If you’re a serious ballroom dancer or competitor, here are some tips to help you achieve more ballroom dancing success. Take care of your mind and body and you’ll put your best foot forward and look great when you’re dancing.

Follow these suggestions for all-around ballroom dancing success.

Stretching will result in long, limber muscles.

It’s important for ballroom dancers to be flexible. Therefore, if you want to be an outstanding ballroom dancer, you’ll have to make it a priority. Flexibility will be lost without daily practice.

Weight training will make you a strong dancer.

An elite dancer must be powerful with defined muscles.  In addition, he or she needs to be able to isolate different muscle groups to perform. For more information on how to get started, learn about weight training for dancers here.

Engage in plenty of cardio activity for endurance on the competition dance floor.

Anyone looking for success on the ballroom dance floor must include cardiovascular workouts. One great choice is kickboxing, since it’s known to develop flexibility, strong muscles, and cardio fitness. For these reasons, it’s a great way to increase stamina.

Include a healthy diet fueled with good-for-you food.

To stay strong, an athlete must include a variety of non-processed foods for a well-rounded diet. Hence, consuming carbs, fat, and protein will help promote a lean physique with well developed muscles.

Schedule massage or chiropractic sessions to work out the kinks.

Like a car, a strong dancer needs to spend time with the mechanic to stay in top-performing condition. For this reason, a weekly visit for some bodywork will do a dancer good.

Don’t forget to drink lots of water.

Anyone who is as physical as a performing dancer will need to stay hydrated. ‘Nuf said.

Get plenty of sleep.

Sleep will go far towards repairing the dancer’s body and preparing it for the next workout. With this in mind, don’t cheat yourself out of sleep’s wonderful restorative power.

Use imagery to achieve ballroom dancing success.

To begin with, envision who you want to be and what you want to accomplish. Then, program your mind and body to reach your goals.

Refresh your mind and body with a hot bath or hot tub.

Relaxing in the hot water helps to ease muscle stiffness, so make sure you do it on a regular basis. Besides, it’s a good time to practice that imagery.

For the heck of it, stretch some more. Your ballroom dancing success depends on it.

Just do it! You can never do too much.

Furthermore…

We’ve spent time on the specifics of becoming a stronger ballroom dancer in general, but what if you want to be a better leader. Check out this Dance Safari post, “Ballroom Dancing Basics: 10 Characteristics of a Good Leader“.

To be sure, there are those who are achieving ballroom dancing success without paying special attention to their mind and body…but why would you do it the hard way?