Unit 5 – Literature Review – Isabel Dunn-Collins

1. ‘ BMI and flexibility in ballerinas of contemporary dance and classical ballet.’

Silva AH, Borodino KC (2008) explored BMI and flexibility in ballerinas of contemporary dance and classical ballet. The purposes of this study was to find out any differences in flexibility and body mass (BMI) in contemporary dance and ballet two different forms of dance. The sample was (22) dancers divided into two groups of dancers (Age 13-16). Flexibility was measured through goniometric (flexion, abduction and hip external rotation) measurements, and the linear, Sitting Reaching Box Wheels, which evaluated the posterior muscle chain flexibility. The BMI was obtained by weight and structure. The results given by Silva AH, Borodino KC (2008) were interesting as there were no differences between BMI in both groups, ‘Despite all the ranges of motion were higher in the classical ballet practitioners group, only the abduction movement had statistically significant differences between the two groups’. The research found by Silva AH, Borodino KC (2008) will support my research as I am also comparing flexibility between two sets of groups although the groups used were dancers it shows that there is still differences in flexibility within each individual.

Silva AH, Borodino KC. BMI and flexibility in ballerinas of contemporary dance and classical ballet. Fit Perf J. 2008;7(1):48-51.

http://www.fpjournal.org.br/painel/arquivos/358-09%20INGLES%20Bailarinas%20Rev%201%20-%202008.pdf

2. ‘Strengths and Weaknesses of Current Methods for Evaluating the Aerobic Power of Dancers’

1. Michael Ryan (2003) researched the current methods being used to help dancers improve their aerobic power. J. Michael Ryan examined metabolic pathways used during dance class and performance. In conclusion it was found that dance has been classified as an intermittent form of exercise, meaning that dancers gain power within their body and legs by doing dance classes and performances. J. Michael Ryan (2003) examinations were tested on 20 students from each ( Laban Centre, London, England 2: School of Sport, Performing Arts and Leisure, University of Wolverhampton, Birmingham, England )this research was done at a wider range than my research making it more accurate and more eligible to further research. J. Michael Ryan research would benefit my research because dancers naturally have more power than non-dancers if they don’t do any other physical activity there for the non-dancers could have a disadvantage which could affect my results/research.
2. Michael Ryan publishing inc.2003. Strengths and Weaknesses of Current Methods for Evaluating the Aerobic Power of Dancers. Journal of Dance Medicine & Science pp. 10-16(7)

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/jmrp/jdms/2003/00000007/00000001/art00002

3.“A Comparative Study on Balance and Flexibility between Dancer and Non-Dancer Girls”.

IOSR Journal of Sports, The main purpose of this study was to find out the differences on flexibility and Balance between Dancer and Non-Dancer girls, The researcher selected 30 girls who are regularly involved in Dance and 30 girls who are non-dancer or rather sedentary on the basis of purposive stratified random sampling from Bidhan Govt. Girl’s School, Dist. Nadia West Bengal as the subjects of her study. The Initially descriptive statistics was computed to calculate the Mean of the different variables, and further paired sample test was conducted to find out the degree of difference between the means with the help of ‘SPSS software’. Data analysis proved significant differences between the Dancer and Non-Dancer girls both with respect to flexibility and Balance. The Journal of Sports work will help my research as I am using dancers and non-dancers finding out their differences will help me make my research better.

IOSR Journal of Sports and Physical Education (May-Jun. 2014), PP 36-40 A Comparative Study on Balance and Flexibility between Dancer and Non-Dancer Girls.

http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jspe/papers/vol1-issue5/J0153640.pdf

4. Estimation of human power output from vertical jump

The authors of this abstract research (1998) were hoping to calculate the power output from vertical jump and reach distance, despite the fact that the method had never been supported by a referred journal publication and results never revealed weather peak or average power was being estimated. In order to evaluate the test, Lewis formula derived power output was

Compared to peak power and average power generated by 17 male subjects

Jumping vertically from a computer-interfaced force plate. This research (1988) is quit old and could have been improved and it would benefit my research by helping me making it accurate and valid because the vertical jump test is being used to asses flexibility in my research.

