fairly minimal. For that reason, I’d guess that there is huge variability among dancers with respect to muscle composition.

[Laschwen]

That may be difficult to quantify because many dancers don't run. Like me- I'm not running unless someone's chasing me!!!

 

 

You have been listening to some of my conversations I think. "Unless someone's chasing me" is a direct quote for sure.

Of course lately I am doing what I call a "fake run" in the evenings when our fat dog wants to play. He want's to be chased and to chase as well, so a run with baby steps (hence fake) up and down the hallways and through one room until he wears out is what I alternate doing with my husband. We have to help him get the weight off. I get breathing hard after a while too.

 

Laschwen

P.S. I studies all that fast twitch/slow twitch stuff in college. My self assessment was that I do not have a dominant amount of either one. I am strictly a mid range girl with what must be a balanced amount of both.

[Garyecht]

The overwhelming majority of people have a mix of fast and slow twitch fibers so that one type isn’t overwhelmingly dominant. And there is nothing we can do to alter the mix we have. What I find interesting is that there are two types of fast twitch fibers. One type is pure fast twitch. The other is what I’ll call a tweener, that is it’s between fast and slow twitch and those fibers are trainable in that they can be made more like fast or slow twitch fibers as a result of training. It’s one of those things supporting the notion that training is specific—you get better at a physical activity (e.g., ballet) by doing the physical activity (ballet).

 

As we get past our early 30s, muscle cells die, never to be replaced. Fast twitch muscles die faster than slow twitch muscles and both are replaced by fat. Most of we older folk recognize those changes in ourselves. We can retard the process by strength training, which is why strength training is so good for those of us over the half century mark.

[Clara 76]

Oh man, Gary.....you're really bringing down my vibe.

[eunheejun]

Thank you for such an informative reply!

 

Eun Hee

[luvsmusicluvs2dance]

That may be difficult to quantify because many dancers don't run. Like me- I'm not running unless someone's chasing me!!!

 

 

That's funny! I did take some ballet as a small child but I've done gymnastics and martial arts for years and I have retained much of my flexibilty so I hope it helps me with ballet!

 

One a side note, I did run cross-country for a year in high school and I immediately gained 10 lbs of muscle! I felt so bulky and after that year (and a pulled tendon), I stopped running.