What is a Biomechanical Evaluation?
Biomechanics is an understanding the relationships between the dancer’s foot, legs and upper body. This is very important to understanding and improving the ballet dancer’s technique. Research states that biomechanical assessments, inclusive of static and dynamic functional tests, are able to examine a dancer’s core stability, foot and ankle strength, flexibility, lower extremity alignment, and postural control. This helps to determine muscle imbalances, and compensation and may include orthotic therapy recommendations to correct and improve imbalances.
Conditions that can cause imbalances can include but are not limited to: flat feet, high arches, hypermobility, and limb length discrepancies.
When is a biomechanical assessment needed?
When the relationship between a dancer’s foot, lower limb, and upper body are misaligned, such as when a a dancer’s feet are rolling in our out, the body will compensate for these imbalances. The result of compensation can results in pain in the foot, ankle knee, hip, and back pain and limit a dancer’a ability to perform at his or her best.
Our Ballet Podiatrist will conduct a full body biomechanical evaluation including weight-bearing, off-weight-bearing and static and dynamic functional testing. A gait analysis will be videotaped and will be reviewed with the dancer to educate the dancer on how his or her body is performing and how it affects their dancing. The dancer will receive recommendations to improve imbalances which can include strength training, orthotic therapy, and footwear.