Wellness services

[IndyLady]

Surveying the ballroom dance crowd here: what (if any) wellness services do you partake of on a regular basis, or maybe even just occasionally? I'm thinking of things like massage therapy, chiropractor visits, physical therapy sessions, sauna, acupuncture, etc. My definition here is that it is something you would go to a provider for, and I'm excluding things that qualify as additional physical activity (e.g. barre, Pilates, yoga, etc). Or maybe what crashed and burned and DID NOT WORK.

You may recall I complained a while back about my hips hurting all the time. It hasn't really changed, mainly ebbed and flowed, and gonna be honest, I haven't really done anything about it in spite of the many suggestions I received here. I think I just feel overwhelmed and not sure what to start with, and tbh, I think I need a provider of some sort to "diagnose" this rather than trying to self-heal. Google told me I should go to an orthopedic doctor, and the massage therapist (I have two memberships, so I'm on a bi-weekly cadence there) just told me to see a chiropractor.

So what do you, fellow partner dancers, either to improve physical capability or alleviate ailments?

 

[RiseNFall]

Physical therapy, massage therapist, chiropractor. I'm trying to decide if I would head straight to a physical therapist (with my primary care doctor writing a prescription) or go to an orthopedic doctor with the assumption that after some tests that doctor would send me to a physical therapist. Probably an orthopedist for the imaging tests first.

 

[joy]

I try to do daily rehab and posture exercises.

 

[singndance]

For serious issues that don’t seem to be getting better with massage or Myofascial release (I see both on a fairly regular basis) I see a great orthopedic doctor who figures out the problem and usually prescribes physical therapy. I’ve learned not to let the problem go on too long without seeing the doctor because she gets right to the problem and focuses immediately on the proper therapy. She’s a dancer herself, so she gets how important it is to me.

 

[ProgressNotPerfection]

So what do you, fellow partner dancers, either to improve physical capability or alleviate ailments?

Sit on the couch and eat large quantities of refined sugar; put a blanket over my head (since there’s no sand into which I can stick my head); and refuse to think about unpleasant things like this.

After all, physical ailments are like small children: if you ignore them, they’ll go away.

 

[IndyLady]

I did a bad job of writing that opening post.... I should have kept the hip thing separate, even though I'm asking the question with that on the side (not really in the back) of my mind. I'd been wondering about this before I had a personal agenda - genuinely curious what things people do and how common they are among the group, and what benefits you get from them. e.g. do a lot of us get massage therapy and how often, or is that sort of rare.

 

[Tracy]

Regularly I do sports massage as well as relaxation massage. For injury, acupuncture, cupping, physical therapy.

 

[Misspendragon]

Surveying the ballroom dance crowd here: what (if any) wellness services do you partake of on a regular basis, or maybe even just occasionally? I'm thinking of things like massage therapy, chiropractor visits, physical therapy sessions, sauna, acupuncture, etc. My definition here is that it is something you would go to a provider for, and I'm excluding things that qualify as additional physical activity (e.g. barre, Pilates, yoga, etc). Or maybe what crashed and burned and DID NOT WORK.

You may recall I complained a while back about my hips hurting all the time. It hasn't really changed, mainly ebbed and flowed, and gonna be honest, I haven't really done anything about it in spite of the many suggestions I received here. I think I just feel overwhelmed and not sure what to start with, and tbh, I think I need a provider of some sort to "diagnose" this rather than trying to self-heal. Google told me I should go to an orthopedic doctor, and the massage therapist (I have two memberships, so I'm on a bi-weekly cadence there) just told me to see a chiropractor.

So what do you, fellow partner dancers, either to improve physical capability or alleviate ailments?

I used to do cryotherapy and deep tissue or sport massage, although currently I cannot afford either. I liked both.

I find that as long as I keep up with my Pilates and especially CrossFit (and of course Yamuna rolling, I'm almost religious about that) my hips are okay. One of the weird side effects of my CrossFit practice is that when I do it regularly, my hips hurt less, not more. I think it's because CrossFit uses movements that are akin to dynamic stretching, forcing my body to adjust to greater mobility. I find running to be far more aggravating on my hips than CrossFit, which literally helps me avoid getting injured.

However, I do not have any actual medical issues with my hips, so keep that in mind.

And Cryo definitely helps with recovery.

 

[fiesta0618]

Bearing in mind your caveat that you only are asking about things you would go to provider for: I technically don't do any wellness services at all.

Which is not to say that I don't do anything to take care of myself. Just that I do most of it in the form of self-managed care. I have a massage gun I use to give myself massages. I do my own stretching regimen, using exercise bands to assist instead of a PT. I do my own strengthening work, informed by my history as an athlete and the knowledge I've gained about anatomy. I use ice and ice baths when I need it. I execute my joint range-of-motion regimen myself, though it is largely drawn from work I did for a few months with a PT before insurance stopped paying for it (because I had to honestly report that I wasn't in pain).

All of those are things for which a provider helps, but is not necessary.

However, I do not intend my post to mean that it is fine to do without a provider for everything. As a general rule: if it hurts, get help. Excluding routine muscle soreness, of course. At the very least, you want an expert to diagnose the source of the pain, and provide a solution or exercise regimen to get past it. You may not need to do all of the execution under the expert's eye, but guessing is dangerous.