Most common dance injuries and their causes
What You Should Know About Dance Injuries:
As with any type of physical activity, certain precautions should be used to reduce the risk of injury. And even though there will still be a chance of potential injuries to occur, the risk of it would significantly reduced with using certain precautions, such as stretching, not overworking, and being watchful of others and things that can cause bumping and tripping.
All of this applies with dancing as well. Injuries, such as muscle strain, tripping, and sore tendons, can all occur when participating in this fun activity. Wearing the proper size of dance shoes is important to eliminate potential problems. When it comes to ballroom dancing, for instance, you are not wearing gym shoes with support. You are most likely wearing shoes with hard bottoms, and small to medium height heels if you are a woman. And with ballroom dancing being on hard floors, you are even more prone to get feet problems to say the least, like bunions and plantar fasciitis. Bunions are normally caused when wearing tight fitting shoes, and constant irritation of the big toe joints, and plantar fasciitis is a irritation or strain of the ligament connecting your heel bone to the toes. This causes inflammation and tremendous pain to the foot, especially the heel. With all of this said, it's important to stretch first and after dancing; wear the right size of shoes; and to not overdo the ballroom dancing, especially when wearing heels.
The following are other common dance injuries and their causes:
• Muscle Cramp - is when a muscle is involuntarily contracted that won't relax, and it's painful. It is caused by muscle tightness, fluid imbalance, fatigue, sodium, or potassium from heavily sweating.
• Shin Splints - pain in the front of the lower leg inside of the shin bone. It's caused by improper landing, poor flexibility, and jumping on hard surfaces.
• Muscle Strain - aka pulled muscle, is the damage of the muscle or its surrounding tendons caused by overstretching. Swelling and/or muscle tenderness would occur with this problem.
• Stress Fracture - it's repeated trauma or overuse of a bone. It's caused by muscles being overloaded or fatigued which would cause the inability to absorb the shock and stress of repeated impact. Repeated leaping and landing in dancing normally cause this situation.
According to 'foot health facts', the following are also some common dance injuries:
• Dancer's Fracture or fifth metatarsal fracture - twisting the ankle when landing, or landing on the outward portion of the foot.
• Lateral Ankle Sprain - happens when landing inappropriately, or ankle twisting when landing.
• Ankle Impingement Syndrome - the front or the back of the ankle's bone structure is pitched upon the ankle pointing one way or the other.
• Trigger Toe/Flexor Hallucis Longus Tenosynovitis - the big toe inability to freely move throughout the motion range derived from the tendon not being able to glide in its canal.
According to "Podiatry Today", evaluating the fit of the shoes, and avoiding walking barefoot would help; and it said that padding, injection therapy, and strapping may help with different dance injuries. Also, resting, applying ice to the wounded area, and elevating the legs would assist when recovering from injuries of the legs/feet from dancing.