Nutrition for Dancers

Your dance performance, progressive development, and athletic longevity are built from the quality of hours you can train your body and mind. This is fundamentally about your physical and mental resilience, rate and depth of recovery, and your responsive flexibility to move with the inevitable challenges of life.

Sports Nutrition + Cognitive Behavioural Coaching

Whether you are solo or team performance artist dancing Ballet to Breakdancing, Heels to Hip-Hop, Pole Dance to Salsa Caleña; or primarily a social dancer travelling to festivals dancing Brazilian Zouk, Lambada, Bachata, Salsa, Latin Hustle, Kizomba, West Coast Swing, DanceSport, and on and on…

How should you eat to support your dance, choreography, gym strength, conditioning, and flexibility training? What should you eat or supplement with before, during, and after Pole performances, or multi-stage “Jack & Jill” competitions? How do you program nutrition, and what supplements to take for back-to-back festival workshops, and social dancing into the early morning? Should an Aerial Silks, or Heels dancer eat in the same pattern as a Lambada or West Coast Swing dancer? How to eat to improve body-composition without impacting recovery? Is fat-loss really appropriate for you? How to recover from undereating and overtraining? Can you optimise your nutrition for learning a choreography, sustaining your grip on a pole, maintaining power in Breakdance, healing from an injury, going to bed at 6AM, or multi-country touring jet lag?

useful. coaching is not only sports nutrition for dancers, but is combined with cognitive-behavioural theory and practice so that you can truly understand yourself more, and build meaningful and lasting health, performance, and body-composition change for life.

It is ultimately recognising that your physiology, thoughts, emotions, and behaviour form an interconnected system, and that positive change not only comes from addressing each element, but also the patterns and processes that shape how you relate and respond within this system.

It is about developing physical resilience and psychological flexibility.

Any questions, or want to find out if coaching is right for you? Book a free exploratory call.

Your coaching package

useful. coaching is not a linear program, but rather an evolving process where I guide you in making informed choices, and refining your ongoing practice according to your needs and schedule.

• Sports nutrition and mental performance coaching for dancers of every level, experience, age, gender identity, and neurotype
• Programming and support for multi-discipline dancers who also lift in the gym, cross-train, or do other sports
• Support for your unique dietary needs: vegan, vegetarian, low-FODMAP, low-histamine, gluten-free, LDL management, and neurodiverse relationships with food
• Overcome food fears and biased media narratives, learn the reality of how food and energy intake actually impact your health and body-composition
• Learn why high energy and nutrient availability matters, that food is more than just “fuel”, and the nuance of food choice and health
• Meal structure, nutrient timing, and supplementation to support your training, audition, performance, competition, and festival schedule
• Learn how food choices and supplements impact sleep quality, inflammation, injury recovery, learning, focus, and mental health
• Explore the nuanced connection and disconnection between body-weight, energy intake, food choice, training, menstrual cycle, and day-to-day life
• Nutrition programming for your unique optimised body-composition and body-fat level, with timeline, diet, and energy management strategies that truly work in real-life
• Learn about your nervous system, fatigue, stress management, and strategies to improve sleep, anxiety, performance, and recovery
• Discussion and application of somatic exercises, breath work, mindfulness, meditation, visualisation, and hypnotherapy

What’s included

• Unlimited video calls, we meet as much as you want!
• Twist messaging for daily correspondence and collaboration
• Google sheet for nutrition programming, tracking, and journalling
• Over 25,000 words of online coaching documentation
• Cronometer Gold Subscription, the most accurate nutrition tracking app
• Discord community membership
• Access to additional membership articles and resources
• Free seats to upcoming online events, workshops, and AMAs

Why work with Tom Herbert?

Tom Herbert has supported over 450 rock climbers and multi-sport athletes across 24 countries. Hobbyists, adventurers, international competitors, and some of the most accomplished climbers in the world. He has worked with a number of professional IFSC ranked competition climbers and paraclimbers representing the UK, USA, Ukraine, and Saudi Arabia national teams.

Tom now brings his expertise, experience, and coaching methodologies to the wider dance community, supporting both social dancers and performance artists from breakdancers to pole dancers, DanceSport to lambadeiras. His own dance background includes Argentine Tango, Flamenco, Salsa, Mambo, Bachata, Latin Hustle, Brazilian Zouk, Lambada, and pole dance including some Russian exotic flow. He predominantly focuses on training in Brazilian Zouk and Lambada.

An outlier amongst his peers, contrasting the standard consultation model, Tom’s conversation-led “long-form coaching” provides unlimited video calls rather than limited check-ins. This allows clients the freedom to book calls whenever they want, the time for ongoing open conversation, and the space for deeper discussion. Well over 3000 hours of conversation so far!

Tom has supported individuals with disordered eating backgrounds; however, coaching is not suitable for those with existing eating disorders. This requires a specialist, and is outside his current scope of practice.

Tom has a particular interest in supporting neurodiverse individuals, or anyone who finds themselves going through life feeling like they are not “typical”.

Please note, Tom Herbert is not a clinical psychologist, therapist, or counsellor, but is currently completing his qualification in Cognitive-Behavioural Hypnotherapy (CBH), and focusing on Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). He continues to read on Process-based Behavior Therapy (PBBT®), Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Clean Language / Clean Coaching, and various other coaching, and therapeutic approaches.