Avoiding Knee Pain in Dance
Did you know that knee pain is one of the most common ailments in dancers of all ages? As such, one of the most important aspects of dance training is the prevention and management of this type of discomfort. Whether you're spending long hours in class jumping, getting on and off the floor, or working on your coolest tricks and lifts, you may want to consider what is best for your knees and how to make them feel good through the entire dance season.
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The most common knee discomfort experienced by dancers is called patellofemoral pain syndrome, also referred to as PFP. Patellofemoral pain syndrome describes a few different issues that can involve your kneecap. The most common cause of PFP is a lack of control at the knee joint. This may be due to:
weakness of the quad itself (kicking and squatting muscles)
weakness of the lateral chain (your side and back hip muscles)
tightness of the hamstrings and groin muscles
or most likely a combination of all these things.
When experiencing PFP, you may have discomfort that comes on with repetitive jumping or landing, deep knee bending, or even transitions on and off the floor. This pain may start off as an infrequent issue, but often becomes more constant and nagging if not treated early.
What Do You Do If You Have Knee Cap Pain?
The first thing is to prevent the pain from progressing. This may mean some sort of relative rest and management of pain and inflammation. A physical therapist or doctor would be best at telling you how much to rest or if you should work through the discomfort. Once there is some degree of pain control, treatment boils down to correcting poor movement patterns and making sure you are strong enough to handle dance moves in all directions. Specifically, I recommend strengthening the quadriceps as well as the lateral chain. It is one of the main treatments for patellofemoral pain syndrome.
“Being a dancer and a physical therapist gives me the understanding of the stresses and pain some dancers suffer through. My knowledge not only helps me understand what they are expected to do, but also the best way to go about rehabilitating and strengthening for their next performance.”
How Can You Prevent Knee Cap Pain?
If you’re experiencing knee pain, treatment can come in many forms. For starters, strength and control at, and around, the knee is essential for preventing knee pain while dancing. Once strength improves, training for dynamic control and improvement in your form should be addressed in elements such as landing, deep knee bending, and all the movements that are putting the most strain on the knees during dance class.
Beyond strength, endurance and interval training are also essential in cross-training for dancers who are trying to avoid knee pain as well as any other injury. Dance is unique in that it requires both endurance and high-intensity bursts of energy equally. Most serious dancers participate in shows and classes that last hours at a time, and should be trained as such. However, within that time period there are many periods of rest, which often gives the body too much of a “cool down” and usually not enough time to ramp up for the high-intensity demands needed for the next routine. As such, a dancer’s cross-training should involve many different types of workouts, including both endurance-based and interval training that is applicable to the dance moves that you want to accomplish.
Cross-Training Is Helping Many Dancers Recover from Knee Pain
It is important that cross-training becomes an essential part of your dance training to prevent knee pain and specifically patellofemoral pain syndrome. It is easy to stick to dance training only, as it consumes many hours of the day and it may be challenging to find time for cross-training, but it is essential for injury prevention and should become a priority.
Once strength and control are improving with cross-training, it’s important to understand the proper form and technique for jumping as this is one of the most common causes of knee cap pain in dancers. Jump training should include working on landing small and large jumps in both parallel and turned out positions. These different foot positions place different angles of stress on the knee. Better form while jumping decreases the risk of having pain AND can improve your jump height. To see some examples of jump training for dancers, watch our video below. These can be practiced in or out of class.
Are You a Dancer Who Wants to Overcome PFP?
So if you are looking to find out more about PFP as it relates to dancers and yourself, or you are experiencing knee pain currently with your dancing and want to know how to make yourself feel the best that you can, request an appointment now for an evaluation to achieve your specific goals in dance!