As many of you my know, World Ballet Day was last week, and like any proper ballet nerd I watched parts of the stream throughout the day.
At some point during the broadcast, one of the hosts mentioned something about the Australian Ballet and relevés. This sounded vaguely familiar, and Googling brought up this video with Dr. Nancy Kadel briefly talking about it, and I recalled discussing it with my own dance PT. The theory is that doing 24 relevés (one foot at a time in parallel with control) helps build the calf and lower leg muscles thereby preventing injury and things like posterior impingement (oh hey!).
During the Australian Ballet's broadcast during World Ballet Day this year, they also talked about it a bit, and showed the company class actually doing the relevés before leaving the barre (they have since removed the video, grr).
Doing rises/relevés is actually part of my PT regimen, but to be honest I've been a little more lax about it lately because of the flare up a month or so ago. Relevé still isn't super comfortable on the Ankle of Doom, so I've been trying to limit them to class-only, but it might be time to try to increase a little again, and 24 isn't too terrible--plus when I tried this weekend I found I can only do 20 right now! Something to work towards. I was doing a TON of PT relevés before (mostly on two feet), so cutting back and focusing on one foot might actually be better for now, as long as I can keep my leg in alignment (something it has not been wanting to do as of late).
I was getting a little overwhelmed with ALL the exercises I was doing before. I had a ton of PT exercises (theraband, balancing, towel pulls, rises, etc. etc.), was trying to do foot exercises for pointe (from Lisa Howell's amazing book), foam-rolling to keep things from getting grumpy, stretching, plus trying to add in core and leg work and it was taking HOURS. Trimming down a bit and focusing on one or two key areas (e.g. core / feet & ankles) might be better for me at this point. I can always work on legs/extensions and other things down the line.
At some point during the broadcast, one of the hosts mentioned something about the Australian Ballet and relevés. This sounded vaguely familiar, and Googling brought up this video with Dr. Nancy Kadel briefly talking about it, and I recalled discussing it with my own dance PT. The theory is that doing 24 relevés (one foot at a time in parallel with control) helps build the calf and lower leg muscles thereby preventing injury and things like posterior impingement (oh hey!).
During the Australian Ballet's broadcast during World Ballet Day this year, they also talked about it a bit, and showed the company class actually doing the relevés before leaving the barre (they have since removed the video, grr).
Doing rises/relevés is actually part of my PT regimen, but to be honest I've been a little more lax about it lately because of the flare up a month or so ago. Relevé still isn't super comfortable on the Ankle of Doom, so I've been trying to limit them to class-only, but it might be time to try to increase a little again, and 24 isn't too terrible--plus when I tried this weekend I found I can only do 20 right now! Something to work towards. I was doing a TON of PT relevés before (mostly on two feet), so cutting back and focusing on one foot might actually be better for now, as long as I can keep my leg in alignment (something it has not been wanting to do as of late).
I was getting a little overwhelmed with ALL the exercises I was doing before. I had a ton of PT exercises (theraband, balancing, towel pulls, rises, etc. etc.), was trying to do foot exercises for pointe (from Lisa Howell's amazing book), foam-rolling to keep things from getting grumpy, stretching, plus trying to add in core and leg work and it was taking HOURS. Trimming down a bit and focusing on one or two key areas (e.g. core / feet & ankles) might be better for me at this point. I can always work on legs/extensions and other things down the line.
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