Pre-hab for Dancers with Richelle Stevenson

You're listening to the PT Profit podcast, episode number 122. Today I'm sitting down with Rachelle Ms. Ricky Stevenson. We're talking about Prehab for dancers. Are you ready? Let's get started. Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services, and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast. What's up, coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and today I'm sitting down with Ricky Stevenson, and we are talking all about Prehab for dancers. Now, what you're about to hear, when I roll this interview, you're going to know that our team messed up. We messed up, and we accidentally deleted the recording the first time that we. We did this interview. And in fact, we've had a couple of those. And you know what? I'm fully transparent about it for two reasons, because, number one, listen, we all have technical stuff, and then we had some technical stuff, and that's fine. Number two is that I'm grateful that it happened because I was able to really take the conversation to go to another layer because we had already chatted, so I was familiar with her work. So I am grateful that we talked about it because Ricky is brilliant, which you're about to discover. And she's so passionate and cares about helping people and dancers specifically, also the older generation. Now, we primarily did focus on. On athletes in this. On dancers in this episode, but she's also does a lot for the older population or people who are aging in reverse. I'll say. And she also is in. She's also using her expertise to research so that people can get the help that they need. So that's something to consider to help them and to do the research so that people can get the help that they need. So Ricky Stevenson is a licensed athletic trainer, certified Pilates instructor, and professional ballet dancer. In 2015, she graduated summa cum laude from Grand Canyon University with a bachelor's degree in athletic training and a minor in dance education. While in college, she competed nationally in dance and graduated with honors through the National Honor Society of Dance Arts. She has had several years of experience in sports medicine, caring for athletes of all ages, covering emergency situations, and developing rehabilitation. Rehabilitation programs. She joined her professional Contemporary Ballet in 2017 and is now the assistant director. Her company regularly tours using dance to initiate discussion about eco justice, mental health and caring for the community. She and her husband now live with their animals in Connecticut. Ricky founded the Bar and Beyond to bridge the gap in health care between injury recovery and fitness, helping dancers and non dancers alike. Her numerous certifications and skills include therapeutic cupping instrument, associated soft tissue mobilization, Pilates mat certification, Pilates, reformer, kinesiology, taping, concussions, sports medicine, and dance medicine. Keep an eye on Ms. Ricky Stevenson because she is brilliant, she's changing industry standards and she is helping professionals and people get the access to recovery that they need. Without further ado, let's roll that interview. Rachelle, thank you so much for joining me on the show today.

How are you? Hi, Beverly. I'm so excited to be here. It's good to talk with you, especially on a good day.

I know, I love it, honestly. You know, this is full transparency in here in my podcast. So this is actually the second time that we are chatting. Thank you so much for coming onto the show again because the first time we accidentally deleted the recording. Listen, I don't pretend to be perfect. Nobody in this space is perfect. But Rachelle is an amazing human and I really want you to get her. I really want to help get her message out and I want you to hear what she has to say because it was an awesome interview. So I'm really excited to do round two, take two. Let's crush it. So for those of you who don't know you, can you please share with us a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there?

Yes. So who I am. My name is Rachelle. A lot of people call me Ricky as well. So I go by both. I'm based out of Connecticut right now. Originally from Arizona. I've lived a little bit of everywhere. I currently am a professional contemporary ballet dancer. Even though this is actually my last year performing, I'm excited for the next step ahead. But I've been dancing professionally for six or seven years now. I'll say I was in Washington state. I danced in Arizona, and now I'm up here in Connecticut. And yeah, I love it. I work with a lot of dancers. I'm an athletic trainer and I'm also certified in Pilates. I do a lot of injury prevention. I do a lot of injury recovery, specifically with dancers. As you can guess, that's my niche. But I also really love to work with. I have. I've been working a lot lately with non Dancers, I'll say more pedestrian, especially slightly older. I'm usually I work more with young athletic populations, but lately I've been working more with, you know, middle age and beyond. And it's been really enlightening. I really love to see how, just really how Pilates and how a more sports medicine minded take on exercise has helped these people. A lot of times they have more complicated medical histories. They can't necessarily just walk into a gym and feel safe lifting weights and all of that. So being able to give them something that they feel confident and comfortable doing and seeing their progress even in just how they live their life, they're like, wow, I feel better, I can move. And it's just been really, it's been really uplifting for me in a way that I didn't expect. I really love seeing that with dancers, but it's been great to do that with non dancers as well. Let's see how I got here. I really followed dance. You have to go where you get in and also where you're in, in my opinion, where I really felt led and called. And so I moved to Washington state as I said, and then I moved to Connecticut and in both of those areas I went first with dance and then I was able to find different athletic training positions kind of to support that. Whereas in college, when I first graduated high school, I was full go. I just really want to pursue sports medicine wholeheartedly and I thought that I had kind of missed my chance with performing because I was only doing it part time. So it's been interesting. I feel like I've gotten to do really hardcore focus on athletic training and then a really hard focus on dance. And now I'm in a place of being able to really pursue both wholeheartedly and it's very busy. I'm doing a lot, I'm working full time. I have a business where I work just direct access with, with individuals. So I'm learning a lot about marketing and business from your podcast actually and from, you know, oh my gosh, thank.

