You’ve just arrived at your competition destination, and you hear someone announce your name and that you’ll be onstage in 15 minutes. How do you warm-up and prepare yourself?

This is one of the first questions we ask during our DANCE|PREHAB Physical Therapy evaluation. We do this because it tells us: 

• How well do you know about preparing the body for dance?
• Do you know the different components required of a good warm-up?
• Most importantly, do you know what you need to feel prepared?

* From a behavioral standpoint, we’re also curious if the dancers’ warmup something mindless they’ve just been told to do? Ultimately, how do we help you build good habits?

For us, beyond demonstrating movements that are “good” for a warm-up, it’s important that through the training and/or healing process, we are educating younger dancers how to think for themselves when preparing for dance training and performance, particularly those with pre-professional aspirations. 

At DANCE|PREHAB, we like to emphasize the RAMP Framework. The acronym “RAMP” stands for “Raise, Activate, Mobilize, Potentiate” and is from an article authored by Ian Jeffreys titled  Warm-up revisited: The ramp method of optimizing warm-ups. Professional Strength and Conditioning.

Why the RAMP Warm-Up Framework?

Beyond providing an easy-to-remember framework for the dancer and dance teacher, the RAMP acronym provides an opportunity for the dancer teacher to incorporate proper strength and conditioning (S&C)  principles and ideas. This prepares the dancer to understand that while there are certainly exercises for dance movement, there are also dance movement qualities that inherently, don’t look like dance.

At some point, it’s not even about being “dance specific” – it’s about whether or not you, as a human, are ready to perform, react, and adapt to the movements that dance will ask of you. 

What are some examples of R.A.M.P.?

Raise:

We’ll always use an opportunity to introduce physical literacy and games! Also a great chance educate on strength and conditioning concepts, such as agility and reactivity, which are certainly found in dance.

Activate:

Muscles never work in isolation, and here are two ways to connect the body as a whole. Its important to understand a 1) strong sense of neutral but also know that we can 2) move through positions dynamically when out of “alignment”.

Mobilize:

Being able to move and mobilize through our joints is important. Typically we think of the hips with it comes to mobility, but one of the areas we’re constantly addressing is the midspine / thoracic spine.

Potentiate:

Pogo hops are a favorite of ours because it introduces the chance to educate dancers about preparing for tendons vs preparing for muscles. It doesn’t feel like dance. But dance will require our tendons to be loaded.

…and our favorite:

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The DANCE|PREHAB Perspective

We get questions about, “What is the best warm up for me?” or “What is the best warm up for [INSERT YOUR MOVEMENT OR DANCE STYLE HERE]?” The truth is, it takes some experimentation. While there is never a one-size-fits-all warmup for everyone, there are some general aspects of movement that we need to make connections for. At some point, it’s not even about being dance specific – it’s about whether or not you as a human is ready to perform, react, and adapt to the movements that dance will ask of you. We’re here to give you the tools, but It takes experimentation, and it takes awareness on your end to tinker and explore and play! Let’s move!

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