Bridging the Gap Between Dance Medicine and Strength & Conditioning
I attended my first International Association for Dance Medicine & Science conference in Montreal last year, and it was one of the best professional conferences I’ve ever experienced. One of the most obvious differences between IADMS and other professional conferences was the preponderance of women in attendance who were in important, centered positions.
A group of dance medicine professionals went to lunch not far from the conference hotel. Some of these professionals had met at previous conferences, but a number of us were new and only were acquainted through social media. Every person at this lunch was a woman aside from me. The nature of the conversation—welcoming, inquisitive, supportive—was different than what I had grown used to in the strength and conditioning world, which is dominated by men. While I want to avoid trafficking in gender-based tropes, I think my experience between the two worlds offers some insight for how to build a better bridge between strength and conditioning and dance.
After listening to one particularly impactful talk at the conference, I approached a physical therapist and asked a substantive question. She asked a bit about me and we talked about strength and conditioning as a field, and how she’s been treated at times by people like me. Condescension. Dismissiveness. This is a Ph.d with a wealth of experience, and she was talked to like she was a child.
The behavior she encountered was obviously unprofessional and almost certainly laced with misogyny. But another problem with it is that it harms the very people that strength and conditioning professionals ought to be working to help: the dancers themselves.
The strength and conditioning world is full of enormous personalities who’ve developed huge followings. It’s interesting in the sense that within the world of strength and conditioning, the coaches themselves become the stars. So many up-and-coming coaches then, react to this by adopting a voice of god in an effort to position themselves as the next big name in strength and conditioning. It creates an atmosphere stunningly different than the dancer-centered tone of IADMS.
On the other hand, the dance world’s resistance to voices outside of dance continues to harm performers as well. The idea that one must have been a dancer in order to effectively train dancers prevents the community from adopting best practices sharpened under the crucible of competition from throughout the sports world. The strength and conditioning community has learned a few universal things about athletes that should be applied to dancers—around progressive overload, efficiency, rest, foot strike counts for plyometrics, minimum effective doses—but are not because they come from outside the dance world.
If we care about dancers, and I know that everyone who reads this space regularly does, then we must bridge this chasm between dance medicine and strength and conditioning. I think most of the onus is on strength and conditioning professionals to root out misogyny and center the voices of women more, but there is room for improvement in the dance medicine world as well.
On the strength and conditioning side of things, we should:
Demonstrate consistent interest in the specificity of dance while always keeping in mind the differentiation between dancer-specific and dance-specific.
Attend dance medicine conferences and engage in good faith with dance medicine professionals who have far more experience working with artists.
Work hard to adapt strength and conditioning principles for the world of dance, where the time demands of performers are greater than those of other professional athletes.
Acknowledge misogyny and racism in the field and develop strategies around inclusivity and equality.
For their part, dance medicine professionals need to:
Be more open to the professional opinions of non-dancers.
Recognize that in physical therapy, Pilates, strength training, or yoga, the most important framework is dancer-specificity, not necessarily dance specificity. No two ballet dancers, for example, will present with precisely the same issues based on anatomy, movement pattern, and dance training.
Attend strength and conditioning conferences, and reach out to team-style strength and conditioning experts to co-develop best-practices around dancer training.
Grapple with misogyny in the dance world as well, particularly as it pertains to policing women’s bodies and driving people toward disordered eating.
If we all are passionate about developing a modern and progressive approach to preparing dancers for the rigors of performance while caring for them holistically and with their human longevity in mind, then the false divide between dance medicine and strength and conditioning ought to be closed. But we can’t close it until we recognize with clarity the deeper issues that poison the relationship and ultimately get in the way of supporting the artists we all purport to love.