Healthy Living

Since living a healthy lifestyle is essential for me to dance at the level I do everyday, for as long as I can, I wanted to share my thoughts on why it is so important and beneficial for everyone to live a healthy life style. There are many ways to practice healthy living and I want to cover as many ways that I know. The essentials that I want to explore in this essay are: Regular physical activity, a balanced diet, and positive self-awareness. 

     

Living a healthier life can not only extend your life, it can also improve the quality. Feeling physically better and having control over your own life can greatly increase your mental health as well. Although there are some aspects of physical and mental health that are beyond an individual's control, there are many things that people can do to improve their quality of life.

       

Health is a quality of life involving dynamic interaction and interdependence among the individual's physical state, their mental and emotional reactions, and the social context in which the individual exists. Three major components that contribute to general well-being are: Self-awareness, a balanced diet, and regular physical activity. In order to lead a healthy lifestyle, it is essential that individuals constantly monitor their health. This involves not only physical, but also mental and emotional aspects of the body's functioning, as they relate to the home, school, work, and leisure environments. If necessary changes are made sooner rather than later, then a stable, balanced and healthy lifestyle will be more consistently maintained. Some things that can help people reach this goal are nutrition and meal preparation, exercise and physical fitness and maintaining regular check ups with doctors.

Our bodies, like cars, need fuel to run. And like cars, the quality of the fuel that we use can affect our performance. Making sure that you are giving your body all the fuel it needs and the best quality fuel you can will improve how your body runs and feels. Our "fuel" comes from food and the nutrients that food provides. A number of government agencies in the United States (including the Food and Drug Administration [FDA], Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Agriculture) have spent years researching proper nutrition and developing guidelines for food intake. To read more about their guidelines check out the FDA website as well as the Department of Agriculture's website. They have come up with seven general dietary guidelines for healthy adults. These seven general guidelines are: 

• Eat a variety of foods to get the energy, protein, vitamins, minerals, and fiber you need for good health. 

• Maintain a healthy weight, this can lower your chances of having high blood pressure, heart disease, a stroke, certain cancers, and the most common kind of diabetes. 

• Choose a diet low in fat and cholesterol, this can lower your risk of heart disease and certain types of cancer. A diet low in fat can also help you maintain a healthy weight. 

• Choose a diet with plenty of vegetables, fruits, and grain products. These types of food provide needed vitamins, minerals, fiber, and carbohydrates, and are generally lower in fat to help you maintain a healthy weight. (A great blog to follow to get ideas on vegetable rich meals is Oh She Glows).

• Use sugar in moderation, sugar has many calories and few nutrients and can contribute to tooth decay. 

• Use salt in moderation, this helps lower your risk of high blood pressure. 

• If you drink alcoholic beverages, do so in moderation. Alcoholic beverages supply calories, but little or no nutrients. Drinking alcohol is also the cause of many health problems and accidents and can lead to addiction.

Exercising and staying physically fit are an important part of maintaining your health. Proper exercise and fitness can improve your health in many ways. It can: 

• Improve the health of your heart and lungs, which lowers your chances of heart disease. 

• Lower your cholesterol and blood pressure, which lowers your chances of heart disease, stroke, and other chronic diseases. 

• Maintain your weight, which lowers your chances of heart disease, stroke, and other chronic diseases. 

• Improve your strength and flexibility, which makes daily activities easier and lowers your chance of osteoporosis, broken bones, pulled muscles, and other injuries.

• Improve your mental health, by lowering anxiety and depression and increasing feelings of control and well-being.

The type of exercises you do and how often you do them can vary greatly from person to person, but all healthcare professionals agree that exercise is beneficial to everyone's health. There are many different kinds of exercise (walking, running, swimming, dancing, and weight lifting, to name just a few).  A good exercise program will include some combination of these three types of exercise: 

1. Cardiovascular: Cardiovascular exercise improves and strengthens your heart, lungs, and circulation and helps people lose weight. Cardiovascular exercise is any type of exercise that raises your heart rate to a 'target zone' (determined by your age, weight, and health). Some of the most commonly discussed types of cardiovascular exercise include running, aerobics, bicycling, walking, and stair climbing, but could also include dancing, skating, skiing, martial arts, tennis, or any type of exercise that raises your heart rate.
2. Strength training: Strength training helps you by making you stronger and giving you better endurance (so you can do things longer). This makes day-to-day activities easier and reduces your chances of injury. While many people think of weight lifting when they hear 'strength training', there are many different types of exercises you can do to improve your strength (and you don't have to be a muscle-man or woman to do them.) Some common strength training exercises include sit-ups, push-ups, and using nautilus machines, strength bands, and free weights.
3.  Exercises that increase your flexibility: Flexibility exercises give you greater range of motion in your joints and make your body more supple, again, making day-to-day activities easier and reducing your chances of injury. Many people do specific stretching exercises to increase their flexibility but other types of exercise (such as dancing, yoga, and martial arts) can also improve flexibility.

