SELF-DESCRIBED DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LEGS IN BALLET DANCERS: DO THEY RELATE TO POSTURAL STABILITY AND GROUND REACTION FORCE MEASURES?

Abstract

Ballet technique classes are designed to train dancers symmetrically but they may actually create a lateral bias. It is unknown if dancers are functionally asymmetrical or how dancer’s perceived imbalances between legs manifest themselves. The purpose of this study was to examine ballet dancers’ lateral preference through analyzing their postural stability and ground reaction forces in fifth position when landing from dance-specific jumps. Thirty ballet majors volunteered to participate in this study. Each subject wore ballet technique shoes and performed fundamental ballet jumps out of fifth position on a force plate. The force plate recorded center of pressure (COP) and ground reaction force (GRF) data. Each subject completed a laterality questionnaire that determined the dancer’s (1) preferred landing leg for ballet, (2) self-identified stronger leg, and (3) self-identified leg with better balance. All statistical comparisons were made between the leg indicated on the post-test questionnaire and the other leg. No significant differences were identified between the limbs in any of the analyses conducted (p > .05). The results of this study indicate that a dancer’s preferential use of one limb over the other has no bearing on the GRFs or balance ability after landing jumps in ballet. Similarly, dancers’ opinions of their leg characteristics (such as one leg being stronger than the other) seem to be separate from the dancers’ actual ability to absorb GRFs or to balance while landing from ballet jumps. Although we found no functional asymmetry in the measures studied here, the things that could contribute to a lateral bias in ballet technique class and to functional differences associated with this lateral bias are multi-faceted. The results of this study cannot, by themselves, definitively say that ballet technique class develops the dancer equally bilaterally or that ballet dancers are without any functional asymmetry.