Physiological characteristics of musical theatre performers and the effect on cardiorespiratory demand whilst singing and dancing

Abstract

Musical Theatre (MT) combines acting, singing and dancing within a performance. The purpose of the current study was two-fold; firstly, to report on the cardiorespiratory fitness of pre-professional MT dancers and secondly, to examine the cardiorespiratory demand of singing whilst dancing. Twenty-one participants (F=16, M=5; 20 ±1.23 yrs; 169.1 ±9.24cm; 62.7 ±10.56kg) in their final year of pre-professional training volunteered for the study. All participants carried a maximal aerobic capacity test on a treadmill using a portable breath-by-breath gas analyser. Nine participants completed a 4-minute section from Chorus Line twice; singing and dancing, and just dancing, in a randomised order whilst wearing the same portable gas analyser. Blood lactate was measured at the end of each trial. Male participants had significantly greater peak oxygen consumption (M vs. F; 67.6 ±2.30 vs. 55.6 ±4.42 ml.kg-1 .min-1 , p<0.001) and anaerobic threshold (% of peak VO2) (M vs. F; 54.6 ±4.04% vs. 43.1 ±3.68% p<0.001) whilst maximum heart rate and heart rate at anaerobic threshold were similar. The physiological demands of dancing vs. singing+dancing were similar with the exception of the singing+dancing trial having significantly reduced mean breathing frequency and increased lactate (p<0.01). MT dancers’ aerobic capacity is greater than that observed in other theatre-based dance genres. The observed breathing frequency and lactate differences in the Chorus-line trails could be due to singing reducing breathing frequency thereby influencing cardiorespiratory recovery mechanics and subsequently blood lactate levels.