Mastering the Basics of Strength Training for Dancers

Whenever a dancer walks into our studio for the first time or we do a remote consultation, one of the questions I always ask is “what is your experience with strength training?” More often than not, the dancer in question either has zero experience in a weight room or has been blindly following YouTube videos or Instagram “workouts.” This isn’t the dancer’s fault, of course. The system in place to prevent injury, develop athleticism, and keep the human beings involved in the art form safe has failed dancers for decades. It’s only logical that a dancer might eschew strength training altogether (because they fear doing something wrong) or do the best they can by cobbling together things from social media.

Given the relatively young training age of most dancers, we always start with the basics. And when I say start with the basics, I want to emphasize that the basics never go away. With every program we’re working through with the dancers we coach right now, everyone is doing some variation of squatting, hinging, pressing, and pulling. Those basics, alongside the individualized needs-based exercises form the basis of how we train dancers. And as the dancers get to know their bodies better—this is one of the most important parts of our work—the programming from dancer to dancer might begin to vary more widely. There are some dancers on whose spines I would never place a barbell, and others who back squat regularly. Some dancers struggle with performing some types of rowing movements, so we only keep the variations in their programs that make sense for their bodies.

But the point is, we don’t exclusively specialize with any dancers. Our job isn’t just to work on extension height, it’s to make sure that as extension height gets better we don’t sacrifice explosiveness or upper body control. Our job isn’t just to work on calf strength, it’s to make sure that the dancer has enough pelvic control to ensure that calf strength isn’t wasted on weak glutes.

Think about a carafe of coffee, with five mugs to fill for your valued breakfast guests. Each mug represents a different guest whom you value just as much as the one next to them.

The way to think about strength and conditioning for dancers is that each mug represents an attribute:

• Athleticism

• Strength

• Artistry

• Technique

• Stamina

Your list might differ, but generally speaking it might look something like this. The approach to dancer cross training that has proliferated for far too long is to choose one of these attributes and to focus narrowly on it for several weeks, ignoring the others. But artistry without strength is possibly dangerous; technique without the stamina to last through a performance (or a season) isn’t helpful; and athleticism without artistry is better suited for sport than performance. We don’t just want to fill one of the mugs, in other words. We want a carafe full of delicious coffee so that there’s an abundance for our guests.

If we can work on a dancer’s general preparedness, they’ll be in a much better position to develop all of the attributes they need to perform beautifully. That general preparedness rarely looks anything like dance, but it fills the carafe nonetheless.

The best thing a dancer can do for their long-term athletic and artistic development from a cross-training perspective is to master the basics well while individualizing based on injury history, skill level, and their company’s programming. And the best thing companies can do to ensure their dancers’ longevity and health is to make sure their artists have the resources they need to learn and master those basics.