Doing these exercises are available to you even if you don't belong to a gym. You can look up exercise videos online and workout at home. Below is a video teaching you yoga poses that you can do in your home. 

"Prevention is the best cure" is a popular saying among many healthcare related blogs like "The Health Care Blog". This means that the easiest way to get healthy is to avoid getting sick in the first place. While this is not always possible, there are many ways to prevent possible future health problems and illnesses. 

Having a healthy diet and exercise regularly can prevent very serious diseases like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and strokes, to name a few. Easy ways to stay healthy and prevent illness is to eat well and exercise regularly and have a yearly physical with your doctor or healthcare provider. This checkup should include checking your weight, blood pressure, listening to your heart and lungs, and a general physical exam; discussing your lifestyle (exercise, diet), health problems, and current medication; and answering any questions you may have about your health. 

Healthy living is a combination of many things, including good nutrition, regular exercise and a positive attitude. Taking care of your body and feeling pride in your accomplishments can improve both your physical and mental health. There are many things you can do to improve your quality of life-improving your diet and exercising regularly are two of the easiest steps. No matter how small you start (adding an apple a day to your diet or walking 5 more minutes a day), you can make a change and an improvement in your life.   

       

     

       

       

Recovery

I'm always in the best shape at the end of a season with The New York City Ballet. My stamina is awesome and I feel good about my weight. Some of us celebrate the end of a hard season with a big celebratory meal together. The group of us that goes out for dinner after the last show of the season is usually dancing every night with multiple ballets a night. Therefore, we feel the need to have a big meal to replenish ourselves. The week following my last show, I am always hungry and trying to eat as much as I can. I never feel satisfied with the amount of food I can intake; I call this the post season depletion. I thought that it would be nice to share a daily routine of a dancer who just ended a season. I want to show nutritious meals and snacks I have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as ways to recover from a hard season.

The next day after the season ends, I try to sleep in as much as possible. I truly believe that your body heals when you sleep, so the more the better! When I wake up, I continue to do my normal morning exercises, the ones I posted in Three Quick Exercises that Will Reduce Stress, including an abdominal series and stabilization exercises. However, I take my time doing them since I am in no rush to get to work. I think it is important to keep with a routine even when we are off from work because if you don't keep up with your exercises it will be so much harder to come back from break, ready to dance. After I finish my morning mini-workout, I make breakfast. For breakfast I have a smoothie and a big bowl of cereal. The recipes are:

Cereal:                                                

• Trader Joe's Granola                           
• Handful of walnuts
• Handful of almonds
• Half a banana
• 4 to 5 strawberries
• Dash of cinnamon
• Almond milk

Smoothie:

• 1/2 cup of almond milk
• 1/2 a frozen banana
• 1 tablespoon of almond butter
• 1 tablespoon of maca powder
• 1 table spoon of cacao powder
• Dash of cinnamon
• Handful of cashews                                        

After I'm finished with breakfast, I spend some time at my apartment. During the season it is hard to find time to clean and do laundry, so when the season is over I spend a good amount of time cleaning my apartment and doing loads of laundry. It is refreshing to be at my apartment during the day since it is so rare that I get to be any place other than the theater.

Depending on how long I am cleaning or doing errands around my apartment, I go to pilates or gyrotonics for a private hour long session and then have lunch or vice-versa. When I'm off from work, I benefit greatly from pilates or gyrotonics. I feel like I can work on things in pilates and gyrotonics that can help my dancing become stronger and more fluid. Below is a picture of me doing a pilates move that helps me engage my abdominals, butt muscles, and stablizes my shoulder muscles. Its called the Elephant on the Wunda Chair.

Below is a picture of me doing arm exercises in gyrotonics. These exercises help me stabilize my shoulders and abdominal while using my butt muscles:

For lunch I like to have a big salad, with a ton of stuff in it! 

Salad:

• A bunch of organic mixed greens including kale
• Shredded carrots
• Beets
• Quinoa
• Sweet potato
• Shrimp or chicken                                                
• Hummus                                          
• Broccoli                                             
• Cauliflower
• Corn
• Tomatoes
• Feta cheese

After I have lunch and workout I like to relax and catch up on a book or t.v. show that I didn't have time to watch during the season. A layoff from work means time for me to watch the shows I've missed and read as many books as possible. At the moment, I am reading I See You Made an Effort by Annabelle Gurwitch.