You, that's so kind.

So it's been a totally new world in that sense. I don't know very much about business, but I've been really loving getting to now that the pandemic has lessened in some regards, we can work a lot more in person. And I'm also, as I said, finishing my last year dancing professionally and then I am getting ready to pursue a Doctor of Physical Therapy degree. I'm starting to apply in the next couple months, really. So I've been Taking and retaking courses because I am past my time. I'm older now, so I'm not able to use a lot of those courses that I took in my previous studies. So I've been taking pretty much a full time student, getting ready to apply for that program starting hopefully in October or January, depending on where I go. So, yeah, I guess that's everything.

That's amazing. Okay, so how are you feeling about transitioning from professional dance from professional dancing to not? And what caused you to say, what caused you to do that?

Yeah, it's been a really interesting process. I think I've been very lucky, very grateful that this has been a choice to transition. A lot of people, they one really significant injury that's going to be too long for them to come back or just the timing of a lot of my friends, my coworkers, when the pandemic hit, it just wiped their resources and kind of really wiped the joy out of performing. And so there's been a lot of people that I've seen walk through this process who it hasn't been necessarily a choice. And so I'm really grateful that I can kind of leave on my own terms to some extent. But it really just became. I love dancing. I really loved this. And I feel like I could physically keep going if I really kept putting in the effort. Like I said, when you're 18, it's very different when you're at the end of your 20s. But the other aspect is my husband really wants to pursue his degree as well. He wants to do Maryland, PhD. And so looking at that together and really deciding this is the time to transition. And it's been good. There's been a lot of times. We just finished up our Christmas production and that was our biggest one with the full theater and tons of sets. It's kind of like the Nutcracker, but different story and there's lots of moving pieces, lots of lighting, lots of everything. And so it was great to have that chance to really experience that for that last time in the theater. Whereas the previous year we had to do a filmed version and it's not quite the same. So there's been good moments of kind of, okay, transitioning out. Not necessarily saying goodbye forever, but trying to find other ways to prepare myself physically, prepare myself mentally. I've been looking at taking up running down the road and kind of trying to transition because I know that for me, I really thrive in that diligent, regular, scheduled exercise and, you know, goal oriented kind of fitness regime. So I'm excited to hopefully transition that well, but there's been a lot of learning in that process as well.

Yeah, for sure. So I'd love for you to share with us. You know, we. We talked a little bit about Prehab. Right. And in. In our earlier podcast when we first. The one that. The Phantom One. The Phantom podcast. I'd love for you to just, you know, share with us a little bit more about some of the common mistakes that you see. Dancers who are, you know, probably don't consider themselves to be an athlete, even though they are. They consider themselves to be an artist, which is a combination of both. How have you been able to help shift perspective for your dancers who don't consider themselves as athletes? And how do you help them be preventative in their care for their body, their instrument?

