If you are a runner, chances are you dial up your training by doing more running. Running faster, further and better. While that may the best way to improve, the workouts you do when you’re not pounding the pavement can also enhance your efforts and help with endurance, speed, and injury prevention.
Enter, Barre
While you might not have considered Barre to enhance your running performance, research shows dance fitness training can enhance your agility and other measures of sports performance.
According to the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports, dance training had a positive effect on speed, agility, joint mobility and muscle flexibility in young athletes.
Former ballerina and founder of Australian dance fitness craze, Barre Attack, Renee Scott, agrees and believes training like a dancer improves your balance, hip and leg alignment and core stability. “When your body is balanced in an aligned, upright position and you have good hip mobility, your legs drive forward faster and you’ll be an all round more efficient runner,” she says.
The single legwork in dance training also strengthens the glutes for more powerful running and weeds out any imbalances in your legs. “Dance training gives you greater body awareness and balances your leg endurance due to the standing stability work,” says Scott.
It’s likely you’ll end up less injury-prone too if you mix up your running with dance training classes.
Related: 5 Ways Amateur Runners Stumble Into Injury + Easy, Smart Solutions!
“The foot strike of running places a big demand on your arches, ankles, and joints. The low-impact but high-intensity movements of my BA method is the perfect way to build up ankle strength and stability—as we train predominantly up on our toes and shoeless—just in textured socks for grip.”
So, what are you waiting for? A little Barre might be just the boost your running performance needs this summer.
Now, what to wear? Here’s your guide to tights that won’t go see-through when you’re working out.
