With the IADMS conference coming up in Melbourne in a month’s time, I’ve been perusing the program. As usual, there are conversations around cross-training, workload and recovery, RED-D, hypermobility, strength and conditioning, and positive psychology.
I am not a dance scientist myself, but I have written about dance science and long studied my own body — all the myriad ways it responds to exercise, fuel, environments and schedules.
Cycling is one thing I have always found beneficial.
While I have spent a fair bit of time in gyms and even acquired Personal Training and Pilates certification to devise programs for dancers, I will say that cycling on a stationary bike is one of the most boring activities imaginable.
Cycling outdoors, however, is exhilarating.
I’ve almost always owned a bike. I cycled to work at Scottish Ballet — even in the depths of winter. I cycled to work at W.A.B. even while dancing the notoriously demanding ballet Rachmaninov by Uwe Scholz.
These days, with Centennial Park next door, I cycle or walk the park several times a week.
Cycling works for me — but the outdoors kind. Why the distinction? That I’d be interested to ask the scientists and psychologists.
I have a hypermobile body type. While I respond very quickly to exercise, I still need what I call a regular “tuning” to keep everything firing quickly and synchronously. There’s just a lot of range to control!
But with a full day of work, the thought of an added trip to the gym becomes a nightmare.
Whereas a 20-minute cycle to work and back firstly warms me up. And then, gently cools me down. It uses my body differently too. I notice my arms become stronger, while the constant balance required works my core functionally.
And after a full day in the studio — the highs and lows, the stresses both relational and physical — there is nothing so liberating as riding a bike, particularly downhill. The day is blown away!
Psychologically, the ride home also helped me transition from Emma the dancer to Emma who had a full life outside the studio. Otherwise, I had a tendency to carry the studio home with me and all its trials and tribulations.
Which brings me back to IADMS.
One presentation I’m particularly interested to hear is Timothy Podesta’s Monitoring training workload in vocational pre-professional dancers. It makes me wonder about what we count as workload, and whether all physical load is experienced in quite the same way.
I’m also interested in Brooke Winder’s workshop on translating cross-training and periodization for dance, Catherine Neal’s sharing of how ballet company dancers warm up, and, given my own body, Melinda Purnell’s The sensory hypermobile dancer: management strategies for the class and clinic.
My experience of cycling has been curious. Even during periods of very demanding dancing, cycling to and from work didn’t seem to exhaust me further. Quite the contrary. I arrived feeling more switched on and returned home more relaxed.
That said, bodies and minds work differently. My partner at the time had quite the opposite experience. Cycling used to “lock him up”. He’d have to spend extra time stretching afterwards to feel ready to dance.
So there’s a question for the experts at IADMS: When we talk about training workload, cross-training and recovery, how much does our experience of the activity matter? Does a 20-minute cycle through a park belong in the same equation as 20 minutes on an exercise bike? And what about the fact that one, for me, is a chore and the other a joy?
I’d be interested to hear what dancers, teachers — and dance scientists — think.
On that note, with the sun shining, I’m off for a ride!