Yeah, it's a great question. I know we touched on this a little last time, and I wish I remembered what we talked about exactly. But just answering your question now, I think that in a lot of ways approaching this in the same way that we. There's been a lot of talk lately, especially about not specializing too early in sports for students, and I think dance is right along with that, but we never really look at it from that same perspective. So there might be a pitch count in baseball, but we don't really have a releve count in ballet or even an hourly analysis, so. True. Yeah. On what you're really doing to your body. So one of the ways that I really try to emphasize to the students and try to remember for myself is CMC importance of cross training and doing so from an experience or knowledge base. Because a lot of times dancers might hear this term cross training. They're like, oh, okay, so I should just jump right into something like CrossFit, which that's actually not normally what they jump into, but kind of jumping into something extreme to like, oh, this is like, oh, I should do something else. Or for example, running. Like, I want to take it up. But a lot of times what we don't realize is the way you use your body for dance is very targeted, very specific. And in a lot of ways, you have to unlearn some of that in order to come into a different cross training technique. So I always recommend, like, if a dancer is going to go into something like weightlifting and they're quote, unquote, off season, you definitely want to get some advice from somebody who's experienced or has an expertise in this. You don't want to just look on Instagram and see an exercise. Anyone. You know, we want to definitely Recommend that, but especially for dancers because for instance, they're taught to run in a turned out position on their toes. So kind of like forefoot running or they're taught to be in a certain position for ballet and it's not natural to reverse that. But if you're doing for instance, a squat in that turned out position with your weight shifted forward, which is more of a plie versus a squat, you're not using your glutes as much. You're putting so much force in front of your knee and it's just really, it can be a lot more damaging than helpful. And that's the opposite of what we want to do. So first off, I would say having a good cross training technique or program and having that be from somebody who really knows what they're talking about or just seeking advice in general. And the other thing is we've been really looking a lot into active rest dancers and I know a lot of athletes experience this too. But it's very, very prevalent in different forms of dance where there is no off season. That's kind of why I said quote unquote, because there's, you know, getting ready for the spring or for the winter performance for Nutcracker, for, you know, that, that performance. And you're building, building week, sometimes seven days a week, getting into it. And then you might have a week off around Christmas, but then you start right back up in January. Or sometimes there's winter intensives that students will dive right into and then you're going all the way through to your spring, you know, spring performance. And that's the same amount of six, seven days a week. And then a lot of times you'll have maybe a week off or maybe jump right into a summer intensive, which sometimes it's only two weeks, but for a lot of dancers it'll go up to two months, two and a half months. So it's really that full summer time. So there's kind of a fear that's ingrained that if you take any time off, you're going to lose everything, that you'll come back and you won't be able to do anything. But that's not really founded in research either. And so there is some element of losing skills, but it takes way longer than we expect it to. And so I just really encourage dancers to rest and to have more of an active rest. More cross training, swimming, if you can get access to it, just different ways to use your body that is especially, especially symbiotic would be great. I really always recommend Pilates. But, you know, anything that you can do to stay active gives muscles that are overused a little bit of a break, and yet also doing so in a way that is, is. Is proper, basically is healthy for your body.

I love that. Now, one of the things I'd love for you to just dive in to a little bit is you mentioned that that dancers have to almost unlearn some of their skill in order to. To cross train effectively. So I'm curious, can you dive into a little bit more about what specifically are those skills that they have to unlearn? And if you are training a dancer, what are some of the things that you need to be thinking about when you are dancing, when you're training a dancer? And I know I'm, I'm always like, oh, I'm going to ask you one at a time. And then I hit you with. And then I never, you know, so take your time. Answer these as they call. But this is just how my thought process is also, you know, you know, how do you help dancers see that we're not going backwards? This is not going to make you, you know, less flexible. This is going to help you go forward. So would you mind diving into that?

Oh, yeah, no, it's, it's. I wish there was also one simple answer. Excuse me. But a lot of times it has to do. So answering, I guess your last question first. How do I encourage or help dancers to see that they're not backtracking and learning? That's something I really feel I have to tap into with each person. Each person is different. Some people, they honestly trust you right away and they're like, oh, this is great. This is hard, this is different, and they dive right into it. For other dancers, they feel like they're going back to, like you said, basics, or they're just doing something that's really weird and obscure. But especially because we have to just really target so much pelvic stability with dancers. So I'll touch back on that later.

Yeah, please do.

Yeah, so it's really hard sometimes when they're looking at, like, I have to do a, you know, a bird dog. It's an exercise where one leg lifts, one arm lifts, and to do it correctly is really difficult when you're first starting to do it incorrectly. Super easy. So they're like, this is stupid. But having them build that trust, it takes some time. And I think, I think for me, I really love to explain what we're doing, why we're doing it, and explain how it integrates into dance and to be honest with you, I really approach things from an injury prevention side or an injury, like I said, injury recovery. A lot of times the dancers I work with are dealing with something, so we're kind of starting with a rehab, but I always try to tag it into some kind of strength training. So, like, this is going to help your knee injury, but it's also going to help give you some better turns or improve your power, try to kind of bring into something that they can really strive for. But yeah, it's definitely different for each person. And I find it's really different. The younger athletes and the younger dancers, they really take. They don't believe me right off the bat. But a lot of times when I work with more professional level dancers, they're either at the point where they're really ready to try anything or they just have that natural intuition. They know their body, they know that they need sometimes things that don't make sense or feel right right away in order to improve. So I think it depends on the person and the age a lot of times. But your other question had to do with unlearning, right?

Yes.

