Final Kick Ankle and Foot Clinic Meets The Dance Factory
by Madeline Carson – Medical Assistant

Final Kick – Ankle & Foot

On August 15^th, Dr. Sekulic and I headed up to Bountiful to provide a free clinic to the athletes at the Dance Factory. We tailored our presentation to the Littles (age 6-11) to ensure that it was entertaining and that the buzzing dancers stayed engaged. Success! Our second group of high school girls were brilliant and absorbed every detail of the comprehensive presentation and rehabilitation session. The energy was incredible, and we are already looking forward to out next clinic in the Fall!

Growing up as a dancer, I certainly sustained my fair share of lower extremity injuries. In hindsight, it would have been amazing to have Dr. Sekulic around to educate me on how to manage and prevent injuries. The Dance Factory athletes were so receptive to everything Dr. Sekulic had to discuss, and loved the hands on learning aspect of the presentation. I was also surprised by how many questions there were pertaining to each athlete’s own ankle and foot pain.

We showed up with several goals for the clinic. Our primary goal was to provide the dancers with the education to recognize an injury, and then to start the proper rehabilitation to amplify healing and prevent subsequent injury. We introduced the dancers to proper stretching, proprioception, and strengthening techniques, using various modalities. Dr. Sekulic briefly went into how muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones, all play a part in creating the beautiful movements we call dancing, and how these structures can become injured.

The hands on learning aspect of the class resonated well with everyone. We went over a few different tissue mobility exercises, which included voodoo flossing, and LAX ball techniques to mobilize scar tissue. We also demonstrated ankle strengthening and proprioception exercises with Therabands. Everyone enjoyed learning new rehab techniques, and left the clinic confident that they could start incorporating these exercises into their daily routines!

After all the dancers’ questions had been answered, Dr. Sekulic performed personalized evaluations for each dancer dealing with an ankle or foot issue. All the dancers found this to be very beneficial, and liked receiving a treatment plan that was tailored to their specific needs.

I hope that the biggest lesson that each dancer took away from this talk was to ALWAYS listen to your body. Dr. Sekulic emphasized that her goal wasn’t to stop the athletes from dancing, rather, to help the dancers better manage the inevitable injuries due to the demands of their sport. I can relate to the dancer mindset of, ‘dancing through the pain.’ Any dancer will tell you this is their mantra during class, especially on pointe. Pain is nearly an expectation in the dance community. I can attest to the fact that I was guilty of this mentality as well and I feared going to doctors, because I thought they would tell me to stop dancing. Dr. Sekulic understands the dancer’s mindset and is will to work with the dancers in every way possible to keep them doing what they love. To get to the pointe, (no pun intended, but I really wanted to add that phrase in somewhere!) strength and mobility are key components for lasting dance careers. I’m excited to be working with Dr. Sekulic to help our Salt Lake dance community thrive!