NFL Week 1: Cautionary Tale for Dance World Returning
The National Football League (NFL) in the United States returned this month after skipping its usual preseason schedule due to COVID19. The preseason is notoriously unpopular with fans and players alike, and it seems that every year there are calls to eliminate it. This year we got to see the unintended dangers of that.
During week 1 of the NFL season, there were what at least one sports performance coach who works with NFL players called an “astronomical amount of injuries.”
Astronomical amount of injuries in week 1 of the NFL season. About 35 are hamstring injuries.
— Jorge Carvajal (@carvperformance) September 16, 2020
Why??
1. Poor compliance/ no accountability with off season program
2. No hands on coaching
3. No OTA’s. No minicamp. No preseason https://t.co/3gYXM1yl4Q
When I saw this discussion, I immediately thought of the dance world that is largely still on hold because of the pandemic. When dancers are allowed to perform in front of crowds again, I think those of us who care about them should consider the NFL’s week 1 experience when putting together training protocols for artists.
Further down in the thread I’ve linked above, a speed performance coach chimed in with his observation around why preseason football is so important for injury prevention. I thought it was a brilliant distillation of progressive overload—a core principle in strength and conditioning.
People always crap on the pre-season games, but they allow a measured dose and progression of work for the top players that simulates the intensity of the regular season. Game 1 = 1 quarter, Game 2 = 2 quarters, Game 3 = 3 quarters, with Game 4 usually off (for starters).
— Derek M. Hansen (@DerekMHansen) September 17, 2020
Obviously not every NFL player finished week 1 with a hamstring injury, but when players are left on their own without much guidance from teams, there can be no guarantee that they’ll return in the type of shape they need to be in in order play hard for four quarters. Dance companies should understand that, while one might logically assume that professionals will find a way to keep themselves in shape, a basic understanding of human nature—and the incredible emotional stress brought on by trying to survive a pandemic—suggests that not everyone will be able to maintain their athleticism, explosiveness, and functional mobility. So a conservative return to performance preparation is the best approach.
Forget the body shaming. Dancers may have added body fat during the layoff. But shaming them or calling it out, when likely they already know what needs to be worked on, isn’t helpful, particularly without individualized guidance around what they should be doing. (One of my pet peeves of the dance world is people who tell dancers to get stronger/leaner/more mobile without offering specific guidance around how).
Begin slowly with movement-based assessments. What’s the current state of the dancer’s body? What’s the state of their turnout? Overhead mobility? How strong are they right now? What aches and pains have they developed through inactivity or completely new activity?
Start strength training and conditioning slowly and focus on the basics. Increase volume and intensity slowly and with intention while carefully ramping up conditioning-specific work.
Apply all of these changes to the dance training as well! The impulse for people is to feel some panic around how out of shape they are (or how out of shape their dancers are) and to increase intensity too quickly. But a patient approach will allow time for adaptations to happen while guarding against overtraining injuries.
The thing people sometimes confuse about injuries during powerful expressions (jumping, sprinting, dancing, cutting) is that a dancer or athlete might be powerful enough to execute the movement but not well-conditioned enough to execute the movement repeatedly. It’s not the one sprint down the field that causes a hamstring strain, it’s having to do it over and over while getting increasingly fatigued.
Incidentally, I’ve experienced this phenomenon myself as I’ve experimented with track work in my own training. When I’ve found myself most at risk for injury, it hasn’t been the execution of a 100-meter sprint as I thought might be the case. It has been when I’ve tried to accumulate too much volume too quickly or when I’ve tried to sprint a distance (say, 200 meters) for which I hadn’t developed the proper conditioning.
When dancers and companies return, the best advice I could give about strength and conditioning is to take at least a month to go slow. Bodies will bounce back. Explosiveness will bounce back. Conditioning will bounce back.
But only if you give the body time.