The Effect of Positive Heel Inclination on Posture in Young Children Training in Flamenco Dance

Abstract

Flamenco dance requires male and female dancers to wear heeled shoes and learn to employ a stylized posture. Injury patterns of the adult flamenco dancer reveal that low back pain and self-reported injury is substantial. It is unclear what compensations are made in the normal spine to overcome the effects of acquiring this posture while standing in a heeled shoe. To prepare the beginning child dancer well for the rigors of this art form, it would be appropriate to know if the young performer exhibits the same postural strategies to compensate for the change in position of the foot in a heeled shoe. This study attempts to determine the degree and magnitude of changes of angulation in pelvic tilt in young dancers who were accustomed to standing in forced plantar flexion. Suggestions could then be made to teachers to prepare the body for the stresses that accompany training in flamenco dance. Sixteen children (10 girls, 6 boys) between the ages of 4 and 12 participated in this study. A Vicon 250 Motion Analysis System (Tustin, CA) was used to evaluate postural alignment by measuring the change angles of the joints of the lower body. No significant differences between the barefoot and heeled stance were revealed at the pelvis, hip, or knee. As expected, a paired t-test revealed that there was a significant change in the degree of plantar flexion of the ankle in the children when standing on a 2 inch platform (p = 0.001). The standard deviations of each site were quite large, which might account for the lack of a statistically significant difference between the two conditions. The children compensated in different, and opposite ways from each other. Children who dance in a heeled shoe might be at greater risk for injury because of the postural changes that accompany the chronic plantar flexed position. Although it must be recognized that there are many potential factors influencing back pain in the flamenco dancer, the reduction or change in the pelvic and lumbar region is a component. Teachers should make an effort to prepare students by increasing core strength and lower extremity flexibility as well as developing postural awareness and proprioception before the child engages in long and arduous flamenco training.