It's not just all sequins and skates on Dancing on Ice. Every year without fail, celebrities find themselves nursing injuries after taking a tumble or pushing themselves too hard during training - and this year, Amber Davies is one of those celebrities. The West End star tore her quad whilst practising with her skating partner Simon Senecal and had to undergo physiotherapy during her recovery.
Whilst chatting with HELLO! and other press, the former Love Islander explained how she sustained her "painful" injury.
"I had a tear at the top of my quad," said Amber, 27. "It was from off-ice training but we'd been on the ice for two and a half hours. When you're on the ice it's all about being down in your knees, so by the end of the session, your legs and bum are burning.
"We'd come off and thought, 'let's just use this time and do a couple of lifts so we can put them on the ice in a different session'. As Simon lifted me up, the top of my quad popped," explained the theatre star. "It was so, so painful. We had to call the medic, I had to have physio every morning."
© ITVLooking on the bright side, Amber continued: "But it kind of made things real for me, like oh my gosh injuries can definitely happen and will happen. I surprised myself because sometimes when things happen I can retract but I didn't, I stayed calm and I carried on going."
Amber went on to say that, luckily, her injury "wasn't too much of a big tear", and needed two to three weeks of recovery.
While many viewers will know Amber from her stint on ITV2's Love Island back in 2017, when she won the series with her then-boyfriend, Kem Cetinay, she has since carved out a career on the West End.
© ITV/ShutterstockShe landed her first major stage role in 9 to 5: The Musical, before going on to star in Bring It On: The Musical, Back to the Future: The Musical and Pretty Woman.
When asked if her performing skills have come in handy on the ice, Amber said that her dance technique has been of little use to her so far.
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"I had to scrap all my dancing technique because everything on ice is down, bent knees and your weight forward," she explained. "The only aspect I've been able to add is the performance, from my neck up. I think that's going to be my saving grace because my skating skills are okay, they're not Greg standard, let's put it that way," she quipped, referring to fellow contestant Olympian Greg Rutherford. "I think my saving grace is going to be my face and that's down to my [theatre] training, which I'm so lucky I've got."
Amber's place in this year's line-up was announced back in September. Speaking about the news on ITV's Lorraine at the time, the actress said: "I would definitely say that I'm an adrenaline junkie but I do get more nervous as I get older and I hope that I can contain them, I don't want to the adrenaline to get the better of me."
