Stretching for ballet and understanding myofascial release

Most dance students understand that you can be more flexible for ballet by stretching your muscles. This is true, the muscles can release tension and stretch safely. But many leading ballet / sports / fitness / cheerleading students and performers don’t understand myofascia. Myofascia is a tissue that surrounds and connects your entire body – all muscle groups and connective tissues from head to toe. This is not a clinical explanation. Just understand that myofascia can hold tension, it can, in its layers, be able to move or be sticky, like pieces of tape. This prevents you from becoming more flexible and seeing progress in all your efforts to achieve better movement and higher leg extensions in ballet.

It happens from top to bottom. You want to release tension and increase flexibility for a taller arabesque, as just one example. After a ballet barre workout, you do the splits on both sides, lean forward on your front leg to stretch your hamstring, and then do a back bend to increase the stretch in your hip area and lower leg. lower thigh, as well as the psoas, or anterior abdominal postural muscle.

This stretches the leg muscles and the spinal / postural muscles.

But those muscles, and all of your muscles and soft tissues, are wrapped in a tissue that can look like transparent plastic wrap. I realize this is a rustic image, but imagine it. Within the wrapped section of your muscle groups, you are stretching the muscles. But at each end of the section, there is a point where there is no stretch, there is no flexibility.

So from the hips to the legs, there is a point where it does not stretch or give in the fascia. What can you do?

You can learn to release tension from the cranial (scalp) muscles to the neck / shoulder muscles, spine, hips, and legs. This fascia tissue can be healthy and flexible, or due to trauma (tears, impacts) it can become scarred and sticky.

So as you warm up and stretch trying to be more flexible in every ballet and dance class, fitness session, or leading cheerleading practice, you have this invisible “silent partner” for your muscle groups that can no longer stretch.

Of course there is a solution to this problem. Adding a myofascial release stretching regimen starting with the scalp / neck / shoulder and working down the body, using a pinky ball when needed, or a foam roller, will release hidden tension that is preventing you from becoming more flexible.