Marco Cappalunga fotografo
 

Health

Health How to get good musculature

1. Make a good-warming exercise before you start your lesson.

2. Perform correctly each movement. (If you are unsure ask your teacher).

3. Follow an Healty alimentation: little sugar and snacks, lots of protein, fruits and vegetables.

4. Dedicate to yourself moments of good rest.

5. Never underestimate a muscle pain. If you feel pain, stop immediately the exercise you're doing. Talk to your teachers, they will show you the best exercises to get through.

6. In case of injury, do not overlook the medical prescriptions. Do not rush to recover the time lost because of the accident.

Warm-up Exercises

The heathing exercises have the purpose to increase body temperature. The amount, the intensity and the duration of the heathing exercises vary depending on the subjective characteristics, climate, sweating. If possible it is best to start the performance immediately after the heathing exercises. You have to remember that the duration of the increase in body temperature and the extent of its effects can last from 40 to 70 minutes. The temperature increase in tissue appears to be responsible for the reduction of musculoskeletal injuries.

The most common pathologies of the dancers

Hallux valgus (Bunion).
Hallux Valgus is a disease of the foot caused by an improper support on the tip or by the use of shoes that force the fingers. It is a deviated position of the big toe toward the second toe that causes the deviation in the angle between the first and second metatarsal bones of the foot and can cause a painful limitation of movement. During the day, the dancers can use a special thong around the big toe. During the night, however, it is possible to use a special traction device. The dancers can improve the disease also thanks to a special program of physiotherapy. The warm-up exercises, in this case, are very important: they must be long and specifically for this desease. All the diseases of the big toe interfere with the proper use of the foot. Because of this disease a dancer can have many difficulty to maintain the proper alignment of the foot and this can cause injuries in other parts of the body as leg, ankle, knee and hip. The dancers should not do any surgery until the end of their careers.

Bladders.
Bladders are blistering of detachment of the skin, of mechanical origin, due to friction. It is best to avoid, before the lessons and shows, foot baths with hot water that makes the skin more fragile;it is useful to rub risk areas with methylated spirits to "harden" the skin. As therapy is necessary to clean the bladder, disinfecting. After you must prick the bladder in two or more parts and empty it. It would be better not to remove the skin to prevent infections: very useful to apply medical plasters padded.

Brevity of the first metatarsal.
The brevity of the first metatarsal poses serious stability problems, because if the first metatarsal is short, can not bear the weight and the dancer will try to maintain stability on the second and third.If the weight is unloaded medially there is "breakdown" in the position on half-toes, and this will damage the forefoot, the foot, ankle, knee and also the trunk. This defect can not be corrected with surgery, so the dancer must try to obviate the difficulty with the technique.

Calluses and Corns.
Corns and calluses are caused by microtrauma as a result of abnormal friction pressure. In a first stage the skin, subjected to friction or load, is compressed and accumulate the cells of the superficial layers. At a second stage, the irritation causes a lymphovascular reaction with local inflammation or bunions.In the third and final stage you can have nerve irritation, infection, reactions to the underlying bone. Both in the presence of calluses and corns, the subject tries to avoid the support on the body interested party, and the evolution towards chronicity is usually the rule. The therapeutic approach depends on the severity: at the first stage we must protect the party to avoid the constant rubbing; after the dancer must understand the why of overload and must change those conditions.The final treatment goals are to remove the central keratin core for short-term pain relief and to reshape the skin to provide long-term prevention of excess friction. In any case you must treat and correct the cause leading to the formation of calluses.

Cramp.
The cramp is related to the inability of the contractile structures to return to the starting position. To contract a muscle, it needs energy to contract itself that is created by demolishing the formation of glucose with lactic acid: all this is done in the presence of oxygen. Once lactic acid is formed, the muscle converts it into energy, but only if ther is sufficient oxygen for oxidation. A poor diet, an exercise not performed properly or an improper exercise, can transform the muscle incapable to restore this situation, making difficult remove the products of fatigue. This will give you the "cramp", a strong limitation athletics, but wich is usually a reversible situation.

Contracture.
Unlike the cramp, contracture is not linked to energy problems, but to conditions that lead to imbalance of the muscle to react with a spasm. In practice, the muscle is stressed beyond its elastic limit of endurance for which "stretches" without tearing, with the result that the muscle fibers react to set aside the fabric hyperstimulation. Also environmental factors may affect, such as hot or too cold, preventing the muscle to restore the biochemical balance and functional. This condition is reversible, but needs rest, to avoid further stress to a muscle more vulnerable and therefore more damaged. The muscle tissue is stressed beyond its elastic endurance limit, so it stretches without tearing. It needs rest.

Ankle sprain.
The ankle sprain is the disease most reported and the most misunderstood in the dance. To get a proper treatment is necessary to identify which ligaments are damaged: radiograph is necessary to exclude bone lesions, and palpation to locate the affected ligament. Treatment depends on the severity of the injury. You can make a bandage, with local applications of ice, or a chalk, up to surgery. After a rehabilitation therapy is necessary: as a first step we must make large movements and slow to allow corrections. After we must stimulate the sensibility that is the basis of stability and balance;re-educates the ankle using an inclined plane, do stretching exercises and relaxing massages. All this is accompanied by laser therapy, ultrasound, and iontophoresis, that help to assuage the pain and to reduce the inflammation.

Pulled muscle.
In this case there is a real anatomical damage that affects only certain muscle fibers. To stop extending the damage you need a certain period of rest. It also needs a proper diagnosis and a precise rehabilitation. A pulled muscle should never be massaged and just rest and ice can prevent the extension of the damage. The massage damages, in this case, further muscle fibers, resulting in a lesion of greater amplitude.

Muscle strain.
In this case, the muscle tissue appears deeply torn and affects a significant number of fibers until to involve the entire muscle belly. The muscle does not repair itself with the production of new muscle cells, but with a real scar, consisting of woven fabrics: this prevents the normal activity of the muscle. Here too a correct diagnosis is of great importance and should be entrusted to an expert doctor prescribing the appropriate exams, targeted therapy and a proper rest. Most important is the phase of rehabilitation, whose purpose is that the scar tissue will be able to model itself until to integrates itself in the context of muscle tissue.

Heel inflammation.
It is characterized by pain that occurs under the heel when the foot rests on the ground; persists, attenuated, during rest. The cause is to be found in a chronic bruising of the heel, compressed between the soil and weight of the body and occurs most frequently due to many small repetitive trauma due to the jumps and the hard floors: a cement floor can not absorb the impact of feet on the ground. The physiotherapy treatment gives excellent results up to a complete recovery.

Tenosynovitis of Hallux.
This is due to position your foot when you stand on tips. Start with a nodule on the tendon, but, as the inflammation progresses, it becomes kind of stenosis and in severe cases causes a "pseudo rigid hallux." The symptoms are pain, swelling and feebleness of the medial malleolus. The treatment consists of rest, stretching and anti-inflammatory drugs, in the worst cases we resort to surgery.

Warts
The wart is caused by a virus, is contagious and settles in the skin of the foot, where it digs a lodge, surrounding itself with corneum material and goes deeply towards the nerve endings. Unlike plantar callus is soft, bleeds easily and is more painful. It is contagious by direct contact, especially in the pool, public showers and the like, where the humidity opens the pores making it easier to input. The treatments ranging from cryotherapy to electrolysis, from chemical cauterization to surgery, always under medical supervision.