Based on a true story.

When I was in my senior year of high school, I fractured my foot in four separate places.

I had just upped my classes, I was finally getting good, I was in the highest level classes. This was a devastating injury. 

I was put in a boot for eight weeks and told to rest. 

So I did... I watched all my classes; I did a modified warm up, marked the arms, stood in my places for blocking, etc. 

I felt good once I finally got my boot off. I went back to all of my classes right away. I didnt want to miss another minute.

I felt like I was whole again.

But then what do you know... 2 weeks later, the pain started. 

By this time, we were a week out from recitals. I was not going to miss my LAST chance to dance with my best friends. So I did what any reasonable athlete would do, I taped the crap out of my ankle and hoped for the best.

I got through recital weekend pretty unscathed. But I knew I wanted to keep dancing in college, so I had to figure out what was going on.

I went back to the orthopedic surgeon and they took xrays and said there were still stress fractures.

And then he put me back in a boot.

This is when my big mouth came out. And I said, "how am i supposed to just do nothing for the next eight weeks again?!"and he said, "you can do other things at the gym". And this is when I laid it on him, "I'm a dancer, we don't use the same muscles as regular people in the gym".

God Bless that man because he probably looked at me like I had 20 heads. 

Well... after seven years of schooling I can for sure tell you that is a load of bull. 

Not only have I learned how FALSE my accusation was, but also how seriously important weight training is specifically for dancers. And no, not because it will make you bulky (which it won't), but because we are ATHLETES and deserve to train our bodies accordingly. 

Ready to train appropriately?

Click "train like an athlete" to start understanding how your body works.

train like an athlete