Sascha Radetsky Research Paper

The Bumps and Bruises of Ballet Sascha Radetsky, a premier dancer at American Ballet Theatre, doesn’t just wear his war paint on the stage, he has been fighting a battle of pain for many years before realizing surgery is the only option (Radetsky). Radetsky is no thin-skinned man, as he vowed to never let an injury take him away from a performance after undergoing 3 ankle operations. He went through years of tearing, sprains, bumps and bruises, before the pinching in his knees reached a level that was no longer tolerable. Sascha Radetsky’s plica would pinch with every bend of his knees. The plica are “bands of tissue that crisscross the knee underneath the meniscus” (Radetsky). These bands typically will dissolve before birth, but Radetsky …show more content…
When dancers are trained with incorrect technique, they are more likely to be injured while dancing. Improper technique can compromise the whole joint, making it weaker by applying pressure to places that are not meant to handle it (Eigner). As dancers become more serious with their training, they begin to dance more often, this can lead to overuse injuries. Pre-professional and professional dancers typically dance at least 20 hours a week. Dancing every day can put a lot of stress and strain on the dancer’s body, leading to injuries such as pulled muscles, tears, and stress fractures. Another reason dancers will incur overuse injuries is summer intensives. Summer intensives are workshops that take place in the summer to maintain a dancer’s technique during their “off season”. The classes at these intensives last as long as 10 hours a day, usually a large difference compared to shorter hours during the school year (Brady, ”Ouch Doesn’t Have to Mean Goodbye”). The long hours and intense classes can put a lot of stress on the dancers, leading to overuse injuries. Overuse typically leads to minor, easily recoverable injuries such as strains and pulls, however, dancers will sometimes try to work through the pain, leading to more serious injuries with a longer recovery time (Brady, ”Ouch Doesn’t Have to Mean …show more content…
It takes blood, sweat, and tears to make the pretty shapes that are presented on stage. All the hard work is often overlooked and dismissed as just dancing around in pretty dresses. In fact, dance and all the rehearsals, practices and performances included, can lead to just as many injuries as any other sport. In similar studies of ballet and football,also known as soccer in America, it is apparent that both activities result in a significant amount of injuries. Zech, Astrid, and Kai Wellmann studied football’s impact of injuries; they found that 84.2 percent of previous injuries were located in the lower extremity. Caine et al also performed a survey of injuries among professional ballerinas and found quite comparable results, as lower extremity accounted for 85.96 percent of the reported injuries among the ballet dancers. Although dance and football share the most common area of injury, the injuries are caused by different reasons. Unlike the reasons for the dance injuries previously stated, football injuries are more commonly caused by trauma. Although football may differ from ballet in the causes of it’s common injuries, the competitors of both activities are aware of its risks and take precautions to overcome them. Similar to how a football player may wear shoe insoles or braces (Zech), a ballerina fits their pointe shoes with toe spacers and tape to lessen the risk of harming their metatarsals.