There's a moment in every dancer's career when the body stops being something you have and starts being something you owe. The aches arrive. The hamstrings tighten. The hip that felt fine in September is struggling in April. And most dancers do what dancers are trained to do: push through it.
That's exactly the instinct Dr. Jim Adams wants to change. The owner of Flat Iron Sports Injury has spent years treating some of the highest-level athletes in professional sports—NFL players, college standouts, names you'd recognize—and in recent years he's turned his attention to the dancers of The Brea Space. In a conversation on Inside the Space with the Millers, he laid out what he's learned about the dancer's body, why it's unlike anything else he treats, and what every young artist needs to understand before the wear-and-tear becomes permanent.
Ask Dr. Adams which patients surprise him most, and he doesn't hesitate.
"The broad spectrum of injuries that I see with dancers—if it's on the body, they can find a way to injure it. Low back, hips, knees, ankles. Even toes."
He's also quick to say dancers have the highest pain tolerance of anyone who walks into his office. Higher than football players. Higher than anyone. That's not a compliment to leave alone—it's a warning. A high pain tolerance lets a dancer keep dancing on a problem long after the body started asking for help. And in this industry, there's always someone ready to step in.
"As a dancer, the FOMO of stopping or coming back for a true injury to heal correctly is very scary, because someone's ready in the wings literally saying, 'I'm next. I'll jump into that tour for you. I'll do that show for you.'"
For Dr. Adams, this is where the conversation has to change. Dancers are elite athletes. And elite athletes recover wisely.
When a football player lies on Dr. Adams's table, he's tight in a shortened position. Easy to find. Easy to treat.
Dancers are different.
"They're so incredibly flexible, but yet tight," he says. "The dancers I figured out are tight in an elongated position. That was a bit of a challenge—trying to figure that out."
The reason is mechanical, and it matters for every dancer reading this. The brain senses instability in a highly mobile joint and guards it. The muscle tightens to protect the joint. That's the tension dancers feel, and it's why simply stretching the sensation away doesn't work.
"If those muscles are weak, the brain sends an impulse to the muscles around that hip that says, I need to guard up. I need to protect this hip so this hip doesn't become injured."
The answer, counterintuitively, is not more stretching. It's strength.
When dancers hear this, they say they have a fear of bulking up. Dr. Adams is direct about that. Lift lighter weights for more reps. Use body weight. Work one leg at a time so the weaker side can't hide behind the dominant one.
"If you do single-legged activity, you're forcing that weak side to do 100% of the work," he says. "That's how you can strengthen that side."
After years of treating dancers, Dr. Adams sees the same imbalances again and again.
The calf overworks on every relevé, but the front of the lower leg—the tibialis anterior—stays weak. The hips rotate outward constantly, but almost never inward. And the left side of a dancer's body, he says, can feel like a completely different person than the right.
"When I work on them, it's like I'm working on two different people," he says. "Their right side versus their left side."
Those imbalances don't stay small. A glute that's been silently weak for years forces the hip flexor to overwork, then the quad, then the next muscle up the chain—until a dancer walks in complaining about a quad and learns the real issue has been living in their hip for seven years.
"We need to get to the root of the problem, not just treat the symptom."
If Dr. Adams could hand every dancer a starting plan, it would be short. It would also be unglamorous, but it would change the trajectory of their careers.
Lighter weights, more reps. Single-leg work. Body weight is enough. The goal isn't size—it's stability around the joints so the body stops guarding them.
Treatment is a partnership. The hands-on work only goes so far—the recovery between sessions is where careers are extended or shortened.
"They have to jump in the ice bath, they have to heat, they have to foam roll," Dr. Adams says. "They really have to be proactive in their active care."
Dynamic warm-ups prep the muscles before class. Cool-downs clear the lactic acid that would otherwise stack on top of tomorrow's session. And by the end of the night, a few minutes of stretching while the muscles are still warm can make a real difference.
Ask about the most underrated recovery tool, and Dr. Adams answers instantly: sleep.
"Growth hormone will help repair tissue," he says. "If you're not getting quality sleep, you're losing out on that. They say that if you constantly get like six hours or less of sleep, you double your risk of injury."
Hydration matters just as much. Muscle is roughly 70 to 79 percent water. So is the brain. Dehydrated dancers aren't just fatigued—they're fragile. And a little salt in the water, he notes, was what fixed his own cramps.
There's one habit he'd stop altogether: dancers adjusting their own hips, over and over again. If something feels off, that's a signal—not a DIY project.
The studio injury happens fast, and the first instinct is usually right. New injury, swelling, bruising—ice. But timing matters.
"You're going to ice no more than like 15 minutes," Dr. Adams says. "For the first 48 to 72 hours, as long as you're seeing a bunch of swelling, ice for sure. Once that window has passed, we'd like to transition to heat."
Longevity in dance isn't an accident. It's a decision made young.
"They've got to start now," he says. "The proper nutrition, the hydration, the strength training—that's what's going to lengthen your career and keep you going for years upon years."
And dancers are, in his eyes, something remarkable. Watching a showcase still leaves him and his wife talking all the way home about what the human body can do.
"Their body is an instrument," he says. "Don't neglect it."
The training at The Brea Space was never just about steps. It's about bridging the student to the artist—and building a body, and a mindset, that can hold that career for decades. Dr. Adams is part of that ecosystem, and the dancers who treat recovery as training are the ones who walk out the other side still dancing.
If something feels off, don't wait until it's broken. That's not toughness. That's being a professional.
For more on this topic, watch our podcast: Dr. Adams - Dancers are Athletes | Train Smarter. Dance Longer.
Cory M. Miller is a creative director, filmmaker, entrepreneur and former professional skater based in Southern California. He is the co-founder of The Brea Space and creator of The Space TV, where he works alongside his wife, Krista Miller, developing and mentoring the next generation of artists.
His career has moved through professional action sports, Hollywood stunt work, filmmaking, photography and creative direction—experiences that now inform his approach to mentorship and artist development.
Cory co-hosts Inside the Space with the Millers with Krista, where they explore creativity, family, careers, personal growth and the realities behind building a life in the entertainment industry.