So, yeah, the things that I find, especially lately that we really usually dive right into right off the bat in some type of form is pelvic stability, for one, and also glute training. I find with dancers that they so overwork their erectors and any of their low back muscles in any movement that they do. They might have a strong core or they might have abdominal strength, but if they have it, they don't really use it a lot of times because they're not integrating it into their movement. So we always start off with some type of foundational transverse abdominal activation, some type of hollowing. Everything usually comes back to Pilates. Sometimes it's really boring. We start in that place and we usually try to. A lot of times they struggle with integrating their breath while using their core. So usually start right onto those points to help them find those muscles, find that coordination, find that stability first off. And then we progress as you would, you'd start supine, you progress prone, you progress sideline, you kind of get all the way into a standing place and then glute wise, they have to unlearn. So I mentioned a plie. So if you're not familiar with dance, that has to do with bending your knees and you want to keep your weight centered over your middle of your feet even. Sometimes they teach to the toes as far as when you come up that way, just technique wise and dance, you're centered over your weight. But if, you know, squats, you know, where the glutes really fire, you want that weight to be back a little farther so it's more on the back of the foot or midfoot. And so your weight translates posteriorly. And so when I give that to dancers, they have no idea what they're doing, why they're doing, how to control it. You start to. To see where those, you know, knee valgus comes in. You start to see a lot of those compensation patterns. And one of the ways that I can help get them to buy in, basically, is to really have a mirror in front and to show them, okay, when I'm bringing you to this position, when you're actually forced to use your glutes, see how they're not strong enough right now or your abductors, they're not strong enough to stabilize your hips. And look at what that's doing to your knee. Look at what's that doing to your foot. Can you see how jumping from this position, jumping from this place isn't going to be as powerful. Help them buy in that way, but also is going to cause some injuries. So those are usually the two places that I focus on. I'm talking a lot, but if anyone.

No, that's it. That, I mean, that's really powerful. I mean, and I just want anyone listening. I can't help it. I'm always thinking of messaging, but you're really connecting with what it is that they want specifically and demonstrating and showing to them like, this is why and how it's going to help you. Right. So, you know, dancers are also, in my opinion, as a former. As a former performer.

Right.

I was never a dancer, a musical theater. Right. So I was like a body. But they, they. Their instrument is. Is. And it requires them to really know their body. And. And it's interesting. One of the things that you said, which was funny to me, is because you're like, they don't have an off season. They're always on, they're always working. Right. So that must. And it's true. It's so true. And while they don't have like a number of throws or whatever that they have to do, they're literally ton. Doing their life away. So, you know, so the neural pathways and patterns and the way that they learn their body, that must be so challenging to help them cross train.

Yeah, no, it definitely is something else that's really challenging with. With dancers that they don't use very often. I don't know what it looks like from musical theater but unless you're a gentleman doing lifting, there's not really a lot of upper body strength might be endurance holding your arms, but it's not really strength. And a lot of times what I find is they don't have proper scapular motion. And that really comes into play for men who are lifting. If you can't properly move your shoulder blades in the right position, then you're going to be overusing your back, you're going to be overusing your neck, you're going to be putting your rotator cuff in a vulnerable position. So I find what you're talking about as far as retraining, another part of cross training I didn't mention earlier is trying to help them find some of those smaller movements and then integrate a full body program. In that sense I found is really helpful for dancers and really important for life for all of us. Really.

Yeah, I love that. So now I'm curious, you know, one of the things that I know to be true about dancing and it was a story I used to say at all, my, my to myself all the time, which was, oh, I'm not flexible enough for dancing. I'm not flexible enough for dancing. So I'm curious, you know, as you're introducing cross training and specifically strength training, do you have dancers that are concerned about losing some of their flexibility and how is it that you, that you, how do you start to communicate and demonstrate how this is going to be beneficial and not lose their sense of flexibility? Or do they?

Yeah, well, it's a great question. I think what a lot of us where, where we get that, that connection and where we get that assumption is just observations in the past. It's like, okay, this is more of an age old thing. And I do, you know, you do see runners have notoriously awful hamstring flexibility. So I do think there is some connection as far as how you're training leads to results in different ways. But what we're finding more and more too is especially older and just high school. I mean once you're fully grown in that sense is a lot of times our flexibility actually is a compensation pattern. So if we're not having enough core strength, our muscles shorten to try to prevent us from injuring or different things in that regard. So I think what I'm saying really trying to emphasize with the dancers that I work with is, well, for one, we continue with flexibility training throughout. It helps them feel better, it is helpful, it is good to continue in that regard. But we do so from more of a safe position. A lot of times. Sorry, I'm going a couple different places, but that's okay.

