Knowing your limits
Being aware of how your body reacts to excessive an amount of training is an issue that everyone should be aware of, especially dancers. The common term known for this is "burnout".
Burnout is defined as, "a state of consistent or unexplained tiredness, poor performance in a spite of normal training, negative mood state and increased incident of illness or injury"A dancer who is dedicated and wants to achieve their highest level of proficiency, may experience burning out. This is often seen in dancers where training, rehearsing, and performing may not give them enough time to recover and rest. Some common causes that cause burnout are busy class and rehearsal schedules, fatigue, injury, poor nutrition, emotional/physical stress, and an inadequate amount of rest and recovery.
As dancers we tend to ignore the "warning signs" or burning out. Although, there are no tests that can you the exact results, identifying them are simple:
- Constant feeling of fatigue
- Excessive Sweating
- Not capable of recovering following an intensive workout
- Feeling helplessness (Lack of desire to dance)
- Poor concentration
- Loss of appetite and loss of body weight
- Increased anxiety and irritability
- Signs of depression
These are just simple easy ways to identify them.
Burnout is a serious risk that dancers face, which can have long lasting effects. Being a dancer has different meanings for each individual. You're constantly giving up your time to do something you love, and you continue to do it no matter the extraneous hours put into it because it is a desire one has. However, us as dancers we need to come together as a community and come face to face with these risks. And realize that there are youth dancers in our same community who can face these risk as such a young age.
Comments
Post a Comment