News & Events Archive

The first analysis of the injuries suffered by dancers using engineering principles has recently been presented at the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science (IADMS) conference in Ohio.

Researchers at Coventry University have used biomechanics to assess the forces Ballet and Irish dancers exert on their bodies in order to understand how injuries occur and how to prevent them.

One particular Irish dance step called ‘the rock’ has been shown to exert a force of over 4 times the dancer’s body weight on the ankles. Combined with the fact that some muscles during this move can be dealing with forces up to 6 times their maximum load it is easy to see why injuries are so common.

For professional Irish dancers there is only a 20% chance of not getting injured in any one year. Yet even with these bleak statistics there has been little research done into dance and related injuries.

The biomechanical approach is in stark contrast to the hands on approach of physiotherapy as it uses objective quantitative data, taking the subjectivity out of diagnosis and prevention. Whilst it may be difficult to think of dancers in the same terms as robots, the researchers hope that the hard data gathered will help to develop injury prevention methods which consider the aesthetics as well as the biomechanics.

Lead researcher Dr. James Shippen said: ‘Very little is known about loads in the muscles of dancers when performing different steps. Whilst physiotherapists can use their expertise to help repair damaged muscles we hope to reduce the amount of injuries felt by dancers by developing preventative techniques which maintain the aesthetics of dance whilst reducing the extreme forces acting on the muscles’.

With the use of a 4m x 4m sprung Harlequin floor, 2 AMTI forceplates imbedded into the floor and a 12 camera Vicon optical tracking system the researchers have been able to calculate the torque and muscle loading occurring during performance of Irish and Ballet dance steps. This is then used to create a graphic image showing the pressure put on each of the muscles as the dancer performs the move.

The project has been running for one year and has funding from the Leverhulme Trust for a further two years. After working with Irish and Ballet dancers the researchers are now looking to work with contemporary dancers to build up the database before addressing ways to prevent injuries in dancers.

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For more information, or to interview James Shippen, please contact Hannah Murray:

on 01727 737997 or Alison Bushnell, External Press and Media Relations Officer on 024 7688 8245.