Can You Use Ankle Weights While Dancing?

According to the Mayo Clinic, using ankle weights during brisk activity can actually injure your ankles or other leg muscles. There may be a slight increase in the calories you burn, but that is only if you wear heavy weights. The Cleveland Clinic agrees to leave the weights behind whether you are walking or running. Few studies have been done on ankle weights and dancers, but if your aim is to make the dance steps feel easier once the weights are off, an injury will leave you with the opposite result.

  1. Risks

    • Ankle weights cause injury by placing unnatural stress on your joints. When your joints are stressed, the muscles, ligaments and tendons around them have to work harder to compensate. Sometimes they are up to the task, but often that extra weight is just too much, causing ligament tears and muscle strains. According to the Cleveland Clinic, if you use ankle weights over a long period of time you could also develop tendonitis.

    For Dance

    • According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, ankle weights can help develop strength in the large muscles of your legs, like your quadriceps, which is beneficial for dancing. If your aim is to increase hamstring or glute strength, trying out the weights is an option, but the pressure on your joints from ankle weights increases if you are dancing. Unlike the linear movement of walking, dance is vigorous and involves jumping and movement in multiple directions -- adding weight is just asking for an injury. Many forms of dance involve leg kicks. Adding the extra weight to the end of your leg while trying to throw it sky high torques the natural alignment of your body.

    Ballet

    • While dancers and the general public should avoid ankle weights, there may be a use for them for certain ballet poses. Ariel Cisneros, an instructor at The Joffrey Ballet’s Academy of Dance in Chicago, told Dance Magazine that light ankle weights could help improve turnout if worn while doing tendus and dégagés. He even claimed ankle weights could be worn for grand battements -- high kicks toward the ceiling -- if better turnout is your main goal. According to Cisneros, weights should only be worn while working on these moves on your own, not in a class where the pace may be too quick for them to be used safely.

    Alternatives

    • Instead of adding heavy weights to pump up your cardio workout, doctors from the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic advise quickening your pace. This is easy to do by switching from something like walking to running, but harder with dance. Choose a song with more beats per minute to force yourself into faster combinations. If you prefer to dance without music, inspire yourself to get a better workout by adding ankle bells. Ankle bells, also called ghungharu, originated in India and can help you translate how fast you dance into sound. The faster you go, the louder and more rhythmic the bells become. Feel free to wear yours to your next Zumba, aerobics or belly dancing class.