Dancing With The Stars Peta Murgatroyd Covers Pilates Style Magazine July August 2011

Dancing With The Stars Troupe member and choreographer, Peta Murgatroyd, has done some outstanding magazine spreads lately. As reported to you earlier, she did a fabulous, beautiful, and sexy spread for the June issue of Regard Magazine. Now Peta lights up the cover of “Pilates Style” magazine. They also interview her where Peta credits pilates for keeping her injury free while dancing. Peta also dishes on her entire career from the beginning to “Burn The Floor” to dancing on “Dancing With The Stars”. Like all aspiring dancers, the road hasn’t always been an easy one which you read in a take below as well as more at the link!! She also talks of how she’d like to act!!

As a troupe dancer, she isn’t paired with a star; instead, she performs in group dances with the other pros. “Being a troupe dancer, you are given certain songs from an artist who will be guest-starring that week,” she says. Murgatroyd, who’s also a choreographer, often is asked to arrange the dances.

Being a troupe dancer “is a definite stepping stone into becoming a featured dancer [the dancers who are partnered with the stars],” she explains. “They can see how you interact with the audience, how your fan base is growing.”

Besides doing a mat routine on her own everyday, “I probably do classes two times a week at my gym, The Sports Club/LA in Beverly Hills,” she says.

Good core strength is key in ballroom dancing, Murgatroyd says. “Having a partner, you don’t want to rely on them so much. When doing lifts, you have to be able to lift your own weight and not be deadweight for the guy. You have to have your own core and your own strength. I rely on Pilates for breathing a lot as well.”

While dancers and celebrities on the show frequently suffer injuries, Murgatroyd has managed to stay healthy, thanks to Pilates. “I’ve always been taught that prevention is the best cure,” she states.

But she knows from experience how devastating an injury can be. When she was 16, a cumulative ankle injury sidelined her for months—and ended her ballet career. “Over time, I could just feel it was harder to get up onto pointe; the back of my ankle would pinch and that’s when I went to seek treatment,” she says. “I had to have pieces of bone in my ankle removed and the tendons in my toes realigned. It was a massive ankle reconstruction. I had to do rehab therapy and physical therapy. Pilates was one of the things that definitely helped.

“It was absolutely awful,” she recalls. “I didn’t realize how annoying crutches could be. Being so active, having to rely on something to help you walk and get anywhere was beyond frustrating.”

She also couldn’t dance for six months and when she did go back to ballet classes, “it was never the same. My ankle didn’t feel the same as before.”

I love Peta as many of you do. I hope all of her dreams come true which includes letting her be a teacher with the best of them on Dancing With The Stars!!! Will producers hear our pleas?!!

Adding: I just noticed the link from Pilates Style has been taken down. Not sure why. Be sure to pick up the magazine at news stands so you can read the full article.