Thread: Body builder body vs dancer's body

The diet and training probably wouldnt be different at all...depeding on how much muscle you want to add. You may be associating "body building" with the steroid freak women many of us have seen in competitions. You're NOT going to look like that without using drugs. Your body does not produce enough of the hormones needed for it. Female bodybuilders (who do it naturally) are extremely sexy and feminine looking IMO.
Good luck!

I'm not worried about getting big like the "steroid freak women". I know that won't happen. But even natural body builder women (who i think look emazing) look different (more muscular) then ballet dancers (more thin but still defined). So I was wondering what's the difference in the way they diet and train?

I'd imagine its more diet than training. They are extremely lean and probably train more for flexibility than anything else. There may be some former dancers here who could tell you how they train for sure. Getting lean really is all about diet. You'll find plenty of cutting diet info in this forum.

Sorry if this was confusing at all. I'm posting from work and always have to rush. The simple answer is that you wouldnt want to go on a bulk diet to add a lot of muscle mass the way bodybuilders do. I dont know you're current stats, but if you're overweight, get on a cutting diet plan. You're workouts would not have to change regardless of your goals. Diet is everything!

I'm 5'0, 110 lb. I know it doesn't sound like much but I have a high bf%. (ballet dancers who are my height are about 90-100lb). I don't think I'd want to be 90lb. But it would be nice to get back to 100lb (what I weighed about 3 years ago).

Post your current diet and training info, so everyone can take a look and give some feedback.

I dont' really have a plan. I tried a couple of things and know that very low carb just doesn't agree with my system. I'm not even sure how many cals I need because I get different answers on difference forums. Some tell me 10 x my body weight (1100 cals) others tell me it's too low and I need 1500 cals (which I thought wold have to be for a bulk

The workout for now has been like this: 3 days of cardio (step aerobics 30-50 min) and 2 days of weights splitting upper and lower body (pyramid type training).

I don't have a typical day but here's what I had today:

Meal 1
egg + egg white

Meal 2
salad w/ chicken
fat free French
apple

Meal 3
2 slices whole wheat bread w/ tuna
1c buck wheat w/ teriyaki sause

Meal4
whole wheat bread
8 prunes
light yogurt


This is about 1500-1600 cals I think

To start, I would try to get 5-6 meals a day. This keeps your metabolism running. A MRP (meal replacement power) is a nice easy way to get a couple extra meals in.
I would definitely recommend reading through some of the sticky's in this forum. They will give you a lot of info to get started.

Check out Jodi's "Guide to Dieting and getting Cut".

Most ballet women have great lower bodies and nothing upstairs, no real balance.

dancers stretch alot more, focus on lower body strength and they tend to have eating disorders.

There is alot of pressure put on them to be ultra thin.

women who strength train on the other hand tend to train the whole body and eat rather than starve themselves.

I'm sure a dancer does more resistance training.. I would think..

Originally posted by Mudge
Most ballet women have great lower bodies and nothing upstairs, no real balance.

huh? you mean as in visual appearance?

are you a dancer yourself? or were you just making a referance?

I used to dance when I was little.

Dancers are sssssssexy!

Sorry, I know that does not any real value to this thread.

well fom what i can remember all the dancers i know just danced everyday or some of them once a week and i can't recall any of them hitting the weighs but i do remember them using resistance exercises with rubber bands. just gibing ya my 2 cents.

why not start dancing again

also alot of them didn't diet but also didn't eat. most stayed away from meat.

Originally posted by HoldDaMayo
huh? you mean as in visual appearance?

Yes, they dont need upper body weight, so they are usually thin. As for breast development that is often lacking also, as for how many of them eat tissue paper for dinner I can't comment on since that is the realm of the Olympians.

I actually come in contact with plenty of performers, and it is obvious, so this is not something I pulled out of my hat (I dont wear hats).

Originally posted by Mudge
As for breast development that is often lacking also

that is not alwas true all of my ex girls were dancering and they all were nicely developed, until they stopped eating that is

Ergo lack of development, it is a moot point that they had boobs when they were 20 and are now flat chested 30 year olds.

I used to be Mr. Olympia but now I look like this, no, really.

Depending who you dance for they will be picky about how you look to one degree or another. Last person I worked with had huge breast implants, no idea what she looked like naturally.

that is very true mudge they can be real picky

I know there are a lot of dancers with eating dissorders, but I'm sure there are a lot of healthy ones too.
So in comparison to body builders is ther a difference in the way they workout and diet?

in addition to training and diet genetics and body type play a big part in this.

my answer to ya question is, yes.
dancers tend to work on there legs and flexibilty, maybe even a little toning of the upper body. Dieting wise, i don't really know. all the dancers i have know never really dieted, they always ate what they wanted, and they really never gained weight, i guess since they always dancing and burning off all those calories.

sorry i couldn't help ya more but here is one last thing women bodybuilders want to be cut up with alot of definition, dancers i assume really don't care that much about definition.so they don't try to get done there body fat to 6-7%. also like mudge said they pay more attention to there legs then there upper body unless there are doing lifts.

Originally posted by Katia7
So in comparison to body builders is ther a difference in the way they workout and diet?

I think "hell yeah" fits Bodybuilders are about total body, not just legs. They also are not going to have to worry about being light on thier feet for an hour or more, so diet is going to be different since they are lifting for total body mass. Probably quanity of food is more different than the items, but bodybuilders have bulking and cutting sessions and I would not imagine that dancers call thier offseason "bulking time" but perhaps just I cant eat almost like a normal human being time.

I know this is probably not a useful contribution to the thread, but am I the only one who thinks that ballerinas are kinda nasty??? They're built like children. I like some curves on my woman. They look a little like skeletons. <end of useless rant>