I like to read books that make me laugh. Also shows that make me laugh are my favorites. A guilty pleasure t.v. show that I like to watch is Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

When I finish the season I like to get a massage to release the tight muscles I've acquired. Like I've said in my previous post, Post Workout Fuel, it's important to get your muscles released to prevent injury. I like to get a massage at night because it's a nice way to unwind and relax at the end of the day. 

For dinner I'll usually make something light:

Dinner:

• A nice fresh wild caught piece of salmon                   
• Asparagus
• Quinoa or brown rice                            

Dessert:

• Bowl of greek yogurt
• Mixed nuts
• Blueberries or peaches
• Dark chocolate chips
• Peanut-butter                           

After dinner I will either take an epsom salt bath, which is good for recovering muscles or take a hot shower. I like to stretch after I take a shower, when my muscles are still warm. Doing easy stretches before bed clams me down and helps me sleep better. Its is important to get a good nights sleep so I'm well rested in the morning to get up and do my routine all over again!

The Right Playlist

Music is such an important part of my life as a dancer. It surrounds me in every thing that I do. I start my day by listening to music as a way to wake me up. When I get to work, I have the pleasure of taking class to a live pianist. I rehearse all day to different composers' music. Before the show, I warm up to oldies or the top hits. And at night I perform with a live orchestra. There is a saying by George Balanchine, the founder of our company, that reads "See the music, hear the dance". The music should be so encompassing when we dance that it looks like we are the music and not just a dancer dancing to the music. 

When I am off from dancing with the company, music is still a big part of my daily life. I continue to play music to help me wake up in the morning. And when I go to the gym to workout, I must have my music. I believe that I enjoy my workout more when I have a good playlist of songs. I feel great when I have my favorite songs come up on Pandora; it's like the station knows what I need to get through a hard workout. Right now, my favorite album to listen to at the gym is Beyonce's new album.

One of my favorite songs on the album is XO. Below is the music video.

No matter what your favorite kind of music is, when you are at the gym, make sure you get a playlist that pumps you up and makes you feel good. It will change the way you workout! 

Lookin' Good

There are so many options to choose from when shopping for workout clothes. In the city, I've personally bought workout clothes at Lululemon, Modells, Athleta, Gap etc. 

But how do you choose?! Going to each store and seeing what they have is one option. However, I can recommend my two favorites and save you the time.

My two favorite stores to shop at for workout clothes are Lululemon and Gap. I like both of these stores for different reasons. 

I love the variety of different leggings and pants at Lululemon. There are many different lengths of leggings or pants that you can choose from. There are baggy pants, tight pants, short pants, and long pants. Depending on what I am shopping for, either yoga or warming up for ballet class, I can find what I need in many different styles and colors at Lululemon.

At GAP, I like shopping for workout tops and sports bras. GAP has great tank-tops and t-shirts to choose from. The prices at GAP are also very affordable. I go through so many shirts when I workout that its nice not to spend a fortune on them. 

Overall, I would recommend buying workout clothes that are comfortable, but more importantly ones that make you feel good. I think that finding the right outfit to workout in will help you motivate yourself to actually go workout. If you feel confident in your look then there is no reason not to show it off!

Foam Rolling

As we age, our muscles lose elasticity in the joints and connective tissue and lead us to develop more aches, pains and injuries. The good news is that there's a simple way to maintain a healthy body that's easy to take on at any stage of life: Foam Rolling.

What foam rolling actually does is this: micro-facial release. By applying pressure directly to sore muscles with a foam roller, you're able to roll out knots (or adhesions) on the muscle. This allows your body to bring blood flow to the troubled area, transporting nutrients and oxygen to the muscles for faster repair.

Here are three tips to help you foam roll more effectively:

1. Don't roll directly onto the area of pain.

Avoid rolling directly on the source of pain, and, instead, target the muscles around the area which are likely causing an imbalance and tension in your body. By focusing your rolling a few inches away from the pain source, you'll help muscles relax and repair, rather than bringing unnecessary inflammation to an injury.

2. Go slowly!

You need to give your brain enough time to tell your muscles to relax in order to get the maximum benefit of foam rolling. Find an area of tension that allows you to feel the pressure at about a level of eight, on a scale of one-to-10 (this is called the sensation scale).

Sit into this pressure point and breathe deeply until you settle and the sensation drops to about a four on a sale of one-to-10. After this, work down the same muscle by rolling a few inches over from the original point and repeating the process of sitting into a pressure point and allowing tension to melt away.

3. Do foam rolling for at least ten minutes, twice a week.

This will bring stress relief, improve posture, support anyone who is pregnant and help prevent injury. Foam rolling will help you move better, stand taller and live a pain free life.

If you're exercising more than two times per week, then foam rolling should be a non-negotiable part of your pre- and post- workout routine. Maximize your potential by activating key muscle groups before you exercise.

