Postural Control of Ballet Poses

Open Access
- Author:
- Tseng, Wan-Tng
- Graduate Program:
- Kinesiology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- June 30, 2010
- Committee Members:
- Karl Maxim Newell, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Karl Maxim Newell, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor - Keywords:
- postural control
ballet dancer - Abstract:
- Half toe standing is an important posture to maintain in ballet. Investigation of the coupling effect between the individual feet of half toe standing posture should provide further guidance for understanding movement control in ballet. In this study, two force platforms were synchronized so as to investigate the amount of variability and the coupling effect of the COP left, COP right, COP net in different ballet poses. Fourteen young female adult college ballet dancers, 11 recreational runners, and 10 non-exercisers participated in the study. The five ballet postures investigated were: parallel position in flat foot (hip width distance), ballet first position (heel to heel) in flat foot, ballet first position in half toe-standing, ballet second position (separate two times hip-width distance) in half toe standing, and ballet second position in half toe standing posture. Three 30 s trials were collected for each participant in each condition. Quantification of the variability of COPL and COPR trajectories and their relation with COPnet was conducted by analysis of the standard deviation, approximate entropy (ApEn), and cross-approximate entropy (cross-ApEn). In the COPR, COPL in medial-lateral direction, the non-exerciser group had the lowest amount of variability compared to the college ballet dancers and the recreational runners. The SDs of COPL, COPR and COPnet were significantly (p<0.05) influenced by ballet posture. Moreover, the pattern of SDs for AP and ML motion on each COP variable was different. ApEn and cross-ApEn of COP net in the AP direction, and COPL and COPR in ML and AP revealed greater irregularity in the coupling of the half toe standing posture. There were no differences between groups except for SD of the individual foot in ML directions. Previous studies have shown that ballet dancers are qualitatively, but not quantitatively different in postural control than non ballet dancers. However, our finding did not support this hypothesis. One possible explanation for our failure to support this may be due to the testing of a less experienced ballet dancer than tested in other studies.