In a recent post, I adapted Tim Ferriss’ DiSSS system for efficiently learning and came up with an outline for becoming a better ballroom dancer. In this post, I’m going to sketch a daily ballroom dance yogi workout routine I’ve devised to handle the Targeted Exercises and Stretches section of that outline. Dancing and yoga are two of my three favorite ways to move my body so I love how well yoga to benefits dancing.

I’m going to discuss some of my favorite exercises to address my goals and needs. These are not the only exercises I ever perform, nor do I perform all of them every day. I try to perform one or more of the exercises from each section every day, but sometimes I’ll go for a long walk, do a yoga DVD, or just take a nap, instead 😛

Goals

These are reiterated from my post DiSSS Method Applied to Ballroom Dancing in the Targeted Exercises and Stretches section. They are not independent of each other, working one will impact the others:

1. Improve focus and concentration while reducing anxiety
2. Improve posture by reducing lordosis (lordotic curve) and anterior pelvic tilt (APT)
3. Improve balance with core strength AND mobility, balance muscles, foot and calf muscles, and improving posture
4. Improve latin motion by targeting muscles specific to this motion
5. Improve leg line by stretching and strengthening legs and feet

Kettlebell Workouts

These workouts are taken from The Kiwi’s Complete A/B Workout, which is described in The 4-Hour Body. A kettlebell workout is a quick way to work all the muscles in your body and get your heart rate up. I consider this the multivitamin of my otherwise yoga-centric workout routine. I aim for 25-50 kettlebell swings each day.

Breathing Exercises

Proper breathing and a healthy diaphragm muscle can dramatically improve a lordotic curve in the spine, in addition to improving a host of other conditions. Not only that, it is the foundation upon which a healthy spinal curvature and core strength are built. Without a good foundation, all other exercises will be working slightly against you even as they work for you. There are numerous exercises in yoga that focus on breath awareness and making full use of the diaphragm while breathing. Also, every exercise in yoga works on coordinating breath and movement, so I try to stay aware – it’s easy to “skip” that part of the practice!

I like to incorporate some exercises that focus on the breath in each of my workouts, although every exercise in the workouts emphasizes good breath technique. As a bonus, exercises that involve maintaining awareness of the breath are essentially a form of meditation, which works on improving concentration and reducing anxiety. Here are some of my go-to breathing exercises:

Mantra

A good mantra can get you taking big deep breaths. It also trains the voice. You are actually massaging the inside of your body with the voice. Try to practice past your boredom threshold (when you feel like stopping, keep going for a few more minutes). This will improve your breathing capacity, voice, and give you meditative benefits.

Guided Breathing Meditation

These typically focus on breathing a specific way that challenges the breathing muscles to expand and grow. They may involve holding the breath in or out. They are often done with the eyes gazing down or with eyes closed. Sometimes physical exercises (such as pumping the stomach) are also involved.

Core (Front and Back) Muscle Strength

Strong core muscles are just one part of a strong dancer’s core. Nevertheless, they are an important part. The following exercises target important core muscle groups.

• Plank – Maintain a push-up position for as long as possible.
• Boat pose (also called stretch pose) – lying on your back, lift your legs and upper back just off the floor. Your body is stretched out and your core is engaged to keep the body lifted.
• Hip Raises (or Glute Activation Raises) – I really don’t like this exercise, probably because I need it. Work on moving through the largest range of motion possible without straining the back. Don’t life your hip high enough to feel any pressure in the low back. You may be lifting your hips much lower than you typically would during this exercise. When you bring the hips onto the floor, really press the spine into the floor. Stay aware of how your neck moves throughout this exercise.
• Flying dog – On hands and knees, raise alternate hands and legs out and level with the back. Can alternate legs and hands each time, or work one side then the other. If working one side at a time, can bring the knee to the chest between extensions to work the core.

Spinal (core) Mobility

As a dancer, core strength is important but just as important is core mobility. Core mobility may be lacking because of habitual patterns that restrict movement or because of an imbalance of strength or flexibility. Retraining habitual patterns of movement means rewiring the brain, and this is done through awareness while moving. Once again, yoga is ideal here. I’ve taken some of my favorite yoga exercises and modified them with core mobility training in mind – adjusting the speed and movements for a more complete mobility training.

Spinal Flexes and Rotations

These may include any of the following:

• Cat Cow – We are going to modify slightly: move your hands so that your fingers move towards each other during cat. Move your hands so that your fingers point away from each other during cow. Flex the feet to stretch the toes during cow. Point the feet during cat.
• Sufi Grind (Spinal Rotations) – Done seated or standing. Rotating the spine in large circles while keeping the hands on the knees (if sitting) or on the hips (if standing). Make to rotate both ways.
• Spinal Flexes – Flexing the spine forward and back. Done seated with legs crossed or in rock pose. If done crossed-legged, hold at your ankles to work the lower back and at the knees to work the chest. I like to release the hands altogether for the lower back flex to engage my core at that area to ensure I’m not encouraging a lordotic curve.
• Spinal Rotations – Completed with various arm positions. Sometimes seated and sometimes standing. Rotating the upper body from left to right

Core-dination

A strong core for dancing requires using the breath with balanced mobility and muscular contraction. Therefore, these exercises target the core muscles while also emphasizing awareness of coordinated movements and breath. Almost all yoga poses are good for coordination and most work the core in some way. Moving through several poses, as in sun salutation, can be especially effective for linking movement and breath.