I love it.

I love it.

I asked you. I asked you a pretty, like, how do you train flexibility and mobility question. So.

Really broad, but great. We love talking with you. So a lot of times, the way dancers grow up in their studio is, okay, let's train your splits. Let's get some flexibility. Let's put your legs on chairs, and you're just going to sit into your stretch. And so those joints take a lot of the force. Like, there's just a lot of things that are not necessarily the best in that regard. So we try to do flexibility from a different position, whether it's open, kinetic, chain, or more controlled. I do a specific split progression in order to help target different elements within so that you're not just going right into your back. Like, there's kind of a little bit more elaborate in that sense of training flexibility. And I find that by isolating it and by, again, educating and kind of explaining what we're doing, it helps them to really target certain areas and feel more in control. And then again, you're not putting pressure on your joints. So from that standpoint, answer your question. Trying to do flexibility and give them the tools and the resources that they're not just like, all right, I have to, like, push my leg into the wall and let gravity do the work and just feel it in my knee, but hope that it's okay. Trying to instead help them understand and see which muscles were stretching and why. So we do still integrate that, but from the other side, the flip side of it is that by training core, by helping to keep everything working in a balanced way, you're less likely to lose that flexibility in that sense. And also, if you're strategically doing it so that you're stretching after you're warm and you're still incorporating it as well, I find that I haven't really had any dancers lose flexibility in that sense or even be as concerned with it as they've been working. So I think that if we do it well, and I think if we can really educate and give them resources, then that's anybody. When you feel in control, you have that autonomy that you do better.

So I'm curious, too. There's something else I want to ask you, especially when I'm thinking of athletes specifically like. Or when I'm thinking of dancers specifically like, an athlete, which I feel like they don't do, but when I'm thinking of it in this regard.

Right.

I'm curious about how you navigate the conversation between pain and discomfort. Because like other professional athletes, people, dancers are trained, in my opinion, to really push the limits of what their body is, you know, capable of doing at that time. Oftentimes, especially if it comes to meeting audition requirements, performance requirements.

Right.

You mentioned that no one wants to recover. There is no off season. So they will sometimes push limits past what their body is telling them that they can and can't do. Which, for the record, that's where change comes from.

Right.

It's not, that's not necessarily a bad thing. But there is a line between, you know, being uncomfortable and going to the next level versus crossing over into like, okay, now we're. Now we're in pain. Now we're. We're running the risk of injury. So what is your process? How do you navigate those. The nuanced conversation between pain and discomfort and helping them set, you know, set up for. For pre injury rehab. What's your process?

Yes. Whoa. Well, first off, I think it's really interesting you asked this question. We actually have a research team. We just were in the process of getting the manuscript revised and everything. But we just submitted a study on this topic. Exactly. So I know I can't talk too much about it from what we found, but it's really intriguing to see the way that, first off, dancers can't distinguish injury or, sorry, pain and discomfort, where that distinction is a little blurred, but also where from an artistic leadership standpoint, just because, again, hundreds of years of training and tradition, it's hard to. There's a lot there, I guess I should say, that comes up. So we're trying to really understand what that distinction is from a dance specific standpoint. Because the other thing is, a lot of times, gratefully, a lot of times in sports, they have more resources. So if a student is like, hey, you know, this is kind of bothering me, they can seek an athletic trainer, they can seek somebody at the school to say, hey, is this a problem? And that they can say, oh, okay, yes, this is a pain. Or, you know, this is soreness. This is how you work through it. But oftentimes dancers don't have that same resource, so it's a little bit harder to define. Exactly. So I hate to give this as like a, you know, this is definitely not a standard by any means. This is something that I'm still trying to figure out and how I communicate to students. And I think the other aspect is am I communicating to students that I'll see regularly, that I can kind of keep checking in with am I communicating this as a one time, Here's a general guideline. It's a little bit different in that sense. Not to say if I'm working with somebody who's recovering from an injury, what I'll generally say is, okay, there's different types of pain. Let's talk about sharp pain, let's talk about a dull pain. Let's talk about something that's pinpointed. Let's talk about something that's general. Is this something that lingers for more than a day? Is this something, how does that look like? So we'll talk about different ways of describing pain to kind of give them tools to really understand their body in that sense. And then the other side of things is how significant is this pain? Again, it depends on the injury specifically. If I'm working with somebody recovering. So I'll usually say if it's less than three out of ten and I say eight is called an ambulance for me and how we verify it because a lot of times sometimes people will say 10 is, you know, kids don't know what that means, but if it's less than a 3 out of 10 or so, then it's a better place to keep continuing dancing, depending on their injury. But if I, if this is somebody who is never, you know, is just dancing one day and they feel something weird in their knee, if it lasts more than 24 hours, I say definitely see somebody because I personally wouldn't want that liability on me if it's something. And a lot of times dancers and athletes in general, you become more accustomed to your level of pain. Right? So if it's something that's been lingering for a couple weeks, a couple years, even if it's minor, it becomes a big problem as far as what you're feeling. So it's really interesting that you asked that question and I hope that as we continue researching it, we will find more specific language to use and specific language to use in different settings and with different providers as well. Because I think that there is, is more research coming out now which is exciting on how do we approach this topic. But there's still very much a need to define it and to see what resources we need to really make available.

