Allyssa Bross, a principal dancer with the Los Angeles Ballet on her 7th season, knows how important it is to stretch. Recently, she tried out Venice Beach's new Stretch Lab, and she loved it.
Allyssa provided feedback on the Stretch Lab and a little backstory as well.
THE IMPORTANCE OF STRETCHING
Since the time I was three years old I have been living in tutus. Ballet classes were the fun activity that every parent put their little girl in. My parents just didn’t realize that this was going to eventually turn into my profession. Fast forward several years and I am now a Principal Dancer with Los Angeles Ballet. Some of the most common words used to describe a ballet dancer would be graceful, slender, and flexible.
Most people who haven’t grown up in a dance studio tend to think that the majority of a dancer’s time is spent stretching. What they don’t realize is that stretching is never built into a dancer’s schedule. It is something that has to be done on one’s own time.
I spend about 7 hours a day in rehearsals learning choreography, running through ballets that we are about to perform. Then in the evening I spend another 3 hours teaching students at Los Angeles Ballet School. When I first joined the company I never took time to stretch at night. I had always been pretty flexible as a kid, and didn’t really understand the importance of stretching.
With such a rigorous schedule, my body began to break down. I was noticing that my muscles were tighter and were causing pain in other joints and areas of my body. There was one simple solution, STRETCHING. Carving out time to stretch and roll out on a foam roller in the evening after an intense day of working out, has made all the difference.
I recently went to the StretchLab in Venice and was pleasantly surprised. This is a place where people can drop in to have someone stretch them out. What a genius idea! Stretching isn’t just beneficial to dancers, it’s beneficial for everyone because it increases blood flow, lengthens your muscles, and decreases the risk of injury. I loved how personal the experience was. Every client gets paired with a flexologist who caters the stretching to whatever the client needs. They use slight resistance to get the muscles to release into a deep stretch, but only going as far as the client prefers.
Everyone working there was so friendly and passionate about their job and the space was beautiful with tons of windows. My friend Bianca Bulle (soloist with Los Angels Ballet) and I went to the StretchLab and then walked to dinner feeling so loose afterwards. I can definitely see it becoming the new craze. Who wouldn’t want to meet up with their friend, get stretched out for 40 minutes, and then grab coffee?!
-Allyssa