Publication details
Do the sport dance, classical ballet and Slovakian folklore dance training affect the gait stereotype?
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| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | „There are many ways how to master the art of dance. Each dancing style differs in its load put on the dancer and may lead to specific overuse injuries and pain. The purpose of this study was to characterize the differences in gait produced by different style dancing training as the number of previous studies is limited and predominantly focused only on classical ballet. 25 sport dancers (12 females, 13 males), 22 classical ballet dancers (16 females, 6 males), 21 dancers from Slovakian folklore dance group (12 females, 10 males) and 20 non-dancers (10 females, 10 males) participated in this study. All participants were asked to walk barefoot among the Emed-at platform (Novel GmbH, Germany) at their natural gait velocity. The contact area (cm2), contact time (ms), maximal force normalized to body mass (% body mass) and peak pressure (kPa) were analysed. Additionally, the foot progression angle (°), COPI (center of pressure index), arch index, distance of COP during the roll-over pattern (cm) and foot length (cm) were obtained from analysed footprints. To compare the differences between groups, Kruskal-Wallis test was used. In this study, the gait in sport dancers was characterized by the longer contact time of the total foot, smaller force normalized to body mass at hindfoot and big toe areas and a small foot progression angle. The gait of classical ballet dancers was characterized by a high longitudinal foot arch, greater foot progression angle, and higher force normalized to body mass at the area of the big toe and second toe. The gait in Slovakian folklore dancers was characterized by a decreased longitudinal arch, increased contact area, and maximal force normalized to body mass at midfoot and a smaller foot progression angle compared to other dancing styles. Interestingly, more statistically significant differences were observed within the dancers of different styles than compared to non-dancers in this study. Future studies may explore the relationship between the dancers’ gait characteristics and the specific injuries occurrence. |
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