As much as it is a recovery tool, the foam roller is also an active warm-up tool.

Before you embark on a big cardio workout (i.e. running, swimming, cycling, hiking, etc.), use the foam roller to prime the major muscle groups. This will help the body to fire muscles correctly. Muscles will get more oxygen and be able to work faster and harder.

Sit with your legs extended out in front of you and place the foam roller under the lower half of your calf. With your hands on the floor, lift your butt and roll your calf along the roller. Switch legs and repeat. By placing both calves side-by-side, you get deeper pressure. If you want less intensive compressions, work on one calf at a time.

Foam rolling is a great way to proactively work stress out of the body. It allows you to access hard to reach spots like the shoulders and hips, where many people carry their tension. As a dancer, foam rolling is essential. We must roll out our muscles in order for them to not get bulky. View your time spent foam rolling as a physical meditation. Allow yourself to focus on relaxing the body, deepening your breath and unwinding muscular tension.

Healthy Competition

When I workout I like to be by myself. I am always determined to get the most out of all my workouts, sometimes becoming obsessive about doing all the exercises I know. When I work out by myself rather than with a friend,  I'm not distracted and can accomplish more. However, I recently found out that I will actually try and push my self harder when I workout with a friend. 

When I was home this past week, my friend and I took a pilates class together. We both do pilates regularly so I thought that I would be fine in terms of keeping up. However, I was wrong. I started to get tired about halfway through and I looked over at my friend and she was not even sweating! It looked like the class was too easy for her. At that moment, I started to work even harder than I already was. I didn't like feeling like the class was too hard for me and too easy for my friend. I needed to step up my game. At the end of the class I surprisingly felt great. I really felt like I accomplished something. I feel that my friends ability to make the class look easy helped me reach new limits in my own workout. She pushed me to work harder and it helped me to do exercises that I couldn't before.

In one of my previous posts For Fitness, Push Yourself I posted an article that explains how a chemical in our bodies signals to our muscles when we workout. And when we really ramp up our workouts, we gain greater results. The harder we workout the more pronounced the results are. After actually experiencing a hard one, I now understand that great benefits can result. Now, I don't think that every time you go to the gym you have to go crazy and run eight miles. I believe that pushing yourself to a new limit, like a half a mile more than you did yesterday, is all it takes to reap the benefits of feeling good.  

Thank You Mom

It's 1:30 pm on a Thursday. I'm 13 years old and yelling "drive faster, drive faster, get in that lane, no that lane" at my mother who was going as fast as she could possibly go. School doesn't end until 2:30 pm, but both my mother and I sneak out early to get into the car so she can drive me two hours, to Boston, to ballet class. I'm yelling because I'm afraid I will be late to my 4 o'clock class. We always cut it close, even with a police radar detector telling us if there is a police car around. There is no time to spare to be pulled over for speeding. 

You can never predict the traffic going into Boston. We always hit a stand still about half an hour away from the ballet studios. 

Its 3:45 pm and I'm starting to freak out. We are not that close to the studios and the traffic isn't moving. I've had my hair done in a bun for about 45 mins now and I'm dressed with my ballet uniform and shoes on. I'm ready to go, except we are stuck. I begin to bounce up and down in my seat thinking that if I keep moving so will the traffic. 

Its 4:01 pm and my mom pulls up next to a car that's already parked in front of the Boston Ballet studios, the car door on my side has been open half a block ago so I can dart out of the car and waste no time. There are always cars already parked out front so my mom is forced to double park while she lets me out. I'm already late, but only by a minute as I run into class. I never have time to properly warm up, but I feel warm already from being so stressed out in the car.

Its 5:30 pm and I'm done with class. I feel good. I always feel better after class mainly because I love to dance. My mom is waiting for me outside in the car. It's better she's outside of the studios so she won't have to take part in the conversations of the many stage moms watching through the class windows, gossiping. My mom joined a gym up in Boston so she didn't have to sit and gossip with my classmates' parent's. I think that was a very smart decision. 

Waiting for me in the car is my dinner that my mom so graciously picked up for me. I usually requested sesame chicken, and that's what she usually had waiting for me. 

Its about 6:00 pm and I'm starting to get sleepy so I take my shoes off and put them up on the dashboard. "Whoa" my mom says. I guess I am used to the smell of my feet, but they were rancid smelling after dancing in pointe shoes for an hour and a half. Most nights, including winter nights, we had to keep the window open for a while. Since we live the farthest away from everyone in my class, we get to drop off everyone on our way home. Making about three to four stops every night. 

