Ballet combines grace, strength, and flexibility, helping to improve fitness while building skills. If your child plays sports, they can experience numerous benefits from ballet classes, including the following ones.

How Can Ballet Help With Sports?

1. Strength

Ballet may bring fluid movements and fancy costumes to mind. What may not come to the forefront of your mind is strength. But ballet dancers are strong, and classes help build their strength. Sports and ballet overlap in the area of lateral movement and the high level of muscle control. The ballet motion of turning out of the feet, in particular, is good for strengthening the easily injured muscles around the glutes and pelvis, providing some extra protection. Jumping and dancing on the balls of the feet are good for core strength, calves, and ankles, and the leaping and fast-paced movements improve cardiovascular fitness. 

2. Flexibility and Agility  

Ballet's precise and elegant movements can help an athlete train and tone muscles they may not think of using during sports. The movements learned in ballet classes can help athletes dodge, pivot, and start and stop quickly. Flexibility can be a part of fitness that is overlooked, but without the joints' proper range of motion, the body cannot always do what is expected of it. 

In ballet classes, dancers build up to the choreography by doing bends and stretches at the barre. These movements help loosen up the joints and muscles to increase their performance, a trait that is desired in both dance and athletics. 

3. Concentration

Since learning a new skill can be challenging, ballet classes can foster concentration for an athlete. For someone used to kicking a soccer ball or striking a baseball with a bat, placing their feet and arms in a dance position may be new and challenging. Learning these new movements and synchronizing them with other dancers takes a high level of concentration that is beneficial in their sport of choice. The skillset transfers by teaching the player to observe their teammates or opponents more closely and to memorize plays the way they would choreography. 

If your young athlete is interested in ballet classes, turn to Production Company Dance Centre in Longmont, CO. Providing dance classes for kids ages 2 to 18 in a state-of-the-art facility, their staff members are not only experts in dance, but are also trained in first aid and CPR. To learn more about their classes, visit the website, and call (303) 682-8842 with questions.