Engaging your abs like NEVER BEFORE
THIS toxic relationship might be ruining your ballet technique.
I see this common problem all the time. It’s funny because you don’t have to be a ballet dancer to have this problem either. I see it with young and older people, ballet dancers and non-ballet dancers, musicians, and doctors.
Tell me which one is you:
If you do a squat, does your lower back arch?
When you reach to get a water bottle, does your shoulder blade move with your arm?
When you do your tendus, does your lower back move on the way out?
Or maybe on the way back in?
Does your back arch when you move your arms in a simple port de bra?
Or your whole shoulder goes forward?
Can you keep your spine still while you do core exercises that require you to move your arms and legs?
Do you have back pain?
Do you have stiff hips or shoulders?
All of these are a product of one thing:
Not knowing how to use your core to stabilize and support limb movements.
What this means is that you are so focused on your arms and legs (shaping them, straightening them, pointing them) that your core is not part of your ballet movements. It might just be an after thought. That’s going to lead to injury and your ballet technique getting worse over time.
And maybe the biggest disadvantage? You’ll have no power when you dance.
You’ll want to do the exercise in the massage with tennis ball article FIRST to benefit from the exercises below:
Have you ever had a friend in a toxic relationship, and you see right through it because you’ve been in that same situation before? And you feel obligated to say something…
So listen to me now!
Your spine is in bad relationship…with your limbs!
Your spine deserves a good relationship (with your arms and legs)
Legs and spine relationship
What you want: Your core should support your spine. And your thigh bone should move within the ball and socket joint (rather than your thigh bone moving your spine).
If you’ve read my other fundamental articles, you’ll know that core engagement is everything for ballet technique. When your core engagement doesn’t support your spine, your ball and socket joints cannot move freely. And when that happens, other places in your body compensate for your lack of core engagement.
Usually, that place is your lower back.
And whether it’s ballet or life, you don’t want your lower back to do the heavy lifting. It’s not designed for that. This is going to cause a whole lot of problems to your body.
The most common problem? (Dreaded) lower back pain.
That’s because when your lower back is compensated, the Quadratus Lumborum (QL) becomes the muscle that initiates leg movement (instead of your core).
When the QL initiates the movement of your legs, it starts to bear a lot of weight. Your QL back muscle cannot bear that much force, so it will start to hurt.
(And there might be nothing worse than chronic back pain).
So how do you fix this issue? Start by releasing the QL. I give an exercise in my article, How to unlock your core, that will release your QL while prompting you to engage your core. So if you haven’t tried it yet, start there!
Arms and spine relationship
To continue the relationship metaphor, let’s introduce a love triangle here.
For your arms and spine to be in healthy relationship, you need to introduce shoulder blades.
What you want: Again, your core should support your spine (noticing a pattern here?). And your upper arm (humerus) should move in the ball and socket joint while anchoring your shoulder blade to your spine.
But if your shoulder isn’t in a close relationship with your spine, the ball and socket in your shoulder joint moves as if it is fused.
The result: Your whole arm cannot move without moving your shoulder too. And you guessed it…that’s going to cause shoulder and neck pain among other things.
When your whole arm and shoulder moves together, your ball and socket joints are incapable of moving the way they are designed to move.
This movement pattern will restrict you from tapping into the full power of your arms. And we need our arms in ballet to help us move, jump, and turn.
So how do we fix this issue? Engage your core and rhomboids.
Have you done these yet?
Do this basic core exercise
Massage your shoulder with a tennis ball
Stretch and train your diaphragm
Once these are done, you will learn to move your limbs in the ball and socket joints. Which is crucial for good ballet technique (and preventing injuries)!
It’s time to break up: Start with these exercises
Separating Legs from spine
We are going to do an exercise laying down on your back. The most important thing you have to focus on is engaging your core muscles to stabilize your spine and hips so that they don’t arch or rotate by the movement of your legs.
Important: You will focus on the stillness of your spine by engaging of your core while your arms and legs move around it. You will not focus on moving your arms and legs. Just your core. It is hard to keep your spine still, so you will engage your abs like never before.
Use your breathing to find and engage your core.
Starting position: Bend your knees about 90° on the ground.
Avoid pushing the ground too much with your feet. Most weight should be on the hip bones, and your legs and feet should feel light.
Extend your legs by dragging your heels on the ground away from your sit bones.
Typically, when you are almost fully extended, your hips tend to rotate and arch your lower back. Prevent this by engaging and breathing into your abs more at the end of the extension. No need to “straighten” your legs all the way at the end.
Drag your heels back to the starting position.
Important: Be very careful when starting to bring back your legs. The most common mistake (or habit) is arching the lower back before legs move. Prevent this by engaging your abs, and anchor your hip bones (feel them extra heavy) before moving your legs.
Do sets of 10, 3 times.
When you are done with this exercise and your spine can be still while your legs move, then you can also do other abs & legs movement exercises like bicycle legs exercise.
Separating arms from spine
If you have access to a Pilates reformer that would be the best choice for this exercise, but don’t sweat it if you don’t. You just need an elastic resistant band and something to hook it on.
I use my compression floss band which is the perfect length and gives me enough resistance for the next exercise. This thicker band has higher tension, so you might prefer this thinner band for easier training.
Side note: I haven’t covered fascia, and how it’s crucial to treat fascia that are tight to gain mobility and prevent injuries. You may never have heard of the compression floss band as a key item to release tight fascia. So you might want to look into getting one.
When you do this exercise you want to focus on your spine and abs to keep your back from arching off the ground. If your back is arching while you move your arms, it’s telling you that your core is not engaged. Use your breathing to engage your abs/core. So take a deep breath. You are going to pull on the resistance band and continuously give resistance to the pull of the band.
Hook your band to the barre. If you don’t have a barre, then use something that is about the height of your hand when extended to the ceiling.
Lay down far enough so that the band is not saggy.
Starting position A: Your arms should be raised 90° up to the ceiling.
Position B: Bring your elbow to your side while bending your elbows to 90°.
Finishing position C: Extend your elbows towards the ground.
Back to position B elbow 90°.
Back to starting position.
Repeat set of 10, 3 times.
When you are done, do another set. But this time go from starting position A to finishing position C without bending your elbow.
Do this 10 times or more.
Important: It is common mistake to release the tension when you are moving your arms back. Think of it this way: When you pull to move your arms down, you are increasing the pull. When you are moving your arms back, you are pulling it less, just controlling the pull of the band.
Now you are starting to be free from the most toxic relationship of your ballet life!
If you felt your limbs move in the ball and socket joints without your spine moving with them, that is what you want. That’s a great starting place. It will get even stronger and more coordinated over time.
If you still feel like your back is moving first before your arms and legs move, don’t worry. Now you are aware of what you need to work on.
If you can understand how to move your arms and legs by anchoring them to an engaged core, then you will be able to properly produce power for your dance technique. Your pirouettes and jumps are going to change!
For now, let’s enjoy and explore the freedom of your new healthy relationship.