Its 7:00 pm and I'm fast asleep. My mom has no one to talk to. She is also so tired, working all day and then driving two hours to Boston and two hours back is a lot and with no one to talk to it must be hard to stay awake. Once we get home I see my dad and sister for a few minutes and then head up to bed, only to get up in a few hours to repeat it all over again. 

My mom is a women like no other. I know that I would not be able to withstand driving my child to Boston every day of the week for three years. She is truly someone special. Without her I wouldn't be where I am today. I would have never made it to New York to become a professional ballet dancer. It was surely her dedication that brought me to live out my dream of becoming a dancer with the New York City Ballet. I feel guilty that there is nothing I can do to repay her for her generosity. I can only say that I deeply mean it when I say Thank You for Everything! 

Above is a picture of my Mom and me this past Christmas.

Interview

On a layoff dancers try to take care of the wear and tear their bodies endured during the long season as much as they can. A secret tip that dancers use on the layoff to make our bodies to feel better is acupuncture. It is important to go to someone you trust for acupuncture and my fellow company members recommended Nicole DeLorey. I felt that Nicole would be a perfect person to ask about getting more insight on what acupuncture is and how important it is for dancers. I think Nicole will have good thoughts on why people use acupuncture for a form of body treatment. 

I asked her: 

1.) What is acupuncture?

Acupuncture is a part of Chinese Medicine that has been used for centuries to treat pain, stimulate the immune system and regulate the nervous system. It involves the insertion of extremely thin needles through the skin at strategic points in the body.

2.) How did you get started in acupuncture?

Like most acupuncturists, I received treatments that changed my life. I first sought treatment in my mid-twenties. It was just after 9/11 and NYC was a strange place to be. I was having a difficult time adjusting and couldn’t snap out of my funk. I went to my doctor because I thought maybe I was anemic or deficient in some way. Within a few minutes he prescribed me anti-depressants. I was extremely disheartened because I did not believe that was the answer and felt it was a rushed diagnosis. So I tried Acupuncture. My Acupuncturist listened to my story. Asked me all kinds of questions-what was my digestion, sleep, appetite like? Moods? Pains? Basically, everything you could think of. Then the treatment began and it wasn’t scary at all. The needles were nothing like what I had expected and I hardly felt them. When I left her office I felt completely different, there was a shift. I had space inside myself that I didn’t know I had. I could breath easier. Over the next year, no matter what my symptoms were-muscle pain, allergies, digestive issues-she always helped me if not completely healed me. So, I said to myself, you better learn how to do this.

3.) What did you have to do to become certified?

It's actually a license. Every state is different but in NY the requirement is a 3- year Masters degree program. Thousands of hours are invested in your training. I graduated from the Tri- State College of Acupuncture, where I currently teach, and it was a fantastic experience. We were exposed to many different styles of Acupuncture but concentrated on learning 3, TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), APM (trigger point release/ fatigue patterns) and KM (Japanese Style).

4.) Why do you think dancers love it so much?

I think the dancers like the muscle release, which is just a small part of Acupuncture but very effective when working with athletes.  The style I teach at the college is called APM, it was developed by Dr. Mark Seem, the founder of TSCA. He worked closely with Dr. Janet Travell (pioneer of trigger point therapy) to develop a technique to release trigger points with an acupuncture needle. It is much less invasive than using a hollow point needle and injecting the muscles, which is what western medical doctors do. 

5.) Do you think it's important for dancers to come often?

Yes, weekly if you're getting you're muscles released. Post- treatment soreness can be quite intense if too much metabolic waste stores in the muscles and is released with the needles. If people come more often, less waste is stored in the tissue, which means less soreness and better muscle function which makes you less prone to injury.

6.) What is it about acupuncture that's beneficial to the body in contrast to massage?

Acupuncture can get the job done faster. I also have a license in massage therapy, and massage is an important and necessary modality but it simply can not break up adhesions and disperse trigger points in the same time and accuracy that Acupuncture can. 

7.) Is it scary to put needles in other people?

No, not at all. I am able to coach most people through their needle phobia because like I said earlier, acupuncture needles are nothing like the needles that most people are expecting. You may feel slight pressure when a needle goes in. Most people find that it doesn't hurt. The area may tingle or be a little sore. 

8.) Do you also follow a healthy life style regiment. Like practicing yoga or acupuncture for yourself. Do you try to eat as healthy as you can?

I think I live a balanced active life and lifestyle. I make healthy choices but I don’t deprive myself of something I enjoy. Neither should you, life is to short 

I believe that the answers Nicole gave are wonderful. She explains how important it is for dancers to get their muscles released on a regular basis. Also she gives great explanation on what acupuncture is and what it takes to become licensed. I was curious to know if she was scared to put needles into someone because I would find that terrifying, but she responded that she had no fear! I really can't wait to make an appointment with her for an acupuncture session and finally meet her in person! Thank you Nicole for your time to answer these questions and your wonderful insight on acupuncture!

