Highland Highlights
By Loraine Ritchey
Cross Training in Highland Dancing by Bill Weaver
There has been quite a bit of talk lately about injury prevention and
training. As an aside, my opinion is that most of the injuries I see in
Highland are overuse injuries and that often it is the dancer that
causes many of this type of injury. That is not to say that there
aren't some teachers who might contribute to a dancer's injuries or that
it doesn't matter if you dance on bad floors. But, for the most part, I
believe that it is the dancer's lack of a consistent practice schedule
and not knowing their own physical limits when they do practice that
causes many of the injuries I have seen.
But, this long post doesn't
address that directly. I have been asked lately about using cross
training to enhance the quality of traditional dance practice sessions.
I think one of the biggest misconceptions that people have is that a
person can use cross training to become as skilled at Highland dancing
as a person who only does Highland dancing. I have spoken previously,
not necessarily on this group, about "sport specific" training. I will
attempt here to explain the difference between sport specific training
and cross training. Hopefully, after you weed through the following,
you will have a better understanding of the importance of sport specific
training and what place cross training really has in Highland dancing.
In order for anyone to become stronger, faster, or increase their
endurance, stamina or elevation, that person has to "overload" the
involved muscles. In order to understand the overload principle, you
also have to understand that the changes you are trying to stimulate by
overloading requires changes at the cellular level. These changes won't
occur overnight as it is a slow process that takes time. When you train
or practice, you cause damage to some cells. You also use up resources
within the cells such as fuel, water and electrolytes. Because of this,
right after you are done practicing you are weaker, not stronger. How
much weaker you are depends on how hard your practice session was and
how hard you worked your muscles. Over time, as you continue to
properly stress the muscles you get stronger or increase your stamina.
The cells in your bodies are always trying to maintain a balance, so the
stress of exercise results in not just a repair to former levels, but an
adjustment or buildup of the stressed system to help minimize stress in
the future. When you practice, if the intensity or duration of overload
is too small, little or no adaptation growth is stimulated. On the other
hand, if the overload is too great, growth or adaptation is delayed or
even prevented.
The best practice program is one that best stimulates the adaptations
referred to above, while minimizing the stress put on the body in order
to trigger the adaptations. In layman's terms, you should try to do the
least practicing possible that still achieves the desired results. So,
besides being sure not to over work or under work, your program would
also need to have the correct amount of recovery time that is long
enough to allow the repairs to occur, but not so long that it allows the
cells to revert back toward the state they were in prior to training.
Just like athletes, you also have to train to become good Highland
dancers. When you practice, you each choose how hard and how long you
will practice and you repeat this with a certain amount of frequency
(hopefully close to daily). Each person has his or her own minimum
amount of intensity (how hard) and duration (how long) of stress that
must be exceeded before the body begins to adapt to them. For example,
when sedentary people (couch potatoes) start an exercise program, we
probably wouldn't see significant improvements in their exercise
capacity unless the training was at an intensity that exceeds 50% of
their maximal oxygen consumption. Fortunately, this isn't too difficult
to achieve, after all, if all you have been doing is watching
television, almost any exercise helps. The bad news is that one of the
unfortunate effects of training is that this threshold level increases
as we become more fit. In highly trained athletes, the threshold level
may be over 80% of their maximal oxygen consumption instead of just 50%
for the couch potato. Now here is the good news, not every practice
session needs to be at or near our maximum level. Unfortunately some
dancers never learn this, or they only learn it after sustaining
repeated injuries due to over training and staleness. What this means
is that if you are at a level of strength and endurance that you are
happy with, you could exercise at an intensity that is a little below
the higher training threshold and maintain your existing levels of
strength and endurance. As competitive dancers, you need to determine
what intensity and length of time will cause the adaptations you want
without doing too little, which won't cause any adaptation, or too much,
which may inhibit adaptation as well as cause overuse injuries, which
are adaptations you don't want.
I'm not sure why, but many people believe that "Cross training" is the
key to peak performance. I hate to break the news to you, but this
isn't necessarily true. Any sport you participate in places demands on
your body in two basic ways. First, the exercise will have a very
specific effect on your joint and muscle coordination. What that means
is that for Highland dancers is that there is simply no substitute for
Highland dancing, including aerobics and ballet or any other form of
dance. The same goes for swimmers or soccer players or any other sport.
Even when you try to duplicate the basic movement of a sports skill by
performing strength training exercises, the transfer of increased
strength acquired through strength training to the actual sports
movement is usually very small or totally absent. Depending on how the
strength is achieved, such as dancing with weights on your ankles
(something I don't recommend), this type of practicing can hinder
performance of the skill you are trying to improve because you are
practicing improper technique. Second, the non related exercise will
place increased demands on a very specific group of muscles, not
necessarily the muscles you intended to stress. For example, running and
cross-country skiing seem to involve many of the same muscles, used in
similar ways. However, several research studies have demonstrated that
there is no relationship between the amount of energy used when
treadmill running and the amount of energy used when cross country
skiing. To put it in a scenario you can better understand, if you think
that you can do biking, or running or aerobics as a substitute for
practicing Highland, thinking that your legs will remain in good shape
for dancing, you are wrong. To further explain why........
To improve endurance capacity in a specific sport requires change and
modification by the body in both 1) high oxygen delivery via a strong
heart and 2) high local blood flow that carries the oxygen in the
precise muscles used. The first portion CAN and does benefit from cross
training because all good dancers or athletes need a strong heart to
pump the blood that carries the oxygen to the muscles. However, the
only way to develop the second portion of endurance, the part after the
blood actually gets to the muscles, is to train those exact muscles by
doing your specific sport. If you need proof, just ask a distance
runner to swim a mile, or vice versa. Without proper training, either
one will be hard pressed to do the other's event very well.
So there is a place for cross training but, far from being the panacea
many think it is, the purpose and value of cross training is limited.
For example, during the off season, a dancer may choose to practice
dancing only half as much as normal because she is mentally tired of
dancing and because no competitions are imminent. This is the time when
cross training could be of value as you might want to mix in running,
biking or swimming along with your dancing to increase your aerobic
exercise volume to keep you from growing mentally stale and losing your
cardiorespiratory fitness. Cross training helps maintain your general
aerobic base during the off season, while allowing you temporary relief,
both physical and mental, from the constant practicing. That way you
can get ready, both mentally and physically, for of another cycle of
intense practicing of Highland dance. However, even when you are running
or biking, you should always remember and be aware that when you get
right down to it, it is the quality and quantity of your dance practice
that will determine if you win or lose any upcoming competitions.
Cross training can also be used during the competitive season while
dancers are in the middle of intense Highland dance practice sessions.
Besides improving your technique, endurance and strength, one of the
keys to success in any sport is staying injury free. Weight training by
itself doesn't do anything to improve a dancer's back steps. But, if
weight training maintains muscular balance in the dancer's upper body,
which helps prevent injury by helping the dancer to maintain proper body
alignment, then it is helping her because, by remaining injury free, she
is able to continue to practice those back steps. By the same token,
swimming isn't dancing, but if by swimming a dancer is able to take the
pressure off of her tired feet, ankles, knees and hips on the day that
she is using as a recovery day after an especially hard Highland session
the day before, then it will probably make the next dance practice
better. Try to use cross training activities that allow you to do your
dance specific training workouts with greater enthusiasm and intensity,
or less risk of injury. In other words, cross training should be seen as
a supplement to dance practice, not a substitute for it.
As always for Questions and Comments, I can be reached at
Loraine Ritchey, 1127.W. 4th Street, Lorain, Ohio, 44052.
lritch7@yahoo.com