I exercise regularly for my general health and better dancing but sometimes I feel a need to expand my exercise routine. While browsing through exercise books, I’ve found 2 excellent books that were eye-opening for me. Both books are based on ballet principles but anyone, dancers or not, can benefit from them.

New York City Ballet Workout: Fifty Stretches And Exercises Anyone Can Do For A Strong, Graceful, And Sculpted Body

This book is very easy to follow and contains a lot of beautiful photos of ballet dancers. Just looking at those photos can be motivating. Dancers talk about their take on fitness in the intro section, which I found interesting. The main workout section is divided into six: warm-up, stretch, abdominals, floor barre, ballet center, and legs. You can read more reviews here.There are also 2 DVDs based on this book.

Conditioning for Dance

While New York City Ballet Workout has somewhat of a coffee table book feel because of its abundance of pictures, Conditioning for Dance focuse on body awareness, relaxation, and imagery. This book has plenty of anatomical illustrations, which help us understand what it means to be aware of the body. Its emphasis of feel and touch is quite insightful. Especially, I found the section for “Improving Turn-Out With Touch and Imagery” quite interesting. More reviews on this book are found here.

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