Activities such as ballet and other dance and rhythmic and artistic gymnastics are often recommended in childhood and adolescence. Among the many required motor capabilities to perform the activities above is flexibility. However, there is a gap between flexibility in scientific production and the proper use of this knowledge in dance classrooms. One of the reasons might be due to dance culture, which regards its knowledge to empirical learning. Many dancers believe that to improve their flexibility, the longer and the more intense they stretch, the better. The excess in the flexibility training might cause acute or even chronic injuries that may preclude dancers' performance without proper treatment. Although the range of motion represents flexibility, understanding how flexibility improves requires understanding how the muscle-tendon unit behaves to the stretches. This chapter aims to assess the flexibility; improve this capability; and explore differences in training, stretch technique, and some other variables that may affect flexibility performance in dance.
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Activities such as ballet and other dance, rhythmic and artistic gymnastics, are often recommended in childhood and adolescence. Among the many required motor capabilities to perform the activities above is flexibility. Flexibility is the range of motion (ROM) achieved in a joint, usually measured in angles (C. E. T. Cabido et al., 2014; T. J. Herda, Costa, et al., 2011; Bárbara Pessali-Marques et al., 2020). Due to the aesthetic related to movement with great ROM in dance (Angioi, Metsios, Twitchett, Koutedakis, & Wyon, 2012; Angioi, Metsios, Twitchett, Koutedakis, & Wyon, 2009; Özdemir & Yildirim, 2020), flexibility is crucial for an outstanding performance of the modalities aforementioned (Bárbara Pessali-Marques et al., 2020). However, there is a gap between flexibility in scientific production and the proper use of this knowledge in dance classrooms (Barbara Pessali-Marques, Lapas, Marques, Costa, & Lisboa, 2018). One of the reasons might be due to dance culture, which regards its knowledge to empirical learning. Teachers will teach based on what was thought by their teachers and so on, not establishing their education in controlled experiments rather than practice (Diniz, Pessali-Marques, & Rocha, 2017; You, 2009). The Dance Science field recently became an exciting research area; however, there is still a long way to bring the research into dancers' daily lives.
Many dancers believe that to improve their flexibility, the longer and the more intense they stretch, the better (Barbara Pessali-Marques et al., 2018). The excess in the flexibility training might cause acute or even chronic injuries (Apostolopoulos, Metsios, Nevill, Koutedakis, & Wyon, 2015; Jacobs & Sciascia, 2011) that may preclude dancers' performance without proper treatment (Barbara Pessali-Marques, 2012). Although the ROM represents flexibility, clarifying how flexibility improves requires understanding how the muscle-tendon unit (MTU) behaves to the stretches (Barbara Pessali-Marques, 2015; Bárbara Pessali-Marques, 2020). Besides, many different stretch techniques affect the MTU and, consequently, flexibility (C. E. T. Cabido et al., 2014; T. J. Herda, Costa, et al., 2011; T. J. Herda, Cramer, Ryan, McHugh, & Stout, 2008; Magnusson, Aagard, Simonsen, & Bojsen-Møller, 1998). Finally, many variables will also bring different results to the same stretching protocol. Some of these variables are sex (female vs male), age (children vs adults vs elderly), environmental temperature (cold vs hot) (C. E. T. Cabido, 2015), circadian rhythm, menstrual cycle phase (Bárbara Pessali-Marques, 2020) and population (dancers vs non-dancers) (Barbara Pessali-Marques et al., 2016; Bárbara Pessali-Marques et al., 2020). This chapter aims to assess the flexibility, how to improve this capability, and differences in training, stretch technique, and some other variables that may affect flexibility performance in dance.