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Preventing Dance Injuries – The Dancer Part 2

Jason – A life of sport, dance and timber

We love hearing from our Barefooters and the incredibly cool things they do in their lives. It makes what we do so much more enjoyable (and entertaining!). Jason is a great example of someone who really leans in to life and enjoys all aspects. Read on for all about Brisbane’s dance scene – Jason is a great person to ask all about it and some fun facts about him!

Jason you are a very committed dancer – what type of dance to you do? Tell us about it (what made you choose to dance, what you love about it)

I dance a number of different street Latin dance styles primarily Salsa, Cha Cha Cha and Bachata.  My favourite dance style is Salsa.  Street Latin is quite different to what you would probably imagine when you think of Latin or ballroom and see on TV shows like Dancing with the Stars.

I’ve always been interested in dance but never actually took any classes until my brother asked me to come to a free “come and try” salsa class when I was about 25.  I was instantly hooked and quite quickly went from dancing once a week to five or six nights a week in only a few short months.

Dancing has so many positive aspects about it. For starters, it is a very social activity as it is a couple dance so you get to meet many interesting people. At the same time, you are exercising and getting a work out but it doesn’t feel like a hard core gym session!!

No matter where you go in the world you can always find a club, social event, class or other dance event on that will allow you to get out and about and meet new people in different countries.  I’ve danced throughout Australia and New Zealand as well as been lucky enough to have travelled to USA and a number of other countries through Europe on organised dance tours.

 

We often see people dancing in the square in Brisbane City – is that ever you? Does Brisbane have a good dancing community?

Yes, Brisbane Square is one of the events that I attend from time to time.  This event in particular is really good, due to it being outdoors and visible to the public. It attracts a big crowd every week and also exposes non-dancers to the Brisbane dance scene.  The Brisbane dance community is still relatively small but it has grown significantly in the last few years.  In fact, you can go out and social dance or take classes almost every night of the week now, something which was not possible a few years ago.

Some other great regular dance events are Thursday nights at Cloudland which has a live Salsa band, and Sunday nights at Jade Budda. In addition, there are plenty of other events organised by dance schools and passionate individuals which change from week to week.

The Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast scenes are also really growing at the moment, and there is a lot of travel between these locations for classes and social dance nights.

 

During the week you help run your family business – what type of work do you do and what’s it like working as a family?

We run a small business which imports timber from New Zealand.  I look after a lot of the admin and logistical side of the business.  It’s great working in a family business as it offers a lot of flexibility and freedom. This is something which I really appreciate when trying to get away for class or other dance events that I constantly have going on.

Working in the timber industry is something that I never imagined I would be doing as a kid, however as the family business was expanding an opportunity opened up to join. I couldn’t be happier with the opportunities and work/life balance that have come my way.

 

What are 5 fun facts about you that you’d love to share.

  • I used to play football (soccer) for about 20 years both outdoor and indoor. This is something that was a very big part of my life and spent a lot of time doing.  I met a lot of great people and travelled all around the world playing and training at some amazing venues and football clubs.
  • I met my girlfriend out at a social dance night.  (Something which I was not expecting but was pleasantly surprised).  Yes, it is possible to meet your someone special in the dance scene and I know quite a few people who have met and married from dancing.
  • I am a bit of a nerd and have a love for all things tech as well as drones 😊 I try to get out every couple of weeks to do some drone flying as well.
  • I love to travel and in my early twenties I took a year off to live in London. I had a great time and would recommend that experience to anyone thinking about it.
  • I am currently learning Spanish and hopefully one day will be able to master this as a second language 😊

Returning to Sport after Injury

Here at Barefoot, a lot of our clients present to us with an injury they sustained during sport. From dance to yoga and football to power-lifting, there is nothing more frustrating than having an injury prevent you from doing the activity you love. The most common question in returning to sport after injury, is how long should I wait? or get treatment for?

Other questions such as:

  • How long until I can get back to running?
  • How long until I can compete again/re-join my team?
  • If I play will I re-injure myself again?

There are some injuries with healing time-frames which dictate roughly the minimum amount of time an athlete will spend in recovery. For example a bone fracture or a complete rupture of a muscle or ligament will have very specific time-frames (and possibly surgical involvement) which will prevent someone from returning to sport within those first couple weeks…

Over the next few paragraphs we’ll discuss sporting injuries, and the approach we take to them at Barefoot Physiotherapy, and how we determine if an athlete is ready to return to their sport.

