“Get your knees over your toes,” is a common phrase for dance teachers. Teachers spend so much time on the importance of proper alignment. This is not only because it is the proper ballet technique, but prevents injury. Dancers’ feet cannot be more rotated than their knees. 

Overrotation is a common issue in the ballet world when the hips are weak and dancers start to compensate by forcing the turnout in their ankles. This can lead to frustrating, life long lower body injuries. Many dancers have difficulty with 20-25 repetitions of relevé on a single leg, which is expected from a dancer. 

One easy tip teachers give to students so can check their own alignment is to see where the pressure is on the foot. Putting equal pressure on the triangle, sides of the ball of the foot and the heel prevents the feet from rolling in. When dancers cheat their turnout from the feet,  they roll in to maintain an arch. Start in a turned out position to get a feel of where the weight is distributed on your feet. Then standing in parallel, lift up into relevé and go into turn out while still in relevé. Then slowly lower without adding any extra rotation. This is the natural turn out of your body and forcing it to go further can cause injury. 

An exercise I recommend is often referred to as the clamshell exercise to strengthen the rotator muscles. Lay on your side with your legs slightly bent. Then keep your feet together and raise your top leg.  The exercises can be done with the legs at different lengths- one set with a longer knee bend and one set with a shorter knee bend. This allows you to work out different muscle groups. 

How do you work on your turnout? How flexible is your natural turnout?  Let me know in the comments below! Make sure you subscribe to my blog and head on over to my youtube channel and watch some of my videos. Share this post with your fellow dancers to spread these awesome tips.