My First Fitness, Wellness, Sport/Dance Vlogging post

I've just uploaded a video to my Facebook profile demonstrating and talking about an aspect of my fitness routine that I created for myself around 20 years ago when I was both preparing to start my tennis career on tour while at the same time training in Jazz dance. It was at this point it struck me how dance warm-ups and exercises can form part of general fitness as well as help athletes to strengthen all the muscles, tendons and ligaments and protect joints. I combined this with starting to learn about sports and dance injury prevention and treatment and later sports psychology. 

You can watch the video on my personal Facebook, here. And on my dedicated fitness Facebook page's post, here.

My tennis, fitness and wellness Facebook page is available at: 

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100084693246282 

My fitness and wellness website, where you can keep up-to-date and find all my related blogs, vlogs and official fitness and well-being social media accounts is available here. 

Although my first video is mainly showing dance exercises (3 from ballet and 1 from Jazz) nevertheless I have incorporated resistance band work with which athletes can identify. However, my next video will incorporate sports exercise and home gym work too. These first few videos focus on warm-up exercises before I go into exercise proper. This is because I learnt from my mother that, in her day, they didn't warm-up before doing sport or gymnastics at school 🏑🏐🎾🏃‍♀️🤸‍♀️🏊‍♀️, outside of school 🏏🏓🎯🚴‍♀️ and post-school when playing tennis 🎾, badminton 🏸and golf⛳. which has left her prone to sports injuries. So I always complete various, all-body warm-ups before doing anything more strenuous eg press-ups; sit-ups; weightlifting. Having flexibility, strength and coordination is vital to any sport, and dance incorporates extra skills that are not necessarily covered by on-court and off-court training. 

I've focused on feet in this video and the next one because they are often a neglected area despite foot and ankle injuries being the most common injury in sports and athletics. Only this week, Monfils has sustained a foot injury and his run-up tournaments to the US Open are in doubt as a result. And I think he's only just returned from injury so learning to prevent injuries is top of the list in my book - if you are injured, you're not able to practice or play tournaments in the first place and it takes ages to come back from them, impacts on your ranking and general well-being. Feet are asked to do a lot of work, they take a great deal of strain - whether it's running for the ball, sliding on clay, footwork around the court, jumping for smashes etc. So if your feet and ankles are not in tip top condition, it impacts on other parts of your body, especially knees, calf muscles, hips and back. This is equally true for everybody, not just dancers and athletes. Your feet are carrying your body weight and are asked to do walking, running, twisting and turning, standing for periods of time during every normal day. The feet contain about 26 bones, 33 joints and well over 100 ligaments tendons and muscles so they all need strengthening, flexing, oiling (joints) otherwise they are prone to mild and severe injury. We all rely on our feet and ankles to get about so they possibly constitute the most important part of our body.