• Sun Salutation – In my adult life of doing yoga, I’ve come across this series of exercises more than any other. It’s a great stretch and toning series for so many muscles in the body. It’s also a great exercise to coordinate breath and movement. You can replace up dog with cobra pose, taking time to really feel the stretch in your upper body while focusing on keeping the core muscles engaged to avoid straining the low back.
• Any exercise performed slowly and intentionally – Slowing down and focusing on performing the movements correctly will engage and rewire the mind, improving coordination, technique, and ease of movement in the chosen exercise.

Foot and Leg Strength

Working the toes, feet, ankles, and legs improves the dancer’s leg line and articulation. Here are some of my favorite yoga poses for strengthening these areas:
Note: I’ve stopped doing leg lifts and cross-crawl for the time being. Due to my anterior pelvic tilt, I want to focus on stretching hip flexors, not strengthening them.

• Ankle circles – Crouching down on the balls of your feet, circle your ankles around. Don’t forget to switch directions. Place you hands on the floor for balance, but don’t rest your weight on them.
• Leg lifts – Work on diaphragm breathing, keeping your low back against the floor, and keeping the legs straight with the toes pointed throughout the exercise. Can lift both legs together and one leg at the time. Slightly different muscles groups are worked in each case. Can also vary pointing or straightening the feet as you raise and lower the legs.
• Wide Angle Leg Lifts – A variation of leg lifts. Lying on your back, the legs go from a lifted position with the feet together to a split. Works the inner and outer thighs.
• Cross-crawl – Standing, lift one knee at a time while raising the alternate arms. It sounds funny but I like to practice my hand styling here as I lift the arm. Make sure the core is engaged so that your body is straight. Practice on your toes for foot workout
• Pose variations with pointed feet – typically, poses like triangle pose, lunge pose, and plank pose are done with the feet flexed. Doing these poses with the feet pointed (in lunge pose, only the back foot is pointed) make them a challenge for your pointed feet. Just be careful your ankle doesn’t buckle in.
• Weighted leg extensions – This targets the knee extensors (quadriceps) without targeting the hip flexors. Strong knee extenders are important for straightening the legs
• Squats – This can include a standard squat, holding in chair pose, frog pose, or plies from ballet.
• I also use YouTube videos designed for ballet dancers to strengthen my feet and toes. See references for a couple of my favorite workouts.

Flexibility

I try to do flexibility poses after I’ve warmed up the muscles with other exercises to really get the full extension I’m capable of. My flexibility varies from day to day. With that in mind, I try not to force anything lest I damage my body to the point of slowing down progress. For flexibility poses, it’s best to contract the muscle you want to stretch before stretching it. This warms the muscle and also fatigues it, making the stretch more effective.
See my APT post for additional stretches I’m focusing on, along with other strengthening and stretching exercises targeting APT

• Heron Pose – This is a great stretch for the backs of the legs. I modify this pose by articulating my feet and legs to stretch different parts of the legs. Specifically, I find it easier to stretch when the leg is turned out, so I focus on stretching with the leg turned in. Pushing the straight leg against the hands also gives you an opportunity to work on a straighter leg line. Finally, I put pressure against the feet with my hands and point and flex the feet to give the feet a work out. To reduce strain in the arms and hands from all the pressure, a stretching band can be used to hold the leg up in Heron.
• Wheel – For this and bow pose, make sure to engage the lower back so it doesn’t get overstretched. Work on lift the chest rather than feeling the stretch in the low back only.
• Bow pose
• Pigeon – Adjust this pose so that you feel it predominantly in the quad of the back leg, then re-adjust so you feel it predominantly in the hip flexors of the front leg. Make sure both get stretched.
• Splits – I’ve just started using a band to stretch my legs for straddle splits.

Basic Ballroom Dance – Latin Steps

Working the basic steps and patterns in ballroom dance never gets old. To improve my latin motion, I first complete the patterns while moving as slowly as possible. While at this snails’ pace, we are actually training our minds more than our bodies, so it is important to stay hyper-focused and aware of how your body is moving through space. With awareness, the body will notice places where muscles are holding when they could be relaxed, minimizing the effort required for motion. Since proper mobility is essentially completing movement with minimal effort, the proper patterns of movement will become obvious without instruction. Some specific exercises include:

• Rumba walks – there are several exercises that address this basic slow movement pattern.

Bonus Stretches and Exercises

These exercises don’t target my “problem areas”, but they are favorites and address important areas that still need a workout.

• Forward stretching – this really opens the back and backs of the legs.
• Extended sequences of fast arm movements – my favorites involve alternating arm punch motions (with less force than a punch) and simultaneous straight arm raises and crosses. These exercises strengthen the upper body and nervous system.

Kudos

The exercises and information in this post come from things I’ve read, performed, and digested mostly in the following places:
Dance Stronger
The 4-Hour Body
Raviana | Kundalini Yoga
deegerodias.com
These two foot strengthening routines are great. The first one is longer if you want to spend a lot of time working your feet and ankles. The latter one takes less than 10 minutes.
Feet & Pointe Strengthening Exercises | Kathryn Morgan Pre Ballet Class Feet Strengthening Routine | Kathryn Morgan