By: Veronica K, Certified Personal Trainer, AAS Physical Therapy For many adult ballet dancers, mastering clean, stable pirouettes can feel challenging. You stand on the working leg, pull up through the spine, spot, and hope your body cooperates, yet often finish the turn feeling wobbly or off-balance. The root of that wobble may not be in the leg or ankle alone but in the torso and core. In this article, we’ll explore how anti-rotation drills in controlled positions such as

When you hear the words “moderate to advanced arthritis,” at the age of 32, it can be quite shocking news to receive. However, having arthritis at a young age is not uncommon for ballet dancers; MRI studies have demonstrated early first-MTP joint osteophyte development in dancers as young as 19–36 years old (Angioi et al., 2014). In my 20’s I danced ballet full time in college, which racked up many hours en pointe with dead pointe shoes. After graduating, I progressed to crui

In the world of ballet, we expect our feet, ankles, and toes to perform miracles. As dancers, conditions such as tendonitis tend to appear rather often, especially in the foot and ankle joint. We are often aware of the larger areas such as the Achilles tendon but forget that tendonitis can painfully appear in other tendons such as the flexor hallucis longus. These things do not just appear after one or two times of improper technique or daily habits. They result from a cumula