I also think that it is so powerful that you said it and I hadn't thought of it like this before, but you know, when you look at people who are studying to be or training to be professional athletes or in a, playing in a pro game, they have these prehab resources, they have these, these preventative, like ooh you know, training resources, like full teams that are completely dedicated to the human movement performance, which is not available to dancers who are literally have the same type of demand on their body.

Right. I mean, it's great that it's available to.

Yeah, I'm not taking away. For sure, for sure. It's not the idea of like, oh, we need to take away from that. It's more like, hey, they need it. You know, they need these resources too. And mostly I think it's just because for so long people have not thought. I mean, I know I didn't think of dancers as athletes. Like dancers were, you know, they. They're just, you know, artists, creatives, but they're expressing their story through movement. And I just think that they need that, you know, their resources too. So it's interesting. So I'd love for you to talk. I know you can't talk about specifically the research that you're doing, but can you share with us a little bit about what type of research? What's calling you to do research? What is the gap that you're hoping this research is going to fill for your movers? I'm curious if you can share as much as you can without getting in trouble.

Yeah, absolutely. And I'd love to, I guess, put a plug in this too. If anyone's out there. We. We've got some stuff that we want to continue to look into kind of next future studies. So please, if you're anyone in. There's lots of different versions. We're. But if you're a dance medical provider or you're somebody who works with dancers in any regard, or you're a dancer yourself, please, please, please reach out to me and I'd definitely love to get you involved. Depending on. We have a couple of things we'd love to do, like an expert panel and stuff down the road. But yeah, like I said, this first one was really looking at trying to identify what gaps and what barriers are existing and specifically on how we understand injury. And ultimately, I think where dance medicine, and I hope general where medicine is going is to help improve on different injury prevention strategies. And so what's been really cool to see is that there's a lot that's coming out even in the last year or two on how do we again define injury, but also how do we prevent it? And so my research team, we're kind of taking a different angle and we really want to bridge the gap between artistic leadership and medical providers and dancers and try to really facilitate that, that understanding and that communication and really provide resources that are needed and not just provide the resources we assume are needed places. So we're just, in general, we're looking at injury prevention and injury treatment, which I know is very, very broad, but I don't really know what I'm allowed to say. So we'll start with that and just invite anyone who wants to participate to contact me and we'll put you on a list of surveys and expert panels and everything that's down the road.

Yeah, I love that. So in terms of, you know, injury prevention, like, can you share with us a little bit, like, a little bit more in depth details as to, you know, what are the recovery, what are the, you know, what is a dance life shelf and what causes it to be. I know for me that, you know, I was saying I was too old by the time I was 17 years old. So what. Which is just so insane to me. But. So can you break down a little bit more about, you know, what is a dancer's life and is it injury that causes, causes them to, you know, stop dancing? And what is it that, you know, what are some of the things that we can do to help shift that perspective?

Yeah, I think that it's been really encouraging, you know, way back when, a couple of generations ago, like if you were late 20s, you were probably done kind of time. But now there's been a lot more. It's been really exciting. There's, there's older answers who have children, come back and keep performing and it's a full career, you know, which has been really, really neat to see. There's also been a lot more like, friend of mine is involved with Alvin Ailey and they have a full medical team. And I know there's a couple different around. I think it's, I don't want to say it wrong, but there's a couple more professional companies that really start to have those resources we were talking about that are available to sports, not always available in dance, but at the professional level are available. And it's been able to prolong careers and just improve health in general. And so I'll say that it's not necessarily as simple of an answer these days, which is good. It should be that way. You should be able to choose to walk away from it, to have a family or to do something else entirely, versus having to stop because of an injury. But I do think that there are still very many cases, especially in smaller companies that don't have those resources, that injuries really are the main reason. I'll also say, though, Often from what I've seen and I haven't really researched this, but from what I've seen, it's more so chronic injuries that become a problem. You know, it's again, pelvic instability, so you're not, you know, using your glutes, so you're overusing your back, you start having spondylolisthesis and other kind of fractures and issues and repercussions with that or you start having men lifting incorrectly, start having bulging discs. And there's like, there's, there's just things that it might be an acute injury, you might have, you know, dislocated a rib or something from a cat. There might be that acute injury. But a lot of times it has chronic causes and a lot of, hopefully a lot of times those can be corrected in advance and to prolong careers. And I think that we're starting to see that in the more large scale companies and I really hope that we can carry that out into smaller scale. So that's what I'm trying to do. At least I'm working with a lot of smaller scale companies like individual dancers. And it might again be something super stupid, super basic when you start, but something that really can help down the road as you're doing a simple, seemingly insignificant exercise can really help build, build, build into improving. Just small adjustments in your technique that prolong your career ultimately. So that's the goal that I think that it's, you know, as if anything, it differs, it differs in why people leave.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, that's so good. I'm curious, and we haven't talked about this yet, so I, you know, it's, I'm just, I'm just curious your perspective, how much of your work do you have to deal with a dancers or performers, you know, mental health in the sense of, you know, their belief in what's possible for them when they're coming from an injury or in an injury or not in an injury. How much of, you know, the mental component or the mental game is incorporated in your work?

Yes, well, it's a big question.

It's one of those invisible components and it's truth in business building and it's also true for any athletes is that you've got this strategic linear. Here's what you do, here's how you move, this is what we're going to do, blah, blah. But there's a whole invisible mental component that's missing.

Absolutely. And I think what's really cool to see is that it's really starting to become more Less stigmatized, I guess. You know, in general, we're talking about mental health. It's starting to become a priority. And that's very. That's still true in the dance world. I think it's still slow moving, but it's starting to come about. As athletic trainers, we. So in general, an athletic trainer is the person who's on the sideline with the team regularly, like they're in, day in, day out. And as a result, I think that that position takes on a lot more of the immediate response to mental health or those like little getting to know somebody so that you can know when they're off. Getting to know somebody so you can know whether it's from a concussion, that they're not themselves or that there's something else underneath the surface that needs to be addressed. However, I also am very aware of our practice, our scope of practice. And as athletic trainers, we're again on the front line, but also needing to know when to refer. And I think what's difficult is the process of referring when it comes to mental health, because it's not as simple as, oh, you know, you broke your bone, you got to go see a doctor, get an X ray. It's not that simple. With mental health, there's ramifications even into the referral process. So I think it's a very important and delicate matter that should be, you know, held in that same important and delicate position. But it's. And so glad that it's starting to take priority and starting to bubble up above the surface. For my practice, I. Sometimes I'm in, day in, day out with dancers. Sometimes I see them more in like a clinical setting where they would come and schedule with me separate. And something that I am trying to do a little bit more discreetly, I would say, is realizing that there are. When you get physically injured, you also have a blow on your mental health in some standpoint, especially when you're working with athletes. Theater. I'd love to hear your experience too. It's a part of you. It's a part of your identity. And so just being aware of that. So as you're helping them recover, just being aware of wording in. You're not less than. It's not a modification. This is one variation that needs to be improved under the next. It's trying to help them see the goal, but not necessarily see the goal of what they used to do, but see the goal of where they can go and. And just target that like baby steps. As you would, if anything, is try to make small Manageable, attainable goals that they can see the progress, emphasize the things that they've come, the places that they've come from and where they're at now and just try to really encourage them in that standpoint. And then something that kind of touches back to what you were talking about earlier as I'm walking away from dance, as you're working with people, with athletes, just trying to help them find the identity that they have outside of their sport. Not necessarily because they won't go back to their sport, but just because I think we as people do better when we realize that we are a whole person without one part of what we identify with. And so I'd love to hear about how you really approach that from a theater background though too. Especially because theater is very much a group oriented activity in that sense. So I feel like when I've worked with dancers, if there's something out of the group, it can really be difficult for them. So how, what have you seen from a theater standpoint?

It's really interesting that you taught, you asked me this question because I actually see this a lot in anything. Anytime someone is building a personal brand, building a business in musical theater, whenever there is their job is associated closely to who they are. They're trying to take something that they love, something that they're passionate about, doing it and turning it into a business. I think that we are dealing with key components of people associating what it is that they do and attaching it to their worth. And I think that it doesn't matter what it is, whether it's a personal trainer, physical therapist or, or you know, musical theater or dancer. And it's also interesting too. And because you bring this up, and I know that you love research, so I'd be curious, your take is that, you know, people are specializing later and later. And so I think that it's not an accident that we've tied ourselves self worth to what it is that we do. Because no matter what it is, we have to start at a very young age in order to feel like that's how we're going to, you know, get, you know, get to the top or get, or be successful. Like the younger you start, then the more, the chance, the greater chance you have of, of being successful, which is not true. And I just think it runs the risk of people, you know, associating their worth to what it is that they do. So for me, a musical theater business, building, whatever it is, one of the first things that we do is, you know, just really unpack that and how I help people see and start to separate that their worth is not determined by what it is they do.

Right.

I think that's the first thing that we have to really just help them disassociate essentially from that. And that can be really hard to do. But I think that once we start to do that, we can start helping them see that this is just one component, and then we can start, you know, determining what their ground zero is. And honestly, it's all about shifting perspective. And, you know, because when you change the thought of how you see things, what you see changes.

Yeah, I love that you say that. It's just my mind went to not a dancer at all, but how this is just a human component. And I think. I don't know. I don't do research on psychology, so I don't know how this relates with our culture in America versus other. But I was working with an amazing man who was forced to retire from his job because of injuries. He'd had final fusions and, like, all these issues throughout. And for him, it was really a blow on his, you know, how he. You know, how he saw himself in some way because he's a provider. He, you know, that that's. That work. And so one of the things that. It was amazing for me, I've been able to work with him on just getting back to functional movements without pain, being able to climb a ladder, being able to get underneath a car, like, those kind of things that are so crucial to who he was as a person, who he is, I should say. But the other thing that I didn't really see coming right off the bat was I didn't make that connection that this injury forcing retirement, I knew that would be a blow, but I didn't realize how, you know, how important that is, how significant it is. And so I think what's been really an honor for me is in time getting to know him more, in time getting to hear his stories, in time getting to have those conversations and, you know, just see the way that who he is, is, again, like you said, not defined by what he's doing and the things that he enjoyed and the things that he drew from the position of working and providing. He's just as much of a provider in other ways, and being able to really tap into that has been an honor for me. I've gotten to really enjoy working with him, but it's been cool to see how he's grown physically, but also, I think, just settling into a new life. In what does retirement look like? And how is he still himself in that new position? I'm glad you touched on this because I think it's something that we're, I think as a society trying to really understand as we figure out mental health and how we support people in their workplaces and in for my case in their journey to healing.

Yes. I love it. I love it. Okay, Miss Ricky, I really want to be mindful of your time so I. For those of you who want to learn more about what it is that you do and working with you and connecting with you, where's the best place I could send them?

Yeah, I'd love to get connected. So again, I am based out of Connecticut and so I actually do a lot of in person. I have all these Pilates classes. We didn't even talk about that really, but I've always Pilates classes. I'm doing the all lot in the community. So if you're anywhere in Connecticut, please come find me. My business is called the Bar and beyond. Bar is spelled like ballet bar, B A R R E. I get a lot of questions on if I teach barre and I'm actually not certified in that yet. So it might be down the road just because everyone's asking me about it. But Pilates based programs in Middletown, Connecticut at thebarandbeyond.com I also, like I said, work with dancers and I do offer virtual services as well. So if you're not in Connecticut and you want, we can actually do a ton. If it's something that's an injury that needs to have manual therapy, I'll refer you definitely. But a lot of times, like I said, there's chronic technic technique compensations that need to be addressed first. So if you want an injury screening, if you're a dancer or you want to work with me virtually or in person, same place, it's www.thebarandbeyond.com. i'm also on Instagram at the barndbeyond.com and then I am on Facebook even though I don't really use it as much. And there's. There's been a whole glitch in it. So there's actually two on Facebook. So if you happen to find me on Facebook, it's the one that says dance and sports medicine. So it's just the bar and beyond kind of across everything. Okay. As well. I guess I can send you that information. But it's R. Stevenson at the bar.

I love it. Okay. Thank you so much for your time today. Take two. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. This has been great. Better than the first time. Got to really talk with you a little bit more and I loved getting into some more nitty gritty on it. So thank you so much for having me, Beverly. And I'm sure I'll be listening to more of your podcast, learning about the marketing business, how to do and how to not do.

You're so sweet. All right, thanks, girl. Thank you for listening to the PT Profit Podcast. If you like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge service to us if you would please leave us a review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and email that screenshot to my team at Info simpsonfig and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will show you how to create compelling content so that your ideal clients come to you and you go from wanting clients to a wait list of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.