IRISH DANCE IS NO LONGER JUST DANCING, IT’S A SPORT.
by James Devine

Irish dance is no longer just dancing — it’s a sport, and you’re the athlete. What once was a laid-back traditional dancing style has evolved into an aesthetic and athletic art form that at the elite level requires all the elements of top sporting performance — speed, acceleration, agility, power, flexibility, mobility, and strength.

The sport usually involves early specialization, in which Irish dancers are exposed to a high volume of dance training (sometimes 4-5 days per week) from a very young age. This, coupled with a competitive season that spans a full calendar year, with up to 8-10 majors annually puts a heavy demand on a young Irish dancer’s body, both physically and psychologically.

According to the latest research by Dr Roisin Cahalan at the University of Limerick, 77% of all Irish dancers get injured at some point in their career, with the foot and ankle most commonly affected.

The purpose of this article is to provide FEIS App readers with an overview of the physical fitness requirements of Irish dance athletes, and to highlight the purpose of strength and conditioning (S&C) training and why S&C training is now essential for competitive Irish dancers.

PHYSICAL FITNESS REQUIRMENTS OF IRISH DANCE ATHLETES

Irish dancers are clearly athletes in the sense that they require the necessary athletic physical capacities to perform at a high level.

The athletic nature of Irish dance involves a series of highly complex and powerful movements such as birdies, high kicks, front clicks, quad clicks, jumps, double & triple spins, leaps and landings — all performed at a heart rate of up to 180bpm.

The various components of physical fitness — strength, power, speed, agility, flexibility, mobility, coordination and balance, anaerobic and aerobic energy utilization, muscular strength and endurance — all are essential to complete these moves skilfully and with fine control.

When I approach the task of developing a young dance athlete, the first thing I do is create a needs analysis to determine which physical attributes and strength characteristics need to be developed, enhanced, or improved.

a) Strength, power and speed
The complex and athletic nature of the movements in Irish dance include powerful jumps, single leg power, short intense bursts of speed, postural strength/control, acceleration in multiple directions, 360 degree rotations, dancing on toes, strong muscle contractions, and foot and ankle strength.


b) Energy demands of Irish dancers
The duration of performances vary amongst the different dances, but in general, the light and heavy round can last between 60-90s, with ample recovery time in between rounds. Some solo set dances can last up to 2 minutes (sometimes more). Both the explosive nature of the sport and short duration of each dance round means that the main supply of energy in the form of ATP (the fuel your muscles run on) is via the anaerobic glycolytic energy system, with a significant rate of lactate accumulation.

C) Posture
Irish dancers require the ability to maintain postural control in the upper extremity when performing dynamic dance movements. In the upper body, a strong bracing of core is required to maintain a static upper body, with shoulders retracted and no upper body rotation.

D) Flexibility, mobility, stability
Irish dance is an aesthetic sport, which demands large ranges of motion at the hip and optimal hamstring flexibility. The evolution of the sport has seen increases in range of motion required when performing physically demanding moves such as front clicks and birdies. What is also key for Irish dance athletes is the ability to stabilize and control those range of motions that they have access to.

WHY IS S&C ESSENTIAL FOR IRISH DANCE ATHLETES?

S&C has been integrated into the training for elite athletes for all sports for many years to develop the physical qualities that can’t be optimized by practising the sport itself.

This is a completely new concept in the Irish dance world. However in recent years other dance genres including ballet and contemporary dance have started to include strength training in their weekly classes to help dancers prepare their bodies physically for gruelling rehearsals, competitions and performances; And now many Irish dance schools are starting to realize the benefits of integrating S&C into their weekly training.

In dance, as in all other sports, injuries are prevalent. The research paints a clear picture that injuries to the foot and ankle are most common amongst Irish dancers. Similarly, stress related injuries, from over-use, such as stress fractures are also common.

Whilst all injuries cannot be prevented, there is a lot of research to show that the risk of injury can be lowered with appropriate strength and conditioning for dancers.

For example, a study by NIDMS confirmed that, ‘A year of strength and conditioning can slash the injuries suffered by female dancers from 4.14 per 1,000 hours of dancing to just 1.71’.

As a strength coach, my main aim is to increase the physical capacity of the dancer to cope with the amount of dance training, competition and performances a young dancer will perform each week. As a result this will give the dancer more opportunity to practice, improve, and remain competitive throughout the year.

As the style of our sport continues to evolve, Irish dancers now need to be able to dance their steps with more power and speed to stand out on stage. If power equals force times velocity (P = FV), then it makes sense that improving both your strength (force development) and speed (velocity) is going to help improve your ability to dance your moves more powerfully.

THE BOTTOM LINE: A stronger and well conditioned young Irish dance athlete will be better prepared to perform complex movements with power and speed, and sustain the demands of training and competition year after year.

SUMMARY
It is advised that Irish dance teachers consider providing an effective training stimulus that is different from what dancers experience during dance training. Integrating weekly strength and conditioning training and proper warm-up and cool-down procedures into an Irish dance athlete’s programme can help dancers to avoid muscle injuries, as well as influencing their performance with improved power, jump height, balance, coordination, ranges of motion, and stability.