Conditioning and Cross Training for Dancers
All packed? Double checks done in drawers, under beds, between coverlets and behind curtains for escaped objects? Cell phone charger in hand? Passports ready, plus copies and traveler’s checks with their copy numbers - even if not going abroad? Copies of credit cards? Emergency contacts? Medical information, inoculation history, vitamins and prescriptions? Left an itinerary with hotels and place names and numbers? Even if you are just going to the next state, these will be crucial.
Now you are own your trying to cram too much stuff into too little case space. Less is always more. The best three rules I have used are:
1. Pack your bag, then unpack and leave half.
2. Take twice as much money as you had planned.
2. Take a small fold up tote that will fit in your case for the goodies from your trip.
Now you are ready for your tour. Perhaps.
What are you bringing to eat? Depending on how you are traveling, options are now confusing. Let’s cover some rules first.
Airlines will be the most difficult. You can carry on food, but you should visit the site at www.tsa.gov and read their sections on food and medicines. It will save time and tempers on both sides. Be kind to the security agents. They are doing their job. Do what you can to help make their job easier and your security check faster. Decide if you want to pay that extra $15 to check one bag. If you do not, you won’t have that extra luxury of being able to cram in the other half of your Panini and your favorite flavored water (let’s hope both well wrapped in strong bags).
From the TSA source – “All food must go through the X-ray machine. Do NOT bring food to the security checkpoint unwrapped.” It is best to hold you hunger and keep the food wrapped or in a container until you are onboard. Unpeeled natural foods like bananas and oranges are okay, but half-eaten fruits must be wrapped.
For the lucky ones in busses and on trains, you can party all the way there and back, and there is your problem. Your food supply bag may outweigh your suitcase. By the end of the tour, others may notice a difference, too, in the sizes of the bags you are wearing. Food, glorious food: the bane and blessing of a dancer’s existence. It is needed for fuel, but too many calories have their side effects that neither dancers nor their costumers will appreciate.
Yes, you can stock up on so-called energy bars that mash well in your dance bag and last longer than the tour, but the nutrition is iffy and more than questionable at best. Flavored waters are full of calories. The amounts of vitamins in them are minimal and one of first three ingredients is usually a sucrose-fructose-dextrose something, or caffeine, or a “new” energizer/weight loss aid such as green tea or hoodia. Dancers can and need to do better than high processed, high-fat, low-nutrition sandwiches (no matter how much lettuce is in them—usually iceberg.). I’ve watched the hoards run to cookies, crackers, chips, fried foods and such at travel stops. Such fine fare that is for a performer who still has to fit in those costumes for some time and keep up energy for all those shows.
One book that students at Tidewater Community College use in both fitness and dance classes is The Calorie King Calorie Fat and Carbohydrate Counter. It is a small, lightweight, inexpensive book (under $10) that teaches true portion sizes; has counters for fats, crabs, sugars, calcium and more, does not promote designer or speed diets. The book also has a very funny section on fast foods, though it wasn’t intended to be, it just worked out that way as dancers went into shock over the healthy calories they thought they were ingesting versus what was really fueling their tanks. One dancer thought she was saving calories at one meal with her low-fat smoothie (at 810 calories). Another made a sincere sacrifice and gave up her brevé White Chocolate Mocha at 640. Most had no idea how many extra calories they were piling on but not dancing off. There is also a good section in that book on restaurant and international foods. Pakastani Meat Pot Curry can cost you 600 calories. And another good section on Nutritional foods (830 for a milkshake?). “But it’s healthy!”
I’ve sat at tables in many an airport, wondering where in the world Jan Griscom was. She certainly wasn’t in the long lines of backpack laden lemmings waiting for their fried foods. Magical minutes later her long, lean form appears weaving quickly through the clumps of tourists lugging their cases, plus huge cups of French fries, overstuffed sandwiches and bags of chips and more. Jan sits down happily with bottled water, fresh cut fruit in containers, yoghurts and fresh whole grain bread (with enough for me, too!).
From the trainer’s point of view: Dancers need to do more than tally the numbers when it comes to calories: it’s the nutrients in them that count. And every calorie must count for a dancer.
In a restaurant, you have the choice of how your food is cooked. Your choice can be fried fish or chicken, or much healthier fuel-filling grilled chicken or fish. Leave the sauce off. And that goes for the salad, too. Have the salad dressing put in a small bowl. Dip your fork in the dressing, then into the salad. Have the butter plate moved to another side of the table, or better yet, left in the kitchen. Substitute fresh vegetables for fries on a platter. You should also know that most servings in restaurants are in fact more than two. Cut the portions in half and have them packaged for when you are hungry later.
If you are flying and check your airline ahead of time, some airlines have special vegetarian, grilled, diabetic, low calorie (double check that) and ethnic foods available at no charge.
The rule is the more color you have on your plate, the more variety of your nutrition. “And,” I ask, “what is so much more difficult about buying a banana or an orange than grabbing a bag of chips?” And for those into volume, eating fresher items will give you three times more volume and nutrients than mass-produced bulk foods.
If you spring for prepackaged muncies, it is important to read labels, but do not be fooled by them. The manufacturers also base their calorie percentages on the total calories for the day.You will find the total calorie count is usually 2,000. Is that correct for you?
I send all my students to mypyramid.gov. On your next long layover or road trip, play pass the laptop and have each dancer begin discovering and building his/her diet for life. Remember, please, that diet does not mean weight loss, but a healthy way of eating. For life. Or for as long as you want your dancing life to be.
Next month, part II will cover how to stay fit on the road, which is not as easy as you might think, and just as important as what you eat. Cramped legs, crossed legs, and no room to move all have their own problems which can become very serious for dancers. Look for that next month.