Hips Don't Lie

“There is only the dance.”

-T. S. Eliot

Turnout should always come from the hip, if it doesn’t it can lead to the foundations of incorrect technique and joint problems. No matter how high the kick, if turn out is not extended straight from the hip, it can lead to major dance injuries. This said, dance takes a huge toll on a dancer’s hips. Common injuries include; “labral tears, snapping hip, and various forms of tendonitis” stated by Dr. Peter Lavine an orthopedic surgeon whom treated The Washington Ballet Dancers in 2011.

Forceful turnout has been proven to result in these hip problems. The everyday pressure for better turnout can just as easily cause these problems as a bad fall. This is, “because of the extreme range of motion, the labrum can get pinched between the ball and socket of the hip joint,” says Patrick McCulloh the orthopedic surgeon for The Houston Ballet. A labrum tear is feelings of sharp pain in the hip or groin region, causing stiffness and a limited range of motion, possibly relatable to a locking sensation. Recovery for a labrum tear usually takes wees to months to heal, after assistance from anti-inflammatories, physical therapy, and in extremely serious cases arthroscopic therapy.

Snapping hip occurs when a tendon or muscle passes over a bone. McCulloh has found there are two types of snapping hip; external and internal. External is when your IT band rubs against your trochanter too tight. Internal is where the iliopsoas tendon rubs against the hip’s front. Pain is more tolerated in snapping hip, most noticed by the snapping feeling it makes out from the hip bone. Snapping hip only becomes dangerous if it develops tendonitis, which can be healed by stretching out the internal and external joints with a roller.

Yes, hip injuries are extremely painful, but they are preventable. Efforts to prevent hip injuries is getting a healthy amount of calcium in your diet, developing an equal amount of strength in both hips (some dancers take Pilates class to this, because it helps gain better hip flexibility), and as mentioned earlier, using a roller. Strengthening of the abdominals, and pelvic area is crucial to prevent injuries in dancer’s hips. Strangely enough sea salt in your food is actually super healthy for your joints, due to the minerals it contains from coming from the waters. Hips are an asset to a dancer, take good care of them.

~Julia

Note: Many ideas and information is taken from Nancy Wozny’s article “From the Hip” in Dance Magazine’s 2011 December issue.