Everett A. Harman, Richard M. Rosenstein, Peter N.Frykman, Michael T. Rosenstein, and William J.

Kraemer. Estimation of human power output from vertical jump 1988.pp.M12.90 Exercise Physiology Division.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a218194.pdf

5. The Dancer as a Performing Athlete, fitness for dance.

Koutedakis (2004) researched the fitness in dance Y. Koutedakis found that as in most sports fitness depends on the individual’s ability to meet the demands of a physical task and anaerobic conditions and their capacity to develop higher levels of muscle tension I.e. muscle strength, joint mobility/muscle flexibility and body composition . According to this research (2004) no single fitness measurement can predict success in dance as it depends on age, sex and level of performance. Y. Koutedakis used elite male dancers aged (18-21) research will help me as I am doing test on dancers and non-dancers and this research tells me that just because the dancers are fit and active it doesn’t necessarily mean that they can be more flexible than a non-dancer that could be younger or could have been born flexible.

Yiannis Koutedakis. Sports Med 2004. The Dancer as a Performing Athlete.pp652.Department of Sport and Exercise Science, Thessaly University, Trikala, Greece.

http://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/1931746.pdf

6. Article ‘Does age effect flexibility ’

The hypothesis of this article is that young children have natural flexibility whereas your bones and muscles get older flexibility is defined by the motion of the joint the range of the motions can be effected by the health of the tendons, ligaments and muscles surrounding the joint, the conclusion of the article (2012) Brenna Davies believes that older people ages 12-60 can be kept up or increased by regularly stretching the joints and muscles; yoga, dance and other sport. This article Brenna Davis (2012) will help my project as I am only working with females ages 16-18 and my results could have been affected by age and one of the girls being 16 and one being 18 they could have differences in flexibility due to their joints being younger.

Brenna Davis, Demand Media.2012.pp34

7. The Validity of the Sit-and-Reach Test and the Modified Sit-and-Reach Test in Middle-Aged to Older Men and Women

The sit-and-reach test was developed to measure hamstring and lower back flexibility this test was first created by Wells and Dillon (1952). The theory of the sit and reach tests include several varieties without a sit-and-reach box ,When reviewing this article I found that several authors noted the disadvantaged of the sit and reach test of participants with lower reach length to leg length or a combination of lower trunk and arm length to leg length. Hopkins and Honegger (1986) the authors that found the disadvantages proposed the modified sit-and-reach test to negate the effects of shoulder girdle mobility and proportional differences between arms and legs. In line with validity results for the sit-and-reach test, data provided by Minkler and Patterson (1994) indicated that the modified sit-and-reach test was moderately related to hamstring flexibility in women and men. This will ensure that when I conduct the sit and reach test that I position the subjects correctly this article also insure the accuracy of the test being used for further research.

September 1, 2003 lemmink.koenA.P.M ; kemper.Han C.G

8. Evaluation of Four Vertical Jump Tests: Methodology, Reliability, Validity, and Accuracy Luis F. Aragón-Vargas.2000

Luis. F (2000) aim was to evaluate and compare 4 different methods commonly used to measure vertical jump performance, Luis. F used 52 physically active men each performed 5 maximal vertical jumps, Kinetic and kinematic data to analyse each trial using the 4 methods 2 methods based on vertical take-off velocity as calculated from the force platform, and 1 method based on time in the air. According to the author All 4 methods showed excellent reliability but poor accuracy, the obtained vertical jump height scores were statistically different among all methods. The research Luis. F (2000) will help my project aim as I am using a jump mat to measure power in the vertical jump test to make sure I follow correct guideline in order to get my accurate results.

Luis F. Aragón-Vargas’ Escuela de Educación Física Universidad de Costa casa’.2000.

