# Ergonomic Risk Assessment of Professional Dance Using Motion Capture with Ergonomic Evaluation by the Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA)

## TL;DR

This study uses motion capture and ergonomic assessment to evaluate the physical demands and injury risks in professional ballet training.

## Contribution

The study introduces a novel approach combining motion capture and REBA to assess ergonomic risks in professional dance.

## Key findings

- Female dancers spent significantly more time in high-risk postures than male dancers during training.
- Phase 3 of training showed lower REBA scores but higher injury risk due to fatigue and ground reaction forces.
- Training programs should be adjusted to include regeneration and strength training to reduce injury risks.

## Abstract

The aim of the present study was to assess physical demands in professional dance during daily training routine using kinematic data and to categorize it ergonomically using the Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) tool. The three phases of daily classical ballet training of n = 28 professional dancers (16f/12m) were recorded with the inertial motion capture system MVN Link (Xsens, Netherlands), extracted and analyzed by MATLAB; subsequently, the ergonomic risk was determined. Female dancers trained significantly longer in the high-risk range than their male colleagues (f: 94%; m: 89%; p < 0.001). During the entire training, the female and male dancers had a mean REBA score of 6.31 and 6.03 resp., with phase 3 tending to have lower REBA values but an increased likelihood of injury due to fatigue and ground reaction forces. It can be recommended that the daily training should be critically examined and adjusted to anthropometric characteristics and the integration of regeneration phases, cardiopulmonary components, and targeted strength training programs to relieve vulnerable structures, as substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.