Healthy Digestion

Many people are trying juice cleanses to detox impurities in their digestive system. However, small healthy habits that you follow on a daily basis are even more powerful over time than doing a three to ten day juice cleanse. I recently read an article by the writers of the Dr. Oz show about a quick way to get a digestive detox just by having ginger, lemon, and sea salt. 

How to make a digestive detox with ginger, lemon, and sea salt:

1.) squeeze 1/2 cup of fresh lemon juice into a cup or jar

2.) cut up a knob of fresh ginger into thin one inch strips

3.) add 1/2 teaspoon of sea salt then stir

Don't drink this solution, but rather eat 1-2 pieces of the soaked fresh ginger before each meal. You can make enough at the beginning of each week to last you seven days. You should keep this solution refrigerated. The best way to get great benefits from this detox is to have 1-2 pieces before each meal. But since dinner is typically most Americans' heaviest meal and since your digestion is slower at night it is best to have the soaked ginger before dinner. 

Ginger, lemon, and sea salt together help break down toxins in your gut. These ingredients increase the digestive fire and the heat helps break the toxins down. You will usually feel the increased heat within seconds of eating the ginger. 

Home Sweet Home

Finally, this week I will be able to go visit my hometown of Cape Cod. Christmas was the last time I've been home so I can't wait! Cape Cod during the summer is the best time to be there. The salt air from the ocean is so refreshing compared to the summer air in New York City. The beaches, fried clams, and ice cream are also a few of the many things I look forward to and miss when I'm away from them for too long.  

Since I'll be home for about a week, and away from my normal workout routine, I wanted to share a few tips on ways to keep up with my normal exercises. Firstly, I would plan ahead and make a list of when and what I intend to work on. 

In the morning:

• Do an abdominal series (crunches, the hundreds, scissors, elbow to knee crunches) If you have any questions about how to do any of these exercises please ask!

In the middle of the day:

• Go to the beach and swim.

Or 

• Go for a nature walk on one of the many trails around the Cape.

In the evening:

• Do some light yoga poses. As well as stretch your muscles for about five minutes.

While being home and away from the gym it is hard for me to believe that I'm actually getting a good workout. However, by being active and outside is a very good workout. Whether it is being out in the garden or walking along the beach, it is important to get in a good routine and dedicate time to stay in motion.

Tutus and Tea

When deciding to follow a blog, I look for ones that give inspiring information about ways to be healthy. One of my favorites is by a girl named Shelby Elsbree who is also a dancer. From her blog I learned that she recently joined Boston Ballet after being in The Royal Danish Ballet. Shelby writes and shares pictures in her blog called Tutus and Tea about her adventures while traveling, healthy recipes, and inspirational messages for everyday life. 

One post that I found lovely was a recipe post. The posts title is called  ginger nut butter. In this post she gives a wonderful homemade recipe for a nut butter.

I particularly like this post because I think it is a great recipe to have on hand for an on-the-go snack. Sometimes it is hard to have a full meal during the day when you are rehearsing without a break. So to have a good protein packed snack on hand is essential. I'm curious to know if Shelby also thought of how important it is for dancers to have a snack filled with protein on hand when she was writing this post. I wonder if she has any additional advice on what snacks are best to have that give you energy. I responded to her post saying, 

"Shelby, 

I love your posts with recipes. They all look so scrumptious. I think that this post in particular shows a great snack for post work out. Its so important to refuel after a work out and the protein in the nuts in this nut butter is a wonderful and yummy way to get it. I was wondering if you had any other recipes that give dancers energy when they don't have time for  a full meal?

Thanks for a wonderful post!

Sara 

I look forward to continue reading her blog! I think that her voice and the information she shares in her blog makes readers want to come back for more. 

Follow Up on Pilates for Dancers

I posted a couple of weeks ago a post on Pilates for Dancers which explained how dancers continue to do Pilates nowadays. I found a Wikipedia post about the founder of Pilates, Joseph Pilates, and how his technique helps strengthen the body. His technique trains the muscles to be used in a way to make them strong. The wikipedia post said that the founder of the company I dance for, George Balanchine, liked his dancers to go do pilates to help them become stronger. I added my thoughts to the Wikipedia post saying:


"Since George Balanchine believed that Joseph Pilates knew how to help his dancers become 
stronger with more stamina and flexibility, dancers around the world today continue to practice Joseph Pilates' methods. By practicing Pilates methods, dancers are now able to sufficiently control the movement of their bodies by creating flow through the use of appropriate transitions. Once precision has been achieved, the exercises are intended to flow within and into each other in order to build strength and stamina. In other words, the Pilates technique helps you become strong with the ability to move freely. 

Dancers who use Pilates breathing methods benefit greatly when they have a demanding performance. Today, certain ballets are taxing on the body, requiring a great amount of stamina to look elegant throughout the whole performance. Pilates' breathing is described as a posterior lateral breathing, meaning that the practitioner is instructed to breathe deep into the back and sides of his or her rib cage. When practitioners exhale, they are instructed to note the engagement of their deep abdominal and pelvic floor muscles and maintain this engagement as they inhale. Pilates attempts to properly coordinate this breathing practice with movement. By practicing this technique, dancers have the strength to withstand a difficult performance. 

Through the techniques of Joseph Pilates, dancers nowadays have an advantage of being stronger than ever before. "

After looking back at the post about Pilates on Wikipedia there were no changes made to my additions. I think the information I added was informative to the rest of the Wikipedia article. I added information that further explained the importance of pilates for dancers. I hope this information will help educate people on how wonderful pilates is! 

Hydrate!

If you are working out a lot you are most likely sweating a lot and now that it is starting to get really hot and humid out in the city it is not only important to refuel but also to hydrate. A great recipie for a refueling smoothie can be found in one of my previous posts called "post work out fuel". In addition to the post work out fuel recipie, I thought it would be nice to share another hydrating smoothie recipe that I found on one of my favorite blogs called Mind Body Green. 

A cooling and refreshing summer watermelon smoothie:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups cubed watermelon
• 1/2 cup cubed rhubarb
• optional: cucumber which is also super hydrating
• optional: wild frozen blueberries which are also super antioxidants and needed for cell renewal in the summer sun
• 10 leaves of fresh mint

Directions: 

Put all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. 

This smoothie is high in antioxidants, vitamin B6, vitamin C, potassium and magnesium. It is great to have in the summer heat for your skin and hair. Staying hydrated helps you feel more energized, which also helps you feed your skin from the inside out!  

Not the Calluses!

A callus is a hardened part of the skin usually in an area that is prone to friction. I've included a link that brings you to a better description of a callus and how they are formed.  A dancers foot is known to have many calluses along with many other imperfections like corns, in grown toe nails, blisters etc. Since dancers are in pointe shoes for many hours a day it is inevitable for their feet to form some sort of callus or bunion. 

Going to the nail salon to get a pedicure is a completely different experience now that I've been dancing professionally for seven years. I used to go to the salon without being embarrassed to show my feet. But now, I hear the nail technicians laugh when they see them. There are calluses on almost every one of my toes, but they are needed. I need my calluses so I can prevent blisters. When the nail technicians start to scrub my feet I immediately tell them to stop! I explain that I'm a dancer and that I need the callouses on my toes. The technician usually laughs, probably thinking that I must be crazy for wanting to keep them. 

I think that it is important to mention that the fit of a dancers pointe shoe can alter the amount of blisters, calluses, corns, bunions etc. they get. You can really hurt yourself if your shoe doesn't fit properly. Dancers should be fitted with specific measurements for their own feet to insure that it is the proper size. The New York City Ballet has its own shoe room where they order us our own personal shoes according to our specific measurements. I included a video below showing a dancers perspective on pointe shoes. 

Each dancer has their own requests for what they want done to their shoes. Some want more glue in them to make them harder and some want the side of the shoe cut down so they fit better. It is rare for dancers share the same shoe measurements as well as specifications they want made for their shoes. It can take a little trial and error to finalize how you want your shoes made, but it is important to take the time to make sure they fit properly. 

A Day in the Life

The company I dance for is unique, differing from any other dance company in the world. I think the main difference between us, The New York City Ballet and other companies is the amount of ballets we put on in a season. We perform about 50 ballets in one season. Every rehearsal is precious time because we have so many ballets to learn and only a certain amount of time to learn them. To get a better idea of our daily life, below is a video that looks inside our company. 

In order to rehearse and preform every day without injury it is important to cross train. You need take care of your body to have the stamina to keep up with how hard the New York City Ballet works. I thought it would be nice to show a video of one of the New York City Ballet workouts.

The importance of staying in top condition is crucial. It takes a lot of dedication to do other forms of exercise when you are already dancing all day, but by cross training you are preventing injury. You can really hurt yourself if you just rehearse rehearse rehearse. By doing other forms of exercise you are allowing your muscles to work in different ways, which helps with the wear and tear of doing repetitive dance moves. By going to the gym or doing pilates you are strengthening your muscles so they can be strong enough to be able to rehearse all day. 

For Fitness, Push Yourself

My Pilates teacher shared an article from the NY Times "For Fitness, Push Yourself" with me the other day and I thought it was perfect share with people who are trying to stay in shape. 

From the New York Times:
For Fitness, Push Yourself
By Gretchen Reynolds

Intense exercise changes the body and muscles at a molecular level in ways that milder physical activity doesn’t match, according to an enlightening new study. Though the study was conducted in mice, the findings add to growing scientific evidence that to realize the greatest benefits from workouts, we probably need to push ourselves. 

For some time, scientists and exercise experts have debated the merits of intensity in exercise. Everyone agrees, of course, that any exercise is more healthful than none. But beyond that baseline, is strenuous exercise somehow better, from a physiological standpoint, than a relative stroll? 

There have been hints that it may be. Epidemiological studies of walkers, for instance, have found that those whose usual pace is brisk tend to live longer than those who move at a more leisurely rate, even if their overall energy expenditure is similar.
But how intense exercise might uniquely affect the body, especially below the surface at the cellular level, had remained unclear. That’s where scientists at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida stepped in. 

Already, these scientists had been studying the biochemistry of sympathetic nervous system reactions in mice. The sympathetic nervous system is that portion of the autonomic, or involuntary, nervous system that ignites the fight or flight response in animals, including people, when they are faced with peril or stress. In such a situation, the sympathetic nervous system prompts the release of catecholamines, biochemicals such as adrenaline and norepinephrine that set the heart racing, increase alertness and prime the muscles for getaway or battle.
At Scripps, the scientists had been focusing on catecholamines and their relationship with a protein found in both mice and people that is genetically activated during stress, called CRTC2. This protein, they discovered, affects the body’s use of blood sugar and fatty acids during moments of stress and seems to have an impact on health issues such as insulin resistance. 

The researchers also began to wonder about the role of CRTC2 during exercise.
Scientists long have known that the sympathetic nervous system plays a part in exercise, particularly if the activity is intense. Strenuous exercise, the thinking went, acts as a kind of stress, prompting the fight or flight response and the release of catecholamines, which goose the cardiovascular system into high gear. And while these catecholamines were important in helping you to instantly fight or flee, it was generally thought they did not play an important role in the body’s longer-term response to exercise, including changes in muscle size and endurance. Intense exercise, in that case, would have no special or unique effects on the body beyond those that can be attained by easy exercise. 

But the Scripps researchers were unconvinced. “It just didn’t make sense” that the catecholamines served so little purpose in the body’s overall response to exercise, said Michael Conkright, an assistant professor at Scripps, who, with his colleague Dr. Nelson Bruno and other collaborators, conducted the new research. So, for a study published last month in The EMBO Journal, he and his collaborators decided to look deeper inside the bodies of exercising mice and, in particular, into what was going on with their CRTC2 proteins. 

To do so, they first bred mice that were genetically programmed to produce far more of the CRTC2 protein than other mice. When these mice began a program of frequent, strenuous treadmill running, their endurance soared by 103 percent after two weeks, compared to an increase of only 8.5 percent in normal mice following the same exercise routine. The genetically modified animals also developed tighter, larger muscles than the other animals, and their bodies became far more efficient at releasing fat from muscles for use as fuel.
These differences all were the result of a sequence of events set off by catecholamines, the scientists found in closely examining mouse cells. When the CRTC2 protein received and read certain signals from the catecholamines, it would turn around and send a chemical message to genes in muscle cells that would set in motion processes resulting in larger, stronger muscles. 

In other words, the catecholamines were involved in improving fitness after all.
What this finding means, Dr. Conkright said, is that “there is some truth to that idea of ‘no pain, no gain.’” Catecholamines are released only during exercise that the body perceives as stressful, he said, so without some physical strain, there are no catecholamines, no messages from them to the CRTC2 protein, and no signals from CRTC2 to the muscles. You will still see muscular adaptations, he added, if your exercise is light and induces no catecholamine release, but those changes may not be as pronounced or complete as they otherwise could have been.  

The study also underscores the importance of periodically reassessing the intensity of your workouts, Dr. Conkright said, if you wish to continually improve your fitness. Once a routine is familiar, your sympathetic nervous system grows blasé, he said, holds back adrenaline and doesn’t alert the CRTC2 proteins, and few additional adaptations occur.

The good news is that “intensity is a completely relative concept,” Dr. Conkright said. If you are out of shape, an intense workout could be a brisk walk around the block. For a marathon runner, it would involve more sweat. 

“But the point is to get out of your body’s comfort zone,” Dr. Conkright, “because it does look like there are unique consequences when you do.”

To realize the greatest benefits from exercise, we probably need to ramp up our workouts. It is interesting that a chemical in our bodies sends signals to our muscles when we work out. The harder we work out the more pronounced the results are. Therefore, everyone should get out there start working out hard!