Post # 7 3/10/09 Dancing With the Athletes

Yesterday "Dancing With the Stars" returned to ABC's programming schedule for an eighth season. Out of the thirteen stars two of them were professional athletes NFL legend Lawrence Taylor and Olympic medalist Shawn Johnson. In this week's issue of "Newsweek" Jesse Ellison talked about how five NFL players have competed in this dance competition and how Lawrence is focusing on not embarrassing himself.

Well, some of you may have heard of how some athletes take dance lessons to improve their overall performance. Aside from being an art form dancing incorporates speed, strength, and grace. Many forms of dance are looked at as ways of making athletes better. Whether it is improving foot work through steps from the Tango, or toning your muscles with a variety of ballet moves, coaches and players have become open to dance as a form of practice drill. John Shepherd said "This has led researchers and sports team players and coaches to experiment with ballet and other dance forms as a conditioning method." In the article below Sheperd discusses the aspects of how dance improves athletic performance. Sheperd even researched about skiers in Sweden who evaluated several skiers who had dance training comparing their results to those of skiers who did not have any dance training. Their experiments resulted in the dancers having more mobility which decreased back pain. In another experiment to test balance results concluded that the risk of falling was majorly reduced.

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/can-athletes-dance-their-way-to-agility

He recognizes how dancing improves speed and balance, thus making athletes more graceful as they move even faster. This is mainly due to how dancing deals with being light on your feet.

In this article below M. Lane talks about how ballet improves athletic performance saying, "Specifically, ballet will tone muscles and help the dancer develop better body awareness. Ballet improves strength, flexibility, coordination, dexterity and agility. Adding ballet to a workout will complement just about any sport." Supplementing athletes workouts, ballet uses a barre attached to the wall to warm up parts of your body which improve muscle symmetry.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/319617/ballet_training_for_athletes.html?cat=14

With dance athletes can become more tone through different exercises and improve their balance and increase their speed, becoming swift and graceful in the game. Dancing makes normal movements look even better and prevent performance mishaps.