The most frequent types of injuries we see in clinic are ligament, muscular and tendon soft tissue injuries – of varying degrees.

The steps we take at Barefoot when aiming to get someone returning to sport after injury (After acute management has been given):

  1. First and foremost – we need the athlete to have no nerve irritation. An athlete with nerve [neural] irritation stemming from the spine will not recover as fast as one who is neural clear. When nerves are irritated (as shown objectively on our Neural Dynamic Tests) the muscles around them tense up and may spasm to protect the nerve. This reduces movement and places higher forces on joints/structures in the body, consequently taking the body longer to recover. If not cleared fully it also predisposes them to further injury. This is a crucial step.Barefoot nerve testing
  2. Appropriate Ranges of Motion (Ideally throughout the entire body – and definitely equal on both sides of the body). By going through the Barefoot Plan, we will determine areas of the body contributing to reduced ranges of motion, and treat those accordingly until an athlete has full range.
  3. Full Strength and Proprioception about the affected joints – To regain strength and balance, steps 1 and 2 need to have been addressed. The actual strength gains itself will be developed through a therapeutic, sport specific graded exercise program prescribed by one of Barefoot’s Physios or one of the trainers who we commonly refer to.
    • By this point in an athletes rehabilitation, pain should be substantially diminishing, if not completely gone.
  4. Once steps 1-3 have been accomplished, it is now time to think about actually getting this athlete returning to sport. This is done by starting with the most basic principles of their chosen activity, and working our way up to the most complex/challenging aspects of it. To truly be able to determine if someone is ready for returning to sport at 100% intensity, we recreate their sport specific environment, and assess their performance.
    • If the client has any pain, discomfort, imbalance or poor motor patterns during the assessment of their abilities…then they are surely not ready to SAFELY return to sport at this time. See below example for returning to sport for a soccer player 

For example, assessing a soccer player’s ability to return to sport would involve: 

  1. Running in a straight line – slow pace, no change in speed no change in direction
  2. Then in a straight line – medium pace, no change in speed no change in direction
  3. Followed by running in a straight line – fast pace, no change in speed no change in direction
  4. Then Zig-zag between pylons – slow pace, no change in speed
    • Repeat at moderate to fast speeds
  5. Finally running backwards, then turning and running in the same direction forwards – slow pace
    • Repeat at moderate and full speeds
  6. Soccer ball skills
    • Passing a soccer ball short distance (1m) – inside of the foot
    • Repeat at moderate and long distances
    • All of step 6 above with a top of the foot pass
    • Again all of step 6 with right and left foot
  7. Dribbling the soccer ball
    • Slow pace
    • Moderate pace
    • Fast pace
    • All of the above performed in a straight line, and in varying pylon set ups (zig zags)
  1. Incorporate an unstable environment:
    • Steps 1-5 re-performed without the athlete knowing which way they are going to run
      • Example: Athlete running at a moderate pace towards Physio, at the last second Physio will point either right or left and the player has to sprint for 3 seconds in that direction
  1. Combination of steps 1-5 with steps 6 and 7
    • Incorporating running with ball control
    • Example: get the athlete jogging, not knowing when the Physio will pass her the ball, and when it’s passed, having her pass it back  immediately with one touch.
    • This can be incredibly variable, and will start slow and steady and progress to full speed drills in an unstable environment, where the athlete has to change their speed, change their direction and perform sport specific (soccer ball) skills, all on one drill.

Physio soccer

The Assessment

The assessment above is done in such an order (most basic drills to the most challenging) because we want to know immediately if there are any concerns with the athletes’ injury recovery. Unless all of the above can be performed with no concerns, then we would not be happy to tell somebody that they are ready to be returning to sport.

The above example is a fairly basic one. At Barefoot Physiotherapy, returning to sport assessments are tailored to the individual and their specific position and or role in their chosen activity.

Our Job at Barefoot

Athlete safety and recovery is of the utmost importance, and we are here to support you. As part of your support system, it is our job to take you through the above steps, and make sure you are FULLY RECOVERED before we give you our OKAY to return to your chosen activity. There is nothing worse than being told you are recovered, and going out and re-injuring yourself.

If you have any sport specific questions about rehabilitation, please do not hesitate to ask 🙂

Happy sporting!