Dance Games: Injuries

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We get hurt too

Believe it or not, we dance game players also suffer from injuries from time to time. Nobody has ever suffered from anything serious (at least not that I know of), but we all have our fair share of smaller, more localized woes that plague us from time to time.

The most common problem we suffer from is fatigue, usually stemming from repetitive strain injuries. These include joints, muscles and bones as they become tired and worn out over time. Dance games are very heavily focused on the legs, so those parts are bound to be exposed to ailments, but we often experience troubles in the hands, wrists, arms, abs and lower back.

We have to be careful when playing, because ITG is such a focused activity that the body parts it stresses are so extensively worked. Many of us have come to learn about our bodies over time and how much they can handle, how long they take to recover and how much we can get out of them and reduce the long term damage.

So far, there have been no recorded instances of long term impact damage from dance games.

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How do we get them and what can we do about them?

Most of my personal problems occur in the joints and the muscles. They're not in the ways you might imagine - knee problems and ankle problems, but these do happen to other people.

Most of mine stem from my posture and playing style. For example, during particularly fast songs, I get a sore lower back because I place alot of weight on the bar and lean on my arms, causing stress in both the triceps and lower back from the position it places me in.

I also experience joint aches and soreness around the groin area, especially after playing stamina.

One of the more frustrating problems I got in the past were shin splints. Believe it or not, but we suffer from these too, usually from attempting to play things that were beyond our physical capability.

In late 2009 I would suffer from shin splints frequently because I was pushing myself to try and play things that I simply was not capable of doing (I vividly remember forcing myself to play 250 bpm streams alot before I could really do it, and as a result, got splints. I also got them when I would try to warm up very quickly and not allow myself the proper progression of volume and intensity). I don't get splints anymore, because my body has since become properly conditioned over the years and is able to pick up the game almost on command.