DVD/Videos: Conditioning

[scdancergal1]

I really want to do pilates and some minor conditioning and toning during the school year. Any good books or stretches or movies that i could get?!

[ceecee]

I'll bet someone will have great suggestions about strengthening & conditioning videos. Pilates, however, is something that you should do in a class or private with a real live teacher. (like ballet!! ) It is very important that the positions be precisely correct in order to work the right muscles, and a good teacher will help you with this.

[Mel Johnson]

I have to agree with that. Real Pilates is not something you can pick up from a book and/or video.

 

The New York City Ballet Workout is probably something that could help, where you'll know what's being worked on just from ballet class. Use it in conjunction with its accompanying book.

[Garyecht]

I think first you have to ask yourself why you want the conditioning you are asking about. If it is just for general physical fitness, then if you dance a lot, probably you need to work on muscular endurance and strength. A good physical fitness model is to consider a triangle of activities—endurance, strength, and mobility (which includes flexibility). Dance is an almost perfect activity for developing mobility, so if you do it a lot, the other components are probably a little weak relative to mobility. There are many many different activities that develop endurance and strength. Endurance activities should leave you breathing hard and strength activities should cause you to exert a lot of effort on the muscles used, especially the larger muscles. Any activities that you enjoy that do these things will help your overall fitness.

 

If you are more interested in conditioning that is more specific to dance, I’d recommend buying Sally Fitt’s textbook Dance Kinesiology. In that text she discusses conditioning specific to dance and outlines a reasonable program of exercise. You can also learn a lot from reading other parts of the book, an added bonus.