Flexibility assessment of lumbar spine in recreational female Bharatnatyam dancers

Background: Bharatnatyam is an ancient Indian classical dance form where the dancers attain several postures and perform various body movements to the rhythm of the music. Intense training at a very young age could impose an augmented risk of injuries to the joints and muscles of various body parts. Improper postures attained by recreational dancers like Arai-mandi and Muzhu-mandi tends to cause an increase external rotation at hip joint which leads to compensatory increase in the lumbar lordosis this could leads to an imbalance in the flexibility of the lumbopelvic joint. This study aims to assess the flexibility of the lumbar spine among the recreational female Bharatnatyam dancers. Method: A cross sectional study was conducted among 60 recreational female Bharatanatyam dancers under the age group of 16-25 years. The flexibility of lumbar flexion was done by Modified Schober’s test where the privacy of each dancers were maintained while performing the test. According to the test, a pre and post flexion measurement was taken and its difference value was calculated and thus interpreted. Result: The study revealed that majority of the dancers (40%) showed the difference value whose mean average value obtained is 8.146±1.17 which is greater than the normal value as per the interpretation of Modified Schober’s test. Conclusion: the study concludes that there is an increase in lumbar spine flexibility among the recreational female Bharatnatyam dancers which could make the spine prone to injuries and necessitates the importance of core strengthening program among the dancers.