During a single performance of Sleeping Beauty a dancer lifts more than 1.2 tonnes of ballerinas and burns more energy than a professional footballer does in two matches.
That's why Steven McRae, one of Australia's greatest dancers, challenges anyone who thinks ballet is "airy-fairy" to visit the Royal Ballet in London.
"I would love anyone who thinks ballet is airy-fairy to contact me and I would happily invite them in and show them what it is we do," says 28-year-old, who reached the top of the ballet world after growing up in Sydney's western suburbs as the son of a drag racer.
"The demands we put on our body are so extreme because it's not just our legs getting pounded, or our upper body being pounded, it is every fibre in our body being pushed to the max."
McRae recently starred as Prince Florimund in Sleeping Beauty at the Royal Opera House.
The performance in mid-March was beamed live into 1400 cinemas across 32 countries.
Australians can experience McRae's physicality when the show is screened across capital cities in mid-April.
The principal - who one critic has labelled the most dazzling virtuoso dancer the Royal Ballet has ever produced - says he tries to ignore the cameras.
"The whole point of people in the cinemas watching is that they experience what it's like to be in the auditorium, so it's important to try and not alter your performance," McRae says.
But that's easier said than done.
"Dancers are so hyper-critical, we're always striving for this perfection that doesn't exist," he acknowledges.
"So the minute any camera suddenly appears in front of us we go into overdrive."
McRae started dancing aged seven after watching his older sister in classes.
He attended the Royal Ballet School as a 17-year-old in 2003, joined the company the following year and became a principal in 2009.
In 2011 he married fellow dancer Elizabeth Harrod, who also appears in the Sleeping Beauty.
The comparison with elite athletes and ballet dancers doesn't end with the physical demands.
Both have support teams including nutritionists, masseurs, physiotherapists and psychologists.
The Royal Ballet shares a doctor with Arsenal Football Club and a Pilates instructor with the British and Norwegian Olympic teams.
McRae once worked with Norwegian swimmer Alexander Dale Oen who tragically died of a heart attack before the London Olympics.
"We would compare each other's strengths," the dancer says.
"He was a massive guy. Certain exercises he would do that I couldn't do, then there were other things I was flying through when he was trembling.
"It was fascinating to cross over the sport and dance worlds."
But while elite athletes often peak for just a few events each year, McRae has to stay in top shape for 11 months and work six days a week.
McRae is relatively diminutive for a dancer.
He won't reveal his exact height but insists a 2011 article which suggested he was 173cm is wrong.
"I'm taller than that." How much taller?
"I dunno," he replies. "I just dance big."
Ballerinas traditionally have to be shorter than their male partners but McRae's height hasn't held him back.
The dancer spent his formative years at drag racing tracks in western Sydney with his father Phillip McRae, with occasional road trips to Willowbank Raceway at Ipswich in Queensland.
He'd watch videos of American meets over and over again, drawing inspiration from 16-time world champion John Force. He loved it.
"I was in my element," McRae says.
"Motor racing is one of the biggest shows that anyone can go and watch. It's a real spectacle. These cars and these teams put on a show - they're performing."
McRae plans to keep on performing for a long time yet.
When he finally leaves the stage he hopes to remain involved in ballet.
The flame-haired dancer with a business management degree has previously spoken of his desire to one day be a director and lead a top ballet company - or even an entire Opera House.
But ultimately, he tells AAP, he would love to take everything he has learnt back to Australia to teach "the next generation".
* The Royal Ballet's Sleeping Beauty screens in selected Palace cinemas in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra from April 18-23.