9. What Are the Benefits of Muscular Strength for Dancers?

Michelle Matte, Oct 21, 2013

Michelle Matte (2013) uses words like strong, powerful, commanding and explosive to describe some of the world’s greatest dancers, and muscular strength is the underlying attribute that enables them to perform at their peak.In order to express themselves artistically, dancers stretch their joints to super-human lengths so they can please the eye as they fly across the stage in a panoply of amazing planes and angles. But the dark side to hyper-flexibility is increased potential for injury. Supplemental strength training improves dancing while preventing injury. Muscle strengthening exercises promote joint integrity by balancing muscle tension. This research is fairly new (2013) I studied the research done by Michelle Matte and I highly agree with it, it benefits my project as I know that dancers push themself to be more powerful and more flexible because they aim to perform at high levels and non-dancers have no reason to want to be flexible there for dancers are more likely to have better flexibility as its their sport.

Michelle Matte, Oct 21, 2013 ‘What Are the Benefits of Muscular Strength for Dancers?’ Official Partner of the LIVESTRONG Foundation

http://www.livestrong.com/article/358287-what-are-the-benefits-of-muscular-strength-for-dancers/

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My abstract sources all relate to power, flexibility, dancers and non-dancers, this has helped me compare I have found that some abstract have a larger scale of population than others I believe that the larger the population the more accurate the results will be as they are tested on more subjects the issue with a small population scale is that the information/research will only apply to a small number of population, I also found that the majority of research on flexibility is tested with the ‘sit and reach’ test which is good because my research is being done with the same obstacles and in the results they all have accurate results to the sit and reach, similarities between power test have been calculated for example a non-dancer may have more power than one of the dancers I’m using as the person plays another sport which builds a higher level of power than a dancer, this could have an effect on my research because all of my non-dancers may have different level in the group. Some of the researches on the abstracts found also believe that flexibility is in the person (abstract 5) and power is in the motivation, whereas the way the person is build can affect the level of power they can build in the body/legs. I found some research was older than other which could indicate that it may not be as valid as a newer piece of research, the age of the subjects in each piece of research also differs. The articles found on my to variable test were useful as I was able to find the weaknesses or mistakes that were done in that research in order to make sure the same mistakes aren’t done again, the test were reliable in both articles found which is a positive sign for my project aim.

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Each abstract and article has different positives and weaknesses which I’m hoping to learn from for my project aim for example in my first abstract age and popularity this author has looked at two times of dance but only used 22 subjects aged 13-16 now this could have an effect on the research because the age varies in flexibility research shows that younger female naturally have more flexibility than older female this is because the bone structure and the muscle structure when they are younger is not fully formed therefor making it softer and easier to stretch without causing an injury. Over all, the main weaknesses for all of the abstracts are to do with the population not being large enough, abstract 4 is the oldest abstract I have (1988) this can be a weakness as it is too old and a lot of research has elaborated and since then we have had a lot of new equipment. A positive from my articles/abstract was that the test I am using has been accurate in every piece of research found providing they have done the test on each individual more that twice. The article I most agree with would be article 6 does age effect flexibility’ this is because I do know that when you are younger your joints and muscles are more flexible and stretch further and if you do not keep a routine your flexibility levels will lower, I was more flexible when I was doing dance classes now I haven’t danced for a year and I am no longer as flexible this proves that I didn’t keep doing a flexibility routine as I didn’t need to anymore this also shows that motivation may have a big part to play because non-dancers will not have a routine because they have no reason to need to be flexible were as dancers want to be more flexible for performance.

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Through my research I have found many interesting research project some of the questions being research were about flexibility, dance, power and non-dancers, for example one of my abstract question was ‘ are there any differences between balance and flexibility in dancers and non-dancers’ the reason I chose to study this piece of abstract is because it likes to my population and one of my variables as I am working with both dancers and non-dancers, during these test question raised were to do with the differences between 2 sets of people, are the test reliable ? and will they give me the result I am hoping, I chose to research projects based on some of the test that I am using to see if the test I was using worked well on other research project the results were positive and always accurate, based on my literature review I have reasons to believe that dancers may have more flexibility in the hips than non-dancers because of their training but as far as the hamstring go there may not be a huge difference. Power in the dancer’s legs also may be a lot stronger as I know that dancers do use a lot of leg muscle in their jumps and leaps were as the non-dancers may not use their leg muscles as much depending on the degree of exercise they do and weather they participate in other sport.