Investigating the Effect of Chronological Age and Bio-banding Methodologies on Jump Performance in Adolescent Ballet Dancers / Ella Sanders (2025)

Introduction: Early specialisation leads to high injury rates among pre-professional ballet dancers, with growth and maturation further increasing injury risk and creating inequitable training conditions. Bio-banding, grouping dancers by biological rather than chronological age (CA), presents as a solution to mitigate injury and enhance performance. This cross-sectional study aimed to investigate jump performance across years and genders, examine whether bio-banding reduced within-group variance for anthropometric and jump metrics, and evaluate the relative contributions of maturity offset (MO), CA, and gender as predictors of jump height. Methods: A two-way ANOVA assessed year and gender effects, coefficient of variation (%CV) analysis compared bio-banded and CA groupings, and a multiple linear regression evaluated the predictive power of CA, MO, and gender for jump height. The ANOVA and %CV analyses included 111 dancers (59 female, 52 male). The regression employed a ± 2-year MO cutoff, reducing the sample to 77 dancers (37 female, 40 male). Results: Significant main effects were found for year group and gender, with males outperforming females in later years (9-11) but not earlier years (7-8). Female CMJ performance plateaued across year groups (p > .05). Males showed significant improvements by Year 9 compared to Years 7 and 8, however there were no significant differences between Years 9, 10, and 11. Bio-banding was most effective in reducing anthropometric and CMJ variance for the 13-14 years male comparison. The overall regression model had strong explanatory power (R2 = 0.525), pointing to MO’s superiority over CA in predicting jump height, with gender as the most significant factor. Conclusion: These findings highlight bio-banding as a potential tool for talent identification and injury mitigation in ballet. Future studies could implement more appropriate analytical approaches for maturation patterns and consider how bio-banding can safeguard adolescent ballet dancers while helping them achieve professional status. 2 Key Points • Bio-banding effectively reduced variability in anthropometric metrics in both male and female dancers, and to a lesser extent for male jump performance, supporting a “bio-banding maturity effect hypothesis.” • Significant plateaus in female jump height, with similar yet not as severe patterns in older adolescent males, highlight that ballet training alone may not be sufficient for power development. • Maturity offset better predicted jump height than chronological age, and males jumped on average 12.67 cm higher than females, underscoring the need for maturation and gender-specific training for dancers.