COMPARISON OF PREPROFESSIONAL COLLEGE DANCERS AND NCAA DIVISION I COMPETITIVE DANCERS

Dance is an art form that requires high levels of artistic ability in addition to support from physiological abilities such as strength, power, flexibility, balance, and stability. Preprofessional college dancers may lack some of these necessary physiological components as they transition into professional dancing due to the lack of supplemental training requirements to complete the degree. The purpose of the study was to compare lower body muscular strength, power, flexibility, and stability measures between collegiate competitive dancers who participate in strength training to preprofessional college dancers. Dancers were assessed in a series of physical tests after a familiarization session including a dance specific flexibility measure, y-balance test (YBT), squat jump (SJ), countermovement jump (CMJ), single leg countermovement jump (SL CMJ), isometric mid-thigh pull (IMTP), a core strength endurance test, and anthropometric measurements. By way of independent sample t-tests, the competitive dancers performed higher on the SJ and CMJ, with large effect sizes for the bilateral power measures. The preprofessional dancers had significantly higher passive range of motion (PROM) for both legs in external rotation and the difference for left external rotation. No significant differences were observed for anthropometrics, YBT, IMTP, or core endurance. The significant differences between the groups from this study could be due to differences in training histories. Therefore, an inclusion of a training requirement in college dance programs could be an effective way to improve critical performance factors in female preprofessional college dancers.