Dancers need a LOT of energy (in the form of calories) to sufficiently fuel them for taking class or stepping out on to stage. But what else do you need these calories for, and how can we calculate the energy requirements for dancers?
First, let me introduce you to your TDEE, otherwise known as your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. As you’ve probably already figured out, your TDEE is the combined number of calories your body needs to not only exercise, but to digest the food you eat and to run all of its essential processes (such as breathing and maintaining your body temperature.).
This means that your TDEE is made up of three main components, these are…
- Thermal Effect of Activity (TEA)
- Thermal Effect of Food (TEF)
- Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
We gain energy by eating calories, and obviously dancers performing for 8 hours a day are going to need more energy than someone only taking classes for 4 hours.
As a dancer, it’s really important that you figure out just how many calories you should be consuming, as being in a caloric deficit can seriously impact your performance (now’s the time to picture a sluggish and tired version of yourself, clinging onto the barre for dear life).
Carry on reading to figure out how you can calculate your own energy requirements to help improve your stamina, technique and cross-training gains!
What is Basal Metabolic Rate and how can I calculate my own?
Breathing, thinking, cell production and muscle contractions don’t just happen by magic… that’s right, our bodies need energy to make all those things happen, and we gain energy in the form of calories.
Our Basal Metabolic Rate is the minimum number of calories our bodies need to perform all of these essential processes, and it makes up around 60-70% of our TDEE.
You may have heard your mum blaming her weight gain on her slow metabolism, and it’s true that our metabolic rate does decease with age. However, being both physically active and having a high muscle to fat ratio means that most dancers have no need to worry about their metabolic rate, and will probably find themselves feeling very hungry pretty often.
This is because as we dance our bodies burn A LOT of calories, and they continue to do so at a faster rate for a few hours even after we’ve finished class!
And that’s not all… did you know that that muscle cells are a whole 7 TIMES more metabolically demanding than fat cells? Believe me, it’s true, and it tends to mean that dancers have a high metabolic rate (so what are you waiting for… it’s time to go and have a guilt-free munch on that chocolate brownie you’ve been staring at all day!).
And the good new doesn’t stop there, as calculating your BMR really couldn’t get any easier…
BMR (calories) = bodyweight (lbs) x 10
Or in other words, simply multiply your bodyweight in lbs by 10 to find your BMR!!!
How does the Thermal Effect of Food contribute to the energy requirements for dancers?
As we eat, our bodies burn energy as they digest and absorb the nutrients contained within our food. This is what is known as the Thermal Effect of Food, and it makes up around 10% of our TDEE. Honestly, who knew that eating was a workout in itself!?
This 10% can vary depending on how much food we eat and how easy the food is to digest. If you think about it, eating LOADS of food means that the body must work harder to digest it all, and so more energy (or calories) are required to complete the process.
Again, calculating what percentage of our TDEE our Thermal Effect of Food accounts for is also pretty easy (don’t worry, I totally kept in mind that we’re dancers and not mathematicians!).
TEF (calories) = Total Daily Calorie Intake / 10
What is the Thermal Effect of Activity, and as a dancer, what percentage of my Total Daily Energy Requirement does it account for?
Here comes the bit that we’re all familiar with…
The Thermal Effect of Activity is the number of calories we use or burn as we exercise, and as you’ve probably guessed, it can vary a lot depending on how active we are.
To make calculating your TEA a little bit easier, there are a set of multipliers you can use which vary according to the intensity of your training or the number of classes you are required to take each week.
| Intensity level | Description |
| Recreational dancer = BMR x 0.55 | Taking class/performing for around 5-7 hours per week |
| Pre-professional dancer = BMR x 0.725 | Taking class/performing for around 15 hours per week |
| Professional dancer = BMR x 0.9 | Taking class/performing for more than 15 hours per week |
If I were you, I’d treat this table as a rough guide. Obviously, if you are a pre-professional dancer but are training at a vocational school where you are required to take classes for 6 hours per day, then it would be worth opting for the ‘professional dancer’ category as this bracket is more fitting to your training regime.
A Worked Example (putting it all into practice)
So how do we calculate the energy requirements for dancers?
It’s understandable if you’ve reached this point feeling a little confused by the various equations used to calculate your energy requirements, especially since not all of us are mathematicians.
As a way of helping you to gain a firmer grasp on these calculations, let me introduce you to Alex…
Alex weighs 75kg (165 lbs) and consumes on average 2,500 calories per day.
He is a professional ballet dancer and performs either in class or on stage for around 20 hours per week.
In between, Alex likes to spend time in the gym building muscle to power his allegro, whilst also improving his ability to lift partners.
This would place Alex in the ‘professional dancer’ category.
Step 1) Calculate Alex’s BMR (basal metabolic rate)
Let’s start with the simplest part of the process which is calculating Alex’s BMR. As Alex weighs 165 lbs, we can multiply this value by 10 to find his BMR.
BMR = 165 lbs x 10
= 1,650 (cals)
We now know that out of Alex’s total daily energy requirements, 1650 calories out of the 2500 calories he consumes daily are used for his BMR.
Step 2) Calculate Alex’s TEF (thermal effect of food)
As we know that the thermal effect of food is around 10% of our daily calorie intake, we can simply divide the 2500 calories that Alex consumes daily by 10 to find his TEF.
TEF = 2500 / 10
= 250 (cals)
Step 3) Calculate Alex’s TEA (thermal effect of activity)
Now at first glance this one is a bit trickier, however if we take a look at the intensity level table above, we can see that to find the TEA of a ‘professional dancer’ we must multiply their BMR by 0.9.
TEA = 1650 x 0.9
= 1485 (cals)
Step 4) Calculate Alex’s TDEE (total daily energy expenditure)
As we said at the very beginning, an individual’s TDEE is a sum of their BMR, TEF and TEA.
We have already worked out Alex’s caloric cost for each of these components, so to find his TDEE all we need to do is add them all together.
TDEE = 1650 + 250 + 1485
= 3385 (cals)
Alex’s Total Daily Energy Expenditure is 3385 calories. In other words, this is the number of calories that he should be consuming daily to give his body enough energy to maintain all his cellular functions, whilst training at a professional level.
Alex told us that he is currently consuming 2500 calories per day, if he were to increase this to 3385 calories per day, he would probably notice a BIG difference in his performance and strength.
From this point, if Alex wanted to gain more weight in the form of muscle, he could increase his daily calorie consumption (and preferably his protein intake), or alternatively to lose weight he could simply reduce it.
Final Thoughts on Energy Requirements for Dancers; what are they and how can I calculate my own?
Knowing how to calculate the energy requirements for dancers is the first step to improving your performance. Put simply, if you don’t eat enough calories each day, then it will become really really difficult (if not impossible) to reach your full potential both in class and on the stage.
This is because our bodies don’t only use the calories we consume as we exercise- in fact, they are also used to power essential processes such as breathing as well as digestion. This means that dancers in a caloric deficit will struggle to perform at an intense level, and their strength and endurance will suffer.
If you have read up to this point and still haven’t calculated your energy requirements, my only advice would be to go back through this article and work through it step-by-step…
I promise you; you’ll thank me later when you find you suddenly have enough energy to assemblé battu all the way into next week!
**FRIENDLY DISCLAIMER: All information, guidance or advice provided on this site is for informational and educational purposes only. The use of this information is at your own risk. The calculations provided in this article are ROUGH GUIDELINES ONLY. For a 100% accurate reading or result, please visit a qualified dietician.**
Bibliography and References
The information used in writing this article was learned from online courses which include…
Akash Sehrawat, Fabulous Body Inc. (Unknown). Internationally Accredited Certificate in Sports Nutrition. [Online]. Udemy. Last Updated: Unknown. Available at: https://www.udemy.com/course/internationally-accredited-diploma-in-sports-nutrition/learn/lecture/16 [Accessed 23rd March 2021].
Brentwood Open Learning College. (Unknown). Certificate in Diet and Nutrition Level 3. [Online]. Brentwood Open Learning College. Last Updated: Unknown. Available at: https://www.bolc.co.uk/nutrition-courses-online/nutritionist-course-online [Accessed 9 March 2021].