Dance is not just for girls. The research shows that it produces superior athleticism and is excellent at preventing injuries. Professional athletes have been implementing it for years. From the brawny, beefed-up players on the gridiron to the bare-knuckled scrappers on the ice, they learned to be graceful.

However, don’t think of grace only as elegant. Look at it as refinement and precision. That is probably why ballet and dance are hidden gems in sports performance. Heck, it is a secret weapon for the Russian hockey team besides doping.

Athletes who Dance to Boost Performance

Lynn Swan- Football Player – Ballet

Lynn said people don’t understand dance. He said it is all about rhythm, timing, body control, and coordination; everything you need on the field. The finishing of one move is the preparation and continuation of the next. Lynn said he started developing an ability to feel very comfortable in the air, especially when running a route to jump up and catch the ball. To do that, you need body control developed by danceability.

Steve McClendon- Football Player – Ballet

Steve said in comparison to football, “Ballet is harder than anything else I do.”

John A. Bergfeld – Cleveland Browns Medical Adviser

He said that ballet is excellent at preventing injuries. He saw fewer injuries occur once players started doing ballet.

Kobe Bryant- Basketball Player- Tap Dance

Koby Bryan did tap dance classes to strengthen his ankles. And he also noticed quicker feet on the court.

Alex Collins- Football Player – Irish Dance

He does Irish dance and saw improved lower body strength on the field because of repetitive jumping and landing on his toes.

Other ballet athletes are Michael Jordan, Herschel Walker, Evander Holyfield, the 2015 Dallas Cowboys (made a staple in their training schedule), Stephen Curry, Willie Gault, Barry Sanders, Muhammad Ali, and Sugar Ray Robinson.

Benefits of Ballet and Dance

Dance and ballet focus on strengthening deep, small, stabilizing internal muscles. These muscles stabilize joints during movement as well as sitting and standing. However, the exercises to strengthen these smaller muscles are often sacrificed for larger ones like squats. What’s important to know is those small muscles transfer force to the larger muscles. And when they are weak, injury occurs.

Think of it like a Ford Mustang. It is a powerful and fast car. But when you pop the hood, there are many small pieces and mechanisms that make the motor powerful and explosive for the car to be fast.

These internal stabilizing muscles must be active, aligned, strong, and flexible before larger muscles and movements like a squat can function effectively and progressively. They produce fine motor control. For example, people often feel pain when they squat because the smaller stabilizers are weak, making the joint dysfunctional.

Stability and Balance
When you have balance and stability, you enhance speed, power, and explosiveness. Think of it like this if you jump off the dock into the lake, you can produce speed, explosiveness, and height in your jump. But if you jump into the lake out of the canoe, there is little stability. Therefore, the result is a loss of speed, power, explosiveness, and height in your jump. That is the importance of the smaller muscles and stability that are fine-tuned and developed from dance.

Coordination

Dancing is an excellent way to improve your coordination and proprioception. It improves timing and the movement sequence, which enhances your rhythm. It involves using all your muscles and brain to create the circuitry that transfers and boosts your sport. For example, ballet and dance will enhance the coordination of your footwork which will make it faster.

Flexibility

Ballet and dance enhance flexibility because you must be able to stretch entirely through specific movements and ranges of motion. For example, Michael Jordan’s famous logo with his legs spread and dunking the ball is a ballet pose.

Corrective Unilateral Strength

Depending on your sport can make you dominate on one side; how you hold, throw, kick, hit the ball, etc., produces strength imbalances. As a result of such, it leads to dysfunction and injury. Ballet and dance are excellent for developing strength and speed of your weak side to balance your strength.

Agility

Agility is the ability to move quickly in a different direction: like running down the field to juke the defense. Those small stabilizing muscles are essential to produce fast, quick redirection movements that are fine-tuned in dance. As I said, developing these smaller stabilizing and internal muscles makes a huge difference. Ballet and dance will improve the speed and sequence of your agility and movements.

Explosive Ability

Ballet and dance improve your explosive ability because they focus on fast eccentric and concentric movements. Furthermore, it enhances the efficiency of the stretch-shortening cycle.

Sports That Benefit from Dance Training

Does not matter the sport. All can benefit! For example, tennis, football, rugby, baseball, sprinting, soccer, hockey, tennis, squash, karate, or MMA.

You don’t need to buy ballet tights or shoes. Instead, classes are offered in an open, relaxed atmosphere free from the professional ballet environment.

You can master movements in just a few weeks. So, you can see improvements in your sport instantly!

Ballet seems to be one of the older, more traditional ways athletes improve sports performance. It is classically known to improve flexibility, strength, power, stability, balance, etc. But nowadays you have Irish dance, a very fast, explosive type of dance. And, you have tap and jazz dance that can improve quick feet and agility.

Remember, your sport is a choreography like a dance. Learning dance will improve mental focus, concentration, and ability. Therefore, integrating it into your training routine enhances the execution of your sport-specific movements.

So, you should find what types of dance work best for your sports performance.