A Little About the Pointe Shoes

"Pointe shoes, which elongate a dancer’s legs and accentuate the beauty of classical ballet technique, come with their own set of biomechanical principles—and their own set of risk factors for lower extremity injury."
by Selina Shah, MD

 Pointe Shoes have been designed in one way and hasn't been changed. They are made of fabric, a toe box, a shank, a flexible rubber that is held on the dancers foot with elastic and ribbons. Fitting a pointe shoe should always be done with an expert. No wrinkles should be noticeable when standing in any position or standing on pointe. When standing on pointe your shoes should fit like a glove. The elastic should fit tightly around your ankle and standing on pointe the ribbons should be sewn on. A pointe dancer normally starts at the age of 12 because pointe requires strength, flexibility, proper placement, balance, to listen, and correctly learn choreography.

Even though ballet is a beautiful form of dance that has its own art on dancers toes it can cause extreme foot injuries that are painful. The first thought would be ballet injuries are normally foot and ankle and yes this is true because ankle and foot sprains are the most common in ballet. Sprains can cause a lot of stress to their body which can cause dancers to lose balance on point. Other injuries that can happen from ballet are bunions which is painful swelling to the joint of your toes, traumatized toenails are common because dancers will cut there toenails too short which leads to ingrown toe nails and causes infection, and calluses because of the tight fitting of the pointe shoes.

For many years ballerinas have been dancing on pointe and still today is still considered a beautiful art that amuses people all around the world. It takes skill and flexibility to capture this form of dance. Though this dance causes injuries there are ways to help prevent these injuries from happening to yourself.