The cardiorespiratory demands of contemporary dance

Dance is an art form that places great stress on the performer.s body. The main emphasis of the dancer's training is on skill acquisition which has resulted in dancers having poor physical conditioning and prone to chronic injury. The purpose of this book was to examine contemporary dance from an applied sport science perspective through a series of connected studies. The initial study examined the dancers? perceptions of the physical demands of contemporary dance; this was followed an observational study that investigated the cardiorespiratory demands of dance class rehearsal and performance. The next two studies examined the heart rate - oxygen consumption relationships during incremental treadmill work and dance exercise and the development of a field-based aerobic fitness test. The final study utilising the developed fitness test monitored changes in aerobic fitness of two dance companies during a class and performance period that reflected on the observed results from the second study.