Health and fitness for life.

What's your body type? Are your joints loose or tight? Can you tell? Are your feet flat, or do you have high arches? Why would a dancer be interested in these attributes for any reason other than the aesthetic line that a beautifully pointed foot offers, the excitement that a fabulously high leg kick brings, or the thrill created by a breathtaking backbend?

Not only are dancers and dance audiences eager to watch such astounding physical feats, but also watching are dance directors and the dance medicine and science community. Research in dance medicine and science is an evolving art form. What started as a few health-care providers twenty years ago has blossomed into a robust community that boasts international connections. Dance academies as well as physicians, physical therapists, and other health-care providers now conduct studies. And the research is looking at you. Are your mobile joints and high arches really good for you? With a few simple tests you can get an idea of where you stand.

Let's start with your joint mobility. Can you bend over, with knees straight, and touch your fingers to your toes? How about your palms to the floor? Most dancers can, and think nothing of it. Give yourself a point if you got your palms to the floor.

Next, lift your arms horizontally to the side and take a good look at your outstretched arms. Do you have those alien-type elbows that go backward when they straighten? Think everybody's arms do that? Think again. As a child, I remember giving my cousin, Robert, the creeps with my hyperextended elbows, and how he begged me to stop "bending them the wrong way." I naively replied that everyone's bent that way. This was my first inkling that everyone does not have the same body type. If you have hyperextended elbows, give yourself two more points, one for each elbow. They usually come in pairs.

How about your knees? Can you push them backward also, going beyond straight? If so, give yourself one point for each knee that qualifies. What about your hands? Put your hand on a table palm-side down and see if you can lift the pinkie finger up to make a ninety-degree angle. Give yourself one point for each hand that makes the mark. Also, can you pull your thumbs down to your forearms? Add another point for each of those.

What does this add up to for a dancer? If you got four points out of the nine possible, you test positive for minor benign joint hypermobility. "Benign" means it's not a death sentence. However, the closer you are to nine the more flexible you are. Studies show that these more flexible dancers may injure themselves more frequently and seriously if they do not protect themselves with strengthening and postural exercises. According to Dr. David Weiss, associate director of the Harkness Center for Dance Injuries, this hypermobility tends to be found less often in principal dancers than in corps dancers, leading to the thought that perhaps the truly hypermobile dancers actually self-eliminate due to injury before reaching the higher levels of stature.

Now look at your feet. Are your arches high even when you're standing? If so, you have a foot that doesn't make full contact with the floor. Studies have shown that the lower extremities have the highest incidence of injury in dancers, and the most recent ones suggest that dancers with high arches may be more injury-prone than others.

So what does all this mean? Here's the good news and the bad news. Information on the connection between body types and injuries helps those of us who treat dancers to identify who might need help and why. Early intervention might help an aspiring dancer to stay the course. The bad news is that this information might slowly change the face of dance. The hyperextended joints and high arches that we once perceived as physical dance perfection may not be the most desirable attributes for the future generations of dancers who want professional careers.

Some dance schools already screen their applicants through auditions, which often include attention to body type. The question is how this new dance-science information will impact upcoming young artists. Should we save individuals from pursuing a professional career for their own good? Are we saving companies the burden of worker's compensation claims? Or are we stopping budding Nijinskys in their tracks?

The dance look certainly changed from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Perhaps twenty-first-century dance will be transformed by dance medicine and science. A teacher once told me that what starts out as art often ends up as science, and vice versa. Will this corollary prove true?

Suzanne Martin, MA, MPT, maintains a private practice in physical therapy and Pilates, is the lead physical therapist for Smuin Ballets/SF, and conducts nutrition seminars at the San Francisco Ballet School.