Our philosophy
Strength and conditioning for dancers
Every dancer has a story to tell, and we’re interested in hearing that story and using our understanding of it to train you according to your artistic and individual needs. The first meeting with every dancer begins with questions around artistic goals and injury history.
We want to understand your artistic goals in order to write programming that meets those needs. And we want to understand injury history to ensure that we don’t steer you into more pain–and also so that we can help you mitigate the risk of sustaining further injuries. We treat every dancer we work with like a professional or preprofessional athlete–while simultaneously understanding the unique demands that come with being a movement artist.
222 E. 6th St. Dayton, OH
64 W. 3rd St. New York, NY
Our approach
At Present Tense Fitness, we afford dancers the same science-backed attention to detail that a third baseman for the New York Yankees, or a point guard for the New York Liberty, or a soccer forward at the University of Dayton receive from their strength coaches.
See our approach in action on our instagram
Dancer-specific programming
Dancer-specific programming means that we take into account your artistic, health, and injury needs from an individualized standpoint. It would be irresponsible of us to blindly program the same exact exercises for you as we do another dancer who might be responsible for different types of dance, different volumes of dance, and different roles within their company.
We want to ensure that every dancer who works with us can do the basic movements in strength and conditioning, but that doesn’t mean we ignore you when you ask for a better arabesque or a stronger port de bra. There’s room in thoughtful programming to address both athletic and artistic needs.
Strategic long-term training
Whether you’re a preprofessional or professional dancer, our responsibility is to think about the version of you five and ten years from now. In strength and conditioning circles, this is called “long-term athletic development.”
Our job is to ensure that you’re subjected to the right stresses, in the right amount, to help your body become an adaptable instrument capable of handling whatever your dance career demands of it. The younger the dancer, the more generalized the cross-training ought to be as we help the individual develop the general capacities that will be necessary down the road.
Rest and recovery prioritization
We’ve yet to encounter the dancer who needs to be pushed. In our experience, most dancers need support in learning how to apply the right dose of stress to their bodies such that they adapt, but not so much that they get worn down further.
Dancer cross-training too often is both too stressful (in the form of too much volume) and not difficult enough to elicit the adaptations that will help the dancer perform well while mitigating injury risk.
At Present Tense Fitness, you’ll work hard–but you’ll learn how and when to rest for optimum recovery and strength. And when you’re in-season, we’ll teach you how to keep getting stronger without getting in the way of your dancing.
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If you’re near New York City or Dayton and want the opportunity to work with us, both of our locations are in walkable neighborhoods full of shopping, eating, and people-watching opportunities. We’d love to have you visit and train!
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If you’re not able to stay for a week or so, we can still do an assessment with you when you visit us in New York or Dayton. We’ll send you a PDF that encompasses what we saw during the assessment and recommendations for exercise selection and programming.
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We’ve conducted workshops for the Dayton Dance Initiative, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, the School of American Ballet, the New York City Ballet, and the Dayton Ballet. Workshop topics include, but aren’t limited to:
Individualizing warmups for dancers
Nutrition and fueling considerations for dancers
Strength and conditioning programming for dancers
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Team-sports style strength and conditioning is in its infant stages in the dance world, and we have experience coaching dancers at the very highest levels of dance in the United States, as well as with regional companies. If you’re interested in implementing strength and conditioning in your company but don’t know where to start, let’s talk. We can walk you through gym design, equipment purchasing, and programming.
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Jason has spoken at the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science multiple times, and has conducted workshops for the School of American Ballet, the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company, and the Dayton Dance Initiative. If you’d like him to come speak to your organization or company, get in touch!
Our offerings
Whether you’re in New York City or Dayton, Ohio, we offer a variety of ways to work with us. Not in New York or Dayton but still interested in a workshop or having one of us speak? Let’s talk.
