If you’ve taken a dance class, you’ve heard it. “Pull up.” It gets said at the barre, in center, during jumps, during turns, during pretty much everything. It’s one of the most universal corrections in dance training. And most dancers are doing it wrong — not because they aren’t trying, but because nobody ever explained what it actually means. What “Pull Up” Doesn’t Mean The most common interpretation is to get taller. Lift the chest. Elongate the spine. Create length. When a

May is EDS Awareness Month — and if you have hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome or a hypermobility spectrum disorder, you already know the frustration of being told to "just strengthen" and watching that advice fail you, sometimes spectacularly. This post is for you. Not as a feel-good awareness message, but as a clinical explanation of why standard rehabilitation so reliably fails hypermobile bodies — and what actually has to change. Specifically, we’re going to talk about t

You describe it as burning, electric, or shooting. It travels down the back of the leg or deep into the hip. Rest doesn't fully resolve it, and stretching sometimes makes it worse. Multiple providers have told you it's a hamstring issue, a hip flexor issue, or just general tightness — but none of the treatments have worked. If this sounds familiar, there's a good chance you're dealing with nerve pain — and nerve pain in dancers is frequently misdiagnosed, undertreated, and po

I'm Dr. Kinsey Winter, PT, DPT — and as always, take everything here with a grain of salt. Just because I'm a doctor of physical therapy doesn't make me your doctor of physical therapy. This post is educational content, not medical advice for your specific case. Please work with your care team before implementing new tools or techniques — especially if you have MCAS, POTS, vascular EDS, or other complex conditions alongside your hypermobility. One of the most common questions

If your hips hurt during or after dance, you've probably been told it's a hip problem. Maybe someone mentioned tight hip flexors, or a labral tear, or "you just need to strengthen your glutes." Here's the thing: in most dancers, turnout pain isn't actually coming from the hip. The hip is where you feel it — but it's rarely where the problem starts. Turnout Is a Full-Body Movement To understand why turnout hurts, you first need to understand where it comes from. True turnout i

If you've ever searched "physical therapy near me" and ended up overwhelmed by options, you're not alone. Most people have no real framework for evaluating PT clinics — beyond location and whether their insurance is accepted. But here's the truth: those factors have almost nothing to do with whether you'll actually get better. The model matters. And most people don't know there's a difference until they've been through a system that didn't work for them. The Two PT Models — a

For hypermobile dancers, flexibility often feels like a given. Deep splits, beautiful extensions, turnout that comes easily — it can all look effortless. But behind that range is a body working significantly harder than it appears. Hypermobility in dancers isn't just about being flexible. It's a fundamental difference in how connective tissue behaves — and it changes everything about how training, injury prevention, and rehabilitation need to be approached. Why Hypermobile Da

Hip impingement is one of the most common reasons ballet dancers experience pinching, catching, or deep aching in the front of the hip — especially during développé, battement, or rond de jambe en l’air. In dance medicine, this is sometimes called dancer hip syndrome. While it can sound alarming, it’s usually highly treatable with the right approach. What Is Hip Impingement? Femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) occurs when the ball and socket of the hip joint compress in ways t

You've been told you're double-jointed your whole life. Maybe you were the kid who could bend your fingers backward, touch your palms to the floor, or pull off a split without ever really training for it. That flexibility might have felt like a quirk — until your body started telling a different story. Recurring sprains. Joints that crack and shift. Fatigue that hits harder than it should. Strength that never seems to translate into stability. Pain in multiple places that no

For many people with hypermobility, the experience of living in their body is exhausting in a way that's hard to explain. Joints that ache after sitting, crack spontaneously, or give way unexpectedly. Pain that seems to move around or appear without a clear cause. Fatigue that doesn't respond to rest. A medical history full of "everything looks normal." This post is for anyone who's been there — and for anyone supporting someone who has. Why Hypermobility Causes Pain Hypermob

Every January, I see the same pattern in my practice. Dancers return from winter break feeling rested and motivated. The first week back often feels fine. Then, two or three weeks in, the same hips, ankles, and backs that were quiet all break start talking. These aren't random injuries. They're predictable — and in most cases, they're preventable. Understanding why they happen is the first step to stopping them. What Happens to the Body During a Break Even two to three weeks

If you're hypermobile and you've been dealing with neck pain, headaches, or a persistent sense that your head is too heavy for your shoulders — you're probably not imagining it. The cervical spine is one of the most frequently affected and most frequently overlooked areas in hypermobility spectrum disorders and hEDS. Most hypermobile patients who come to me with neck symptoms have been told to do generic strengthening or just "work on posture." That's a starting point, but it

You've been through rehab. You did the exercises. You felt better — for a while. Then the same hip, the same ankle, the same low back came back. And now you're wondering if your body is just broken. It's not. But something in how the problem was approached didn't address the root cause — and that's worth understanding. Why Pain Keeps Returning Recurring pain in dancers almost always comes down to one of three things: load management, movement pattern, or capacity. Usually all

You've seen the dentist. Maybe more than once. You've had imaging, worn a night guard, tried muscle relaxers. The jaw pain — or the clicking, the headaches, the tension — keeps coming back. What nobody may have told you is that your neck might be the reason. The cervical spine and the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) are intimately connected, neurologically and structurally. In clinical practice, failing to address the neck when treating jaw pain is one of the most common reason

A pinch at the back of your ankle when you point your foot. Discomfort that shows up in arabesque, relevance, or any time you push through full plantarflexion. Pain that rest calms and dance brings right back. If this is familiar, posterior ankle impingement — sometimes involving a small bone called the os trigonum — may be what's driving it. The good news: it's usually very treatable without surgery, and most dancers can stay in the studio throughout the process. What Is Pos