Utopia Holistic Health and Holidays Utopia Holistic Health & Holidays Issue 8 August 2 | Page 18

.Poor posture can lead to serious health concerns stretching and chiropractic checks that have
later in life, but also to pain and dysfunction at any longer, and more injury free careers in their
time. If your core strength is lacking and your chosen discipline. Chiropractic care is safe, gentle,
posture is poor, you cannot express your potential and super effective in helping you perform at your
well while dancing and your form will suffer best. Chiropractors are university trained experts is
greatly. detecting under performing joints in the body and
then correcting that movement, to allow optimal
 Number 2 – Cool-down While expert opinion is
healing to occur.
often divided on the best time to stretch, mine is
that stretching to cool-down provides good injury Your brain is the master controlling and co-
prevention. After a good rehearsal you will be ordinating system of the body and it
quite warm and flexible, so use some time communicates along a super fast network of
afterward to stretch as you cool down. Muscles are delicate nerves that travel all around your body.
basically great big groups of rope like fibres. Your When all is aligned and functioning well, these
brain tells them to pull together when they are nerves can effectively communicate the brain’s
turned on, and then they should relax and stretch messages with the body, and vice-versa. This
back out when not being actively used. system is so important that your brain is housed in
your skull and your spinal cord is wrapped in bone
You can help your muscles to recover and repair too! On either side of each spinal bone there is a
quickly by adopting a regular stretching routine nerve that branches off the spine, like smaller
after activity. But what do I do to warm up then? roads off a highway, and these nerves carry
Your warm up should consist of the same information to a very specific part of the body
movements you will be performing in your from just that level.
routine, just in smaller quantity or smaller range
(that is not as deep in a squat, or not as far in the  If you continue to think about these nerves as
splits, etc). As your body becomes warmer and the roads, what happens if the road becomes blocked
muscles get used to what is required of them your by a tree, or some other problem? A traffic jam
full range and depth of movement becomes easier happens right? In the body, these traffic jams are
and more comfortable. known as areas of nerve stress called
‘Subluxations’. They don’t always cause pain, but
Listen to your body signals, and warm up they do affect the amount or quality of the
according to how you feel that day. Each day is information getting through to the specific part of
different, and depending on the movements the body. Sometimes a little bit of info is affected,
required for each piece, a different warm-up sometimes it’s a lot.
routine will be better for each day. There is no one
standard dance warm-up that suits all dancers for  Removing the tree from the road gets the traffic
all routines. Ask your coach for more targeted moving properly again, chiropractors are able to
movements you can use. remove the pressure from the areas of nerve stress
and allow the body to get the information flowing
Number 3 – Chiropractic care As a chiropractor along the nerves once more. When your brain and
who works with elite athletes and dancers I see my body are working together in harmony you can
fair share of accident and injury. What I have perform at your best, more often, and with less
noticed over the years is that those people who injury. So, in summary, prioritse your core
maintain their spinal movement and health with strength and stability, get your posture checked,
regular exercise stretch as a cool-down, and see your local
Chiropractor